The Vegas Seafood Buffet
Like Memphis BBQ, Chicago Pizza and Seattle Coffee, the wild city of Las Vegas has claimed a food tradition to call its own, one that bears replication and spreading. No one seems to have noticed, but I’m calling it anyway: Las Vegas owns the buffet. Their gargantuan casinos have mastered the art of balancing variety, convenience and quality better than any Hometown counterpart.
It’s reputation is definitely evident in the recently added Vegas Seafood Buffet, located in Torrance in Del Amo Fashion Center’s popular outdoor wing. By leveraging the name of Vegas, they’re implying a quality that many Californians know well, but without the 6 hour road trip. The strange thing is that the buffet isn’t thought of as part of the Las Vegas food culture, but if the name continues to be invoked to imply quality, that might soon be changing.
A Multi-Headed Hydra Of Cuisine
The best buffets practically offer you an entire world map of food, and Vegas Seafood Buffet comes close. Asian food gets the most real estate, and their offerings are generous. The fan-favorite sushi & sashimi section features the likes of roasted saba and octopus sushi. There are familiar offerings like dumplings and yakitori skewered meat. But the star is one corner dedicated entirely to teppanyaki – Japanese style, flash-grilled, meats and noodles for your fresh consumption. This popular section will likely have a line, but it’s worth it for the freshly cooked steak, chicken and/or shrimp mixed in with your choice of mushrooms, vegetables and noodles. A constant concern at lesser buffets is that the food is stock piled en masse, but Vegas Seafood Buffet promises freshness and is dedicated to proving it.
Elsewhere on our world map, Latin America is represented by Brazilian barbecue, or churrasco, with several juicy cuts of beef and ham. With up to 4 different cuts to choose from, the meat selection is carnivore’s dream, but the centerpiece is the titular seafood. The ability to access so much of it at once has always been one of the main draws, and something would be amiss if you couldn’t consume an impressive amount of biodiversity. Feast on flounder, oyster, clams, salmon steak and, yes, the ever popular crab legs, in truly prolific amounts that can only exist at buffets like this.
Even dessert is worth mentioning here with its case of bite-sized pastries to start. A large fondue fountain runs so that you may dip strawberries and marshmallows in a fast-hardening chocolate cream, just like in your dreams. Soft serve ice cream machines are a staple of even the simplest buffets, except here they don’t settle for basic chocolate and vanilla. Here, they also serve flavors like pistachio & pomegranate, two tastes normally relegated to specialty frozen yogurt shops.
Economics of A Buffet
It’s no secret that the way a good buffet can afford to let you take a snow shovel to a pile of crab legs is because they charge a significant price. A typical non-special dinner cost at Vegas Seafood Buffet is $21, putting it in the range of the more affordable Las Vegas buffets, such as those found away from the strip and in Downtown. For big appetites that can polish off 3 plates and dessert, it’s definitely a bargain. But if ever that seems steep, remember that Caesar’s Palace buffet costs $50. Sure, it will have a mile of choices and some grade A chefs, but at that price point, the value is skewed by what you can reasonably eat in one sitting. Then there’s the unseen costs of things like waiting in line for an hour or parking or navigating crowds.
All of this is to say that Vegas Seafood Buffet features most of what makes the Las Vegas buffet experience good without any of the hassle. The lines will be manageable, the costs will be acceptable and you will not be fighting over the last BBQ pork rib. It’s especially applicable to big celebration dinners or really hungry nights. You’ll never want to go back to the restaurant salad bar.
What’s your ideal buffet made up of? When’s the last time you treated yourself to a big buffet meal?
Vegas Seafood Buffet – (310) 371 – 8900
3525 W. Carson St., Torrance, CA 90503
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