Around the Strip in eight buffets

Two tall blonds strain against the velvet rope, steady in their stilettos. Their bare midriffs show gooseflesh -- it’s chilly in the casino. They’re not waiting to see a prizefight, or Cirque du Soleil’s “O,” or even Celine Dion. They’re waiting to be admitted into Buffet Bellagio. Soon they’ll be piling sliced top sirloin of wagyu beef on top of smoked salmon on top of king crab legs. And then they’ll come back for more.

Vegas is Vegas, and it will always have buffets. But lately, the casino owners have upped the ante with food halls so huge, so elaborate, they’re over the top -- even in this town. First the Rio opened a new $10-million buffet, with a roast meats station topped by a wall of fire, and an 18-foot steel sculpture filled with bubbling water by the seafood. Not to be outdone, the Mirage opened a $12-million buffet designed by glamour boy Adam Tihany, with onyx-inlaid terrazzo floors, curved buttery-soft leather banquettes and a see-through floor-to-ceiling pizza oven. And those are just the opening salvos.

There are buffets with velvet-roped VIP rooms, buffets with fine china and serious silver and wine lists and even, if you can believe it, buffets with really good food.

International is hot. Sure, the buffets still offer shrimp cocktails and prime rib, but now you also find tandoori stands and creperies, and thanks to a burgeoning Las Vegas Asian community, impressive arrays of dim sum, elaborate Asian noodle soup and sushi bars and cooked-to-order teppan yaki.

It’s a long way from the first Vegas buffet in 1946 -- the “midnight chuck wagon buffet” in the first casino on the strip, El Rancho Vegas Hotel. Unlike the smoke-filled, dimly lighted buffets of yore, the trend now is to make you feel like you’re not trapped in a casino. Some have natural light and poolside views. At Caesars and the Four Seasons, which just underwent a $2-million renovation, you can even sit outside.

Clearly, it’s the time to pick up a fork and hit the Strip. And since this is not a town for restraint, I decide to go all the way and visit eight of the newest and glitziest buffets in 72 hours. It’s still Sin City, right? And last I checked, gluttony was one of the seven deadlies.

Day 1

Friday lunch, Spice Market Buffet, 12:30 p.m.

The shopping mall at Aladdin Casino is called Desert Passage, so it seems natural that a buffet called Spice Market would be there among the tony shops. But it’s not -- you have to go into the casino to find it. We pay, we enter and blam -- all the paella and tamales and babaganoush we can eat. Most of it isn’t very good. And the place feels like a department store tea room. Get me back to the blackjack tables!

Friday dinner, Buffet Bellagio, 6:45 p.m.

They say you have to come early, or the wait to get in here is interminable. We’re not early enough: It’s 90 minutes in line. There’s a maddeningly short VIP line -- many of the buffets have these. But no amount of cajoling will get you into it unless you’re a certified high roller or, in the case of Buffet Bellagio, a member of a recognized tour group.

Finally, I feel like Charlie walking into the chocolate factory as I enter the wonderland of mouth-watering displays. The place is immense -- 600 seats -- and there are dozens of food stations arrayed around the periphery. Mountains of extra-jumbo shrimp glisten; chefs carve gorgeous rare-looking venison and toss pizzas; there’s bouillabaisse and prime rib and cunning little New England clambakes-in-a-net. In the center is a large round sushi bar, with sushi chefs as busy as Oompah-loompahs.

We wander around slack-jawed. Where to start? The other diners seem to know exactly what they’re after. A willowy woman in a silk charmeuse gown makes a beeline for the king crab legs, piling them a foot high on her plate. A guy who looks like his day job might be as a Hells Angel loads up on rack of lamb. “A little more,” he says to the chef carving. “Keep going.” Another bets on tuna sushi.

Seated in our plasticky booth, I ask the waiter for a wine list.

Quaint touches such as old-fashioned street lamps, framed needlepoints and keno boards on the walls make the place feel almost cozy, despite the glaring lights and bare tables. The waiter fetches a plastified card with 15 or so listings. I order a Conti Contini Sangiovese, Tenuta di Capezzana, $33. No vintages are listed; the waiter doesn’t know what year the wine is and can’t seem to find out.

I go get my first round of food. Those big shrimp, some salty smoked salmon, a couple of king crab legs. Some sushi, some seaweed salad.

The waiter comes with the wine, hands me a bill for it. Only after I pay does he open and pour. He takes away our plates, including much of the silverware. We’ll never see it -- or him -- again.

Now it’s dessicated clambake and undercooked Boston baked beans, then meat: venison roasted nice and rare; inedible “top sirloin of Kobe beef”; tender, perfectly cooked rack of lamb. And a potato-truffle “cassolet.”

Sauces aren’t much in evidence, so everything seems oddly plain; I can’t find a green vegetable that looks edible. There’s no shortage of sugar-free desserts, alongside the classic (chocolate layer cake) and trendy (root beer gelee). The whole thing feels like a giant early-bird special.

I never want to eat again.

Day 2

Saturday breakfast, Bayside Buffet at Mandalay Bay, 8:15 a.m.

The early strategy worked this time: no line. The cashier sees me hesitate at the space for a gratuity on the credit card slip; she clues me in that most people just leave cash on the table.

This dining room is tropical-chic, with ceiling fans, bamboo chairs, shuttered floor-to-ceiling windows that give on to views of the pool, showing lots of greenery.

Instead of one huge buffet, there are several, one for each seating area.

The couple at the next linger over coffee.

Our waiter comes and offers us some. He also has a pitcher of fresh-squeezed orange juice. He pours us big glasses, returning often to refill them. That by itself is worth the price of admission.

He leaves the Thermos pitcher of good hot coffee on the table.

We eat Mexican scrambled eggs with salsa verde, juicy ham, ripe melons and strawberries, creamy grits.

The couple at the next table suddenly gets a second wind; they head back to the buffet, he for a hunk of giant Polish sausage, she for a big plateful of smoked pork chops, which she proceeds to eat, daintily, with her fingers.

Curiously, there isn’t much in the way of sweet stuff. There are some wonderful sticky buns, but no Danish or desserts. Fine by me: I need to make it through two more buffets today. As we come back to the table, we pass a guy with nothing on his plate but what looks like about 2 pounds of bacon. How could we have forgotten our bacon course?

Saturday lunch, le Village Buffet, Paris Las Vegas, 2:15 p.m.

In our quest to avoid long waits, we’ve tried early; now we try late. Bad luck: It’s a Champagne brunch rather than lunch. Worse: There’s a 45-minute wait. But they do something smart: They explain the wait, give you a ticket and ask you to come back at a specified time. That means we’re free to walk around and look at the shops or, better yet, lose some money at the roulette table.

Finally we’re installed at the table, and the serveuse pours our “Champagne” and it’s not Champagne at all, but some cheapo French sparkler. Ah, well, who will ever know the difference? It’s French, isn’t it? It has bubbles.

It’s almost undrinkable.

The buffet is set up like a series of different villages, each with the name and style of a different region of France: Burgundy, Alsace and so on. Reportedly, each offers dishes from that region. It’s tres Disneyland, with a trompe l’oeil blue sky that doesn’t manage to trompe your oeil, a giant fake tree planted in the middle; half-timbered facades that lead to little dining areas appear to be built in 7/8 scale, so we all look really big.

The food is fairly disgusting, and bears little resemblance to anything French: Instead, it’s steam-table eggs and joints of meat. I manage to ferret out a sort of choucroute thing -- soggy sauerkraut garnished with garlic sausage and boudin blanc. Although the central food station has a boulangerie motif, with huge decorative braided loaves and baguettes, there’s not a decent crust of bread to be found; the boulangerie is the repository for a lot of sickeningly sweet desserts, including a gooey, terrible bananas Foster.

Most popular is the crepes station, manned by two “chefs.” The chocolate is squeezed from a bottle and tastes like Bosco. The fellow in line before me had brought a dish of chocolate pudding from the dessert station and asks to have that folded into a crepe.

“Clever,” I say.

“That’s the best thing to do here,” he confides. He’s a regular.

Saturday dinner, Cravings at the Mirage, 8 p.m.

Some people cleverly arrive at the tail end of the lunch hours, pay the lunch price and sit down just as they’re putting out the dinner fare. Not us. We’re just trying to make it through the day.

To soothe the people in line, there’s a huge illuminated birch forest backdrop along one wall, hung with flat video screens featuring extreme close-ups: the business end of a martini glass, a French bread, some meat being licked by fire.

Once inside, we’re stylin’: asymmetrical soup bowls; square white plates with rounded corners. Sleek silverware, and chopsticks, both Japanese and Chinese. The banquette is butter-soft leather, the table is a slab of copper-colored resin. Weird shiny metallic grates cover the acoustic ceiling in a self-conscious design-y kind of way. The lighting is very casino, but it’s more tongue-in-cheek than depressing.

Instead of mountains of terrible king crab legs, there’s delicious Dungeness, which they can’t put out fast enough.

Many of the customers here are Asian, which explains why the dim sum station’s so happening, with seafood sui mai and dumplings filled with water spinach and shiitakes. Next to that, a chef makes Chinese noodle soup to order -- a chic Asian-American girl walks off with her hands cupped around something fabulous-looking. I ask her what it is. “Duck noodle soup,” she says. I order one, and the chef plunges fresh Chinese egg noodles into boiling water. Soon I’m slurping from a bowl of delicious broth garnished with a wonton, baby bok choy and a meaty slice of duck, along with those noodles. It’s the only heart-warming thing I’ve experienced in a casino. And now I’m on a roll.

The desserts are uninspired, too sweet. This in fact is true everywhere we’ve been so far. All I can manage is a chocolate chip cookie.

But somehow I’ve made it through the day.

Day 3

Sunday brunch, the Verandah at the Four Seasons, 8:10 a.m.

The instant we pull up the circular drive, I know we’re in different territory: It’s very Four Seasons. We’re greeted graciously, and step into the lovely lobby. No clattering of coins falling; no ka-ching! nor flashing lights; no smoke. Just tables with stunning floral arrangements -- spectacular white roses in odd shaped vases, shallow bowls of dahlias floating in water. This is the only hotel on the strip without a casino.

There’s no wait, you don’t have to pay in advance, and we get to sit outside in teakwood chairs, surrounded by palms, with a view of a waterfall. Only one other table is occupied. An overhang provides shade; ceiling fans keep it all cool, which is the watchword here: Nothing about it says “buffet.” The recent $2-million renovation doubled the space on the patio, where the banquettes are rattan, the plates Villeroy & Boch.

Inside, discreetly set on the bar, are silky house-smoked salmon garnished with capers, sliced ripe tomato and piles of paper-thin Bermuda onion. Prosciutto di Parma shares a platter with salami and capicolla. Bagels, toasters, whipped cream cheese. A cheese platter with manchego, cheddar and Laura Chenel goat cheese.

There are baskets of the flakiest viennoiserie -- croissants, pain au chocolat, cinnamon rolls, Danish -- and beautiful little fruit tarts. Fresh berries fairly burst with flavor, sliced honeydew and cantaloupe beg for another slice of that wonderful prosciutto.

Slowly, the place starts to fill up with people who act as if they’re in an elegant restaurant, not a casino. We’re quite happy, sipping our coffee and reading the paper in our comfortable chairs. No hot food, but who needs it, really, with all this wonderful fresh orange juice and good coffee and pastry?

Then something tells me to take another spin inside. I do, and as my eyes adjust, I see all the hot dishes, arrayed in rows of silver servers. All of it is as perfect as the cold stuff.

We have found the bargain of the century.

Now, all we can do until dinner is take a hike in the 115 degree desert and pray nighttime never falls.

Sunday dinner, Carnival World Buffet at Rio, 7:15 p.m.

Prayer went unanswered; it’s getting dark.

But not inside the Carnival World Buffet!

Here the high-rollers and frequent hotel guests have their own special seating area -- stay behind the velvet rope, please! -- where a server will not only bring them drinks and change their plates, but fulfill a request for an assortment of sushi or barbecue duck or baba au rhum.

This place is as smashing-looking as Cravings, with a cool bar with a tower of back-lit bottles, and stylishly whimsical tiles backing the food stations. But there’s something vaguely low-rent about it all; maybe the way the crowd is dressed, maybe the food, which all looks really good, but much of it doesn’t deliver.

Clearly, Asian is the way to go here, too. At the teppan yaki bar, I fill a bowl with my choice of vegetables, ginger and garlic, then choose between shrimp, chicken and beef. “Beef,” I tell the teppan yaki chef, a bearded guy who looks like Ali G. (In fact, most of the chefs at Carnival World look like Ali G.) A young black guy in jeans walks up, holding a bowl of noodles, a satisfied look on his face; he adds some vegetables and ginger and hands it to Ali G, requesting chicken.

“Smart idea,” I say.

“You get them where the Chinese food is,” he says.

Day 4

Monday breakfast, Cafe Lago, Caesars Palace, 8:30 a.m.

Caesars recently closed its Palladium buffet, which I used to love (despite its depressing location smack in the middle of the casino) because of the endless fresh-squeezed orange juice feature. It’s replaced by Cafe Lago, whose main attraction is that it abuts the windows leading to the wacky Roman pool area.

You can even eat outside, under umbrellas. Eggs are cooked to order, the rest of the buffet is standard breakfast stuff, and they still have the fresh-squeezed orange juice. It’s all so pleasant, with its deep-blue waterfalls and stone archways, it would be reason alone to stay at Caesars.

For me, I’m just glad I’ll never have to eat again. I’m hitting the road, heading home.

On the way out of town, driving south on the 15, the last thing I see in Nevada is a billboard that says, “All you can see buffet. San Diego.” There’s a picture of beautiful coastline, not a speck of food in sight.

*

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High limits, no busting

Spice Market Buffet

Aladdin Resort and Casino, 3667 Las Vegas Blvd., S. (702) 736-0111

This big, badly lighted den was an early entry in the around-the-world type buffet, with Italian, American, Asian and Mexican stations in addition to “Middle East,” which oddly includes not only taboulleh, lebneh and, tzaziki, but also tandoori chicken. It’s hard to find good vegetables at Vegas buffets, but Spice Market has grilled eggplant, zucchini and peppers and nice roast beets. Best to stop there, though, because most everything else is undersalted or oversalted, and often just plain nasty.

Best dish: Roast eggplant salad.

Worst dish: Chilled gulf prawns. So-called “Champagne”: Domaine St. Michelle (Washington state).

Open: Breakfast, lunch and dinner; weekend brunch.

Prices: Breakfast $12.99; lunch $15.99; dinner $23.99. Champagne brunch: $20.99.

*

Buffet Bellagio

Bellagio Las Vegas, 3650 Las Vegas Blvd. South; (702) 693-7111

The granddaddy of fab-ola buffets. Impressive to look at, and you can play Keno at your table. Waits are long for the Friday and Saturday “gourmet dinner,” which offers “Kobe” beef, leg of venison with blackberry compoten, bouillabaisse and smoked sturgeon, along with the regular prime rib, smoked salmon, shrimp cocktails, and sushi. The quality is all over the map. One night boiled jumbo shrimp were succulent and flavorful; King crab legs were cottony and flavorless. Rack of lamb and leg of venison were perfectly cooked and delicious; “Kobe” beef was stringy, with an unpleasant off-taste.

Best dish: Leg of venison

Worst dish: “Kobe” top sirloin

So-called “Champagne”: Freixenet (Spanish cava)

Open: Breakfast, lunch, and dinner; Gourmet Dinner, Friday and Saturday; weekend brunch. Prices: Breakfast $13.95; lunch $17.95; dinner $25.95; “Gourmet Dinner” $33.95; brunch $21.95; Champagne brunch $27.95.

*

Bayside Buffet

Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, 3950 Las Vegas Blvd. S.; (702) 632-7777

On the civilized end of the scale, with attentive service, very good food and fresh-squeezed orange juice at breakfast. You don’t find the knock-em-dead array of selections, but what’s there is of high quality. Separate yet almost equal buffets serve each of four seating areas. For lunch or breakfast, ask for a table by the windows.

Best dish (breakfast): Country ham.

Worst dish: Home fries.

So-called “Champagne”: House “signature Brut”

Open: Breakfast, lunch and dinner; weekend brunch.

Prices: Breakfast $13.71; lunch $15.50 adults; dinner $22.75. Champagne brunch $22.75 brunch. ($4 less for children)

*

Le Village Buffet

Paris Las Vegas, 3655 Las Vegas Blvd. South; (702) 739-4111

C’est le Disneyland conception of France, with storybook-looking “villages” offering pathetic renditions of dishes from “each of France’s five provinces” (wonder what happened to the other 17?). This is where to go for sauteed tilapia with apples and raisins (Normandy), farfalle pasta with marinara sauce and feta cheese (Provence) and braised lamb with curry and grapes (Alsace). Or other really French stuff like bagels or mahi-mahi brochette with pineapple. Oh, and Alaskan king crab legs, n’est-ce pas?

Best dish: Leg of lamb.

Worst dish: Where do I start?

So-called “Champagne”: Domaine St. Hilaire (Blanquette de Limoux)

Hours: Breakfast, lunch and dinner; Sunday brunch.

Prices: breakfast $12.95; lunch $17.95; dinner $24.95; Champagne brunch $24.95.

*

Cravings

Mirage Hotel and Casino, 3400 Las Vegas Blvd. South; (702) 791-7111

The sleekest, grooviest and best all-around buffet, the Adam Tihany-designed $12-million space looks a bit like a buffet making fun of itself. It’s brash and flashy and metallic but sophisticated anyway. Salads, made to order, are some of the best in town. The Dungeness crab legs beat out all comers. St. Louis ribs, prime rib with natural jus and pork loin with “port-demi” are all delicious. But the real star is the Chinese food.

Best dish: Duck noodle soup.

Worst dish: Smoked salmon

So-called “Champagne”: Domaine St. Michelle (Washington State)

Open: Breakfast, lunch and dinner; weekend brunch.

Prices: Breakfast $12.50 adults, $8.50 children (5 to 10; under 5 free); lunch $17.50 adults, $12.50 children; dinner $20.50 adults, $14.50 children; Champagne brunch $20.50 adults, $14.50 children.

*

The Verandah

Four Seasons Hotel, 3960 Las Vegas Blvd. South; 702-632-5000

The un-buffet buffet in the hotel without a casino, this is an amazing find. Ask to be seated outside -- the veranda’s so nice, they named the joint after it. Fresh-squeezed orange juice that keeps coming, silky house-smoked salmon that blows all other Vegas buffet smoked fish out of the proverbial water, a lovely assortment of the flakiest croissants and gorgeous fruit tarts , ripe berries, sweet pineapple, Laura Chenel goat cheese -- and that’s just the cold buffet. The hot dishes -- vegetable quiche, corned beef hash, applewood smoked bacon, sticky buns -- are every bit as good.

The buffet is only offered for weekend brunch. Considering the quality of the food, service and setting, it’s the bargain of the century.

Best dish: house-smoked salmon.

Worst dish: salmon scrambled eggs.

So-called “Champagne”: They don’t play that game; instead it’s a mimosa or a bloody Mary.

Open: Weekend breakfast.

Prices: $23.50 adults; $30.50 with a mimosa or bloody Mary; $14.50 children 4 to 12.

*

Carnival World Buffet

Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino, 3700 W. Flamingo Road; (702) 252-7777

Here’s where you really want to be a high-roller -- not only do you have your special very short line, but you get seated in a velvet-rope area, where your server will bring you a selection of dim sum or French pastries. The teppan yaki bar looks enticing, but the meat was rather funky-tasting the night I was there, . Stone crab claws might be delicious; there’s really no way of knowing because you can’t crack them. The Asian soup bar is fun, with udon, pho or Thai noodles cooked to order, then you garnish with cilantro, bean sprouts, fish balls, Chinese sausage. Don’t miss the Chinese barbecue duck.

Best dish: Barbecue spare ribs.

Worst dish: Crepes suzette.

So-called “Champagne”: Cockatoo Ridge (Australia) or Ladomaine (California)

Open: Breakfast, lunch and dinner; weekend brunch.

Prices: breakfast $12.99 adults, $8.99 children (ages 4 to 8; under 4 free); lunch $14.99 adults, $10.00 children; dinner $22.99 adults, $18.99 children; Champagne brunch $22.99 adults, $18.99 children.

*

Cafe Lago

Caesars Palace, 3570 Las Vegas Blvd. South; (702) 731-7110

Though you have to wend your way through the casino to get to it, natural light is the theme in this multi-tiered dining room, where you can be seated either indoors or poolside. Breakfast rocks here, largely because of the fresh-squeezed orange juice and the made-to-order omelets.

Best dish: Denver omelette

Worst dish: Scrambled eggs

So-called “Champagne”: Domaine St. Hilaire (Blanquette de Limoux)

Open: Breakfast, lunch and dinner; weekend brunch.

Prices: Breakfast $14; lunch $16; dinner $21.99; brunch $21.99. Children dine at half-price.

Leslie Brenner, The Times’ Food Editor, can be reached at leslie.brenner@latimes.com.