Las Vegas is known for its buffets. On our last day in Las Vegas before going home, Ben and I had brunch at Jasmine, a Chinese restaurant at Bellagio that may have one of the most impressive buffets on the strip.
We’re skipping ahead here, to the day after my dive with the sharks at Mandalay Bay and a night out with friends at Hakkasan and Mandarin Oriental. If we thought we were tried on our first morning, this was now two nights in a row. No recovery period. We actually refused Champagne!
Disclosure: Accommodations, dining, and activities were provided by MGM Resorts. Transportation was self-supplied. No other compensation was provided. This content is the opinion of the author and was not reviewed or approved by MGM Resorts.
But the buffet was really something else. Even Ben was impressed, and for a guy who’s flown in first class on every A380 that’s saying something. There were some of the usual breakfast favorites, but imagine a buffet that takes away all the cheap filler, leaves the expensive stuff, and then kicks it up a notch.
There was pot pie. Lobster pot pie.
Mango yogurt and muesli. Cones of steak tartare. And foie gras puff pastries. (I didn’t really care for that last one.)
Oysters next to little “trees” of dangling Tabasco bottles and lemon wedges.
And an entire room for dessert. Seriously. You walk in there and you see a table with multiple towers of desserts, a chocolate fountain in one corner, and someone serving gelato in the other.
If our plates look a little sparse its because we paced ourselves. And we were understandably a bit wary around all this heavy food. I don’t think I saw eggs and pancakes anywhere. But I did go back three times for more of the Peking duck. I love Peking duck.
And as I said, we passed on Champagne. There were a few varieties available, each with an “all you can drink” option. It was reasonably priced in my opinion — about the cost of one bottle for a bottomless glass. I’m talking normal prices, not Vegas prices. I recommend against over-indulging the night before.
Instead we asked for some coffee, served in a French press along with sparkling water and a tower of melon balls and pastries.
Of all the places we ate on this trip, this was my favorite. It wasn’t cheap — brunch is $58 per person on weekends — but it was a very pleasant change of pace from the typical Vegas experience where more is better. There were only a couple dozen tables in this restaurant, a relatively small but high quality buffet, and some of the most attentive service. I thought it was a very good way to end the weekend and definitely someplace I would consider taking Megan on a future trip.
We didn’t go on a “behind the scenes” tour of the Bellagio fountains during our M life Moment weekend, we did get a great few of those fountains from our table during breakfast. Jasmine is located directly behind them in the middle of the lagoon. Every few minutes the jets would go off, although it was a bit eerie watching them in complete silence. Sometimes that silence is hard to find in Vegas, but I actually wanted to hear the music as the fountains performed. At least I got to watch them with a great view.
PS: I found the shark dive photos! I enjoyed the experience so much that I’m reserving it for Tuesday. And that will be the end of this series — until the next time I’m in Las Vegas.
