Question of the Day - 28 November 2022

Ample amounts of food at a low cost were a Las Vegas specialty since the first chuckwagon, the Buckaroo Buffet, appeared at El Rancho Vegas in 1946. For the nearly 75 years until the pandemic shutdown, visitors came here to partake of this unique bounty and we're sure that if the copycat casino executives are even aware of how bereft the millions of us Vegas AYCE fans are that they've all but been eliminated, they don't care.

That excludes Michael Gaughan at South Point, of course, where the weekday breakfast buffet, complete with bottomless Bloody Marys, at $11.95 with a players card, the daily lunch at $15.95, and dinner at $23.95, even the Friday seafood buffet at $41.95 with two glasses of wine or beer, are reminiscent of the good old buffet days. 

And the buffets that have been brought back, as mentioned in the question, are so expensive. Heck, even the Circus Circus spread is $29 for brunch and $31 for dinner. We took a look at it recently and it's still crappy after all these years. 

All that said, Las Vegas, like most other major cities, still has plenty of AYCE spreads from which to choose, just not so much at the casinos anymore. And all prices, especially for restaurant food, are up up up, so short of access to Kevin Lewis's time machine, we're afraid "low-cost ample amounts" are now in the dustbins of history.

We can start off with sushi buffets. Our research turned up a couple dozen of them. The one we like is Makino ($20-$29, over 65 20% off), not too far from our office (South Decatur near West Twain), which we reviewed way back in the September 2004 issue of LVA. And yes, it's been that good for that long (four and a half TripAdvisor stars out of 328 reviews at this writing). And there are plenty of others: Sakana Sushi, on Maryland Parkway and Flamingo is immensely popular for its huge menu; Hibachi Supreme Buffet, Imperial Seafood Sushi Buffet, Sushi Neko, AYCE Asian Fusion, Krazy Buffet, Buffet@Asia, Ono Sushi, and many others are mostly in Chinatown.  

Also in Chinatown, you'll find Korean BBQ buffets, such as Napal Baji, 5865 Spring Mountain Road. Here, the lunch special is $19.99; dinners start at $27. To see what this buffet and others of its ilk offer, check out this YouTube video. Just make sure that these places are actual buffets; many of them are all you can eat, but you order off the menu within a limited (usually 90-minute) amount of time.

Buffets at Indian restaurants are the norm, though they're almost always for lunch. We admit that we don't generally eat Indian for lunch, but if you do, you can read the online reviews, try one or two, and let us know which one(s) you like best. The one that we've been meaning to try for years is the Mint Indian Bistro, with two locations, where the lunch buffet gets rave reviews and looks like a bargain at $14.95. 

Then there are the rodizios, Brazilian steakhouses that serve unlimited meat carved tableside and always have excellent and extensive salad bars. We've eaten at them all -- Fogo de Chão (E. Flamingo just this side of Maryland Pkwy.), Texas de Brazil (in Town Square on Las Vegas Boulevard at Sunset), Pampas (Miracle Mile Shops), and Galpão Gaucho (Fashion Show Mall) -- and can say that they're uniformly excellent, both the meats and buffets, as long as you're into carnivore cudfests. Of course, they're anything but a bargain, running around $45 for lunch and $60 for dinner. But if you want ample amounts outside of a casino, you'll get them here.

Finally, there's good old Golden Corral, which has 400 locations nationwide and two in Las Vegas. We can't vouch for the quality and perhaps those of you who've eaten at the Corral can tell us how it compares to, say, Circus Circus. But it's definitely the lowest-cost ample-food option around, with lunch at $11.49 and dinner $16.99 at most locations, with $1-$2 off for seniors.