Before I begin, I first want to apologize for the poor quality pictures. For some reason, The Golden Nugget decided that their buffet needed a lot of yellowish lighting, and getting rid of that was no easy task. So even though the pictures are grainy as hell and jaundiced in color, at least they give some sort of idea of what the food looked like…not that looks could do anything to save this buffet.
Now, for some reason I have always loved Fremont Street in Las Vegas. Maybe it’s the guys trying to sell you coke in the middle of the street, the crazy light displays or the free beads at La Bayou. Whatever it is, it has some unvegan allure. And for a while now, I’ve been hearing that Fremont has some damn good buffets. With that in mind, my buddy and I headed to the nicest casino down there, The Golden Nugget, thinking their buffet would be the cream of Fremont’s crop.
Boy were we wrong.
Admission was 20 bucks and I already knew something was fishy. Part of the point of eating on this end of town was to eat cheaper, but this was comparable to a lot of the main strip. But there was one bonus, bottomless champagne. This made me feel better about forking over my black jack winnings and I hoped the food would at least be decent.
But nope, instead of decent, we got food that was passable. It was edible, but eating it was no fun. I started with some hummus and pita, french toast and bacon. The hummus was dry, the french toast was just okay and the bacon was surprisingly awesome. It was crunchy, salty and smokey, and was almost good enough to save that first plate.
Then came plate number 2. I tested out some mashed potatoes, Hawaiian pizza, sweet and sour chicken and a mini bagel. The bagel could have come from plastic bag and was fine, but nothing special. The pizza tasted like it had been sitting under a heat lamp for about 12 hours. The cheese seemed to have melted and congealed countless times, making it quite terrible. The chicken was just alright and the mashed potatoes at least served as some filler.
In most buffets, there would be plates 3-7, but not at the Golden Nugget. By the time I got through two rounds, I was ready to move on to dessert. There was a nice selection of pastries and these actually ended up being the second best part of the meal (after the bacon). Now if you know me, you know I don’t have much of a sweet tooth. So when I say the best part of the buffet was the dessert, then you know it was a terrible buffet.
So if you want my advice, avoid the buffet at The Golden Nugget. The Nugget is certainly worth a visit to go swimming around a shark tank and to see a really big golden nugget, but for buffets you can do so much better in Vegas. SOOO much better.
