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Today’s guest post is brought to you by my friend and fellow Vegas fan Brian Tucker, whose name you should recognize by now as a regular contributor to this blog. Take it away, Brian!

I had the privilege of enjoying the very first Sunday brunch at Bacchanal back when it opened last October at Caesars Palace. The price was $31.99 and included unlimited mimosas and champagne, not to mention the to-die-for, fresh-squeezed watermelon, honeydew, and orange juice. (I believe the self-serve juice bar is available during regular breakfast hours as well.) There were all the requisite Vegas brunch staples, as well as a plethora of decidedly non-breakfast Asian selections.

My server informed me those were popular with the jet-lagged travelers from all parts of the globe, even at 7:30AM while I was dining. I thought this was a neat idea, though I was curious as to how she knew it was so popular since we were conversing at the start of the inaugural brunch. Needless to say that since the buffet had been open less than a week at that point, the service, cleanliness, food quality, and selection were all absolutely flawless.

I mentioned this to a friend who works on the Strip, and he quickly said, “Give them three months and it’ll all be average, ho-hum food like every other buffet in town.” Accepting that as a challenge, I decided to wait not three, but six months before I returned!

The Bacchanal name has a storied history at Caesars. From the grand opening in 1966 until 2000, Bacchanal was the most upscale restaurant at the resort. (Think Guy Savoy before Guy Savoy existed.)

The original Bacchanal had “goddesses” dressed in toga attire (a bit like some of the cocktail waitresses still wear) who made their way through the posh restaurant giving massages and feeding grapes to diners. Naturally in today’s hyper-PC world, none of that takes place in Bacchanal 2.0, but you’ll be so stuffed that you’ll not have the inkling for a massage or the room for grapes. Which leads me to my follow-up review of the lunch buffet I gorged myself on earlier in March.

The price for lunch–with a Total Rewards card, mind you–has gone up from $24.99 to $31.99. So I was paying the same price for a nice lunch spread that I paid for the impressive brunch spread six months earlier, but without the free alcohol. (The consolation to me is that I got there for lunch right before 3PM, when they started putting out the dinner selections.)

The cashier gave me a checklist in a leather holder to select my drink preference from, but no pen. I thought that was odd, but not as odd as the blue rubber thingamabob which was sitting on top of the beverage checklist. From the moment she handed me the checklist until I began helping myself to the buffet, I was puzzled as to what the thingamabob was…a paperweight of sorts?

Then when I was scouting out all the buffet entree options, I saw another diner utilizing their thingamabob to grab a personal-sized skillet of lasagna. Of course! It was like a miniature potholder. Might’ve been nice had someone told me that, between the cashier or my server whom I’d pre-tipped.

I returned to my table to find that my server had brought me not one, but two glasses of the peach green tea I’d picked from the beverage list. While I appreciated this (no really, I did), I’ve only ever had it happen at one other buffet in town, and that one was not nearly of the same quality as Bacchanal. My waiter was attentive enough, but it was obvious he was very busy. And for anyone who’s ever walked passed Bacchanal since it opened, you know it’s always busy. There’s a reason for the $10 upcharge per meal to use the Buffet of Buffets pass here. It’s just always that busy with a line out the queue, unless you go at an off-peak time as I’ve done both times.

In summary, Bacchanal is holding its own after six months. It’s expensive, no doubt, but it beats the Wynn in my book as the best buffet in Vegas these days. That being said, I was startled to see no salt or pepper shakers on any of the tables during the lunch buffet. (I know they were there at the brunch buffet six months ago, because I peppered my eggs.) Is this the new, hip thing to not put basic condiments on the table?

I might mention a nice touch at the lunch buffet, however, is that a package of Bacchanal hand wipes are offered to the guest as you are wrapping up your meal. I snagged these and the blue rubber thingamabob as souvenirs, since I’m still so full from my epic lunch that I doubt I’ll be returning for awhile. But not because it wasn’t worth it; it was!

The arrangement of modern seating is also very comfortable for a solo diner; I had a two-top on each of my visits and enjoyed both sections of the uniquely decorated dining room in which I was seated. Just make sure wherever you sit that you take your blue rubber thingamabob along to the buffet line. I nearly burned my hand on that cute little lasagna skillet.

Brian Tucker is a former English major who has worked in hospitality for 13 years. He prefers traveling solo because he can see so much more and set his own schedule. You can read Brian’s philosophical musings on life at his blog, Southern Aristocracy.

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