David Matthews' Gambling in Space: Sweet Breakfast at Caesars

Since I spend many graveyard shifts at the Caesars poker room, someone suggested to me that I try the continental breakfast at Payard Patisserie. What a fantastic breakfast this was!

Payard Patisserie

It opens at 6:30 in the morning. The continental breakfast costs $16 which is an excellent value not only because of the fact that it's all-you-can-eat, but also the first-rate quality of the food and beverage offerings, the service, and the setting. (I even used a $16 poker room comp to pay for breakfast.)

What you get is unlimited smoked salmon and bagels, cereal, yogurt & granola parfaits, fruit cups, milk, juice, and coffee, and their famous pastries.

I tried one of just about everything and each item was delicious. The coffee was very good, as was the grapefruit juice.

I started with a bagel with cream cheese, capers, onions and smoked salmon. When I picked up the bagel a server asked me if I wanted it toasted. "Yes. Thank you." This was a nice start and good to have a "meaty" option considering it's a continental breakfast.

Next I had a fruit cup with blueberries, raspberries, cantaloupe, honeydew, strawberry, and other fruit.

After that, I had a plain yogurt and granola parfait.

I was so full at this point that the rack of pastries looked intimidating, but I had to go for at least one. They suggested the almond croissant as being their "signature" pastry so I tried that one. Holy cow! Yum times 100. It was flaky so that when you take just one bite your lap and the table are covered with crumbs. It's buttery, sweet, crunchy, and flaky all at once.

In addition to the almond croissant, they offered a plain croissant, chocolate croissant, apricot danish, cheese danish, cinnamon honey bun, and a couple other pastries.

Pastry fans may want to forego the other courses and just try the 8 or so different pastries they have prepared daily. An L.A. Times reviewer (link below) claimed that it would be difficult to find pastries of this high quality even in Paris, France.

Breakfast is from 6:30 AM to 11:30 AM. Then there is the lunch/dinner menu until 7:30 PM. After 9:30 PM they offer a prix fixe dessert menu. Try any three of their desserts for $45.

Here are a couple pictures I took on my phone (hence the poor quality), and a few links to the afternoon and late-night dessert menus as well as the Los Angeles Times review.

The spread at Payard