Gourmet foods appear in Vegas casino buffet lines

LAS VEGAS -- Kelly O'Neill peered into the pans on a recent Saturday night at Le Village Buffet in the Paris Las Vegas Casino: Bouillabaisse. Salmon flambe with sorrel sauce. Veal stew marengo.

"What is this?" asked O'Neill, a 22-year-old from San Diego. "I don't know what this is. The mac and cheese has a weird name. Where's the lasagna and spaghetti?"

Welcome to the new buffet -- the haute buffet.

The Bellagio, Paris Las Vegas and the Aladdin are among the Las Vegas hotel-casinos that have installed elaborate buffets filled with sushi bars, smoked salmon and sumptuous eclairs. The Mirage and MGM Grand plan to roll out upscale buffets this year.

Such delicacies come at a fat price. While it once ran just a few bucks to gorge on baron of beef and tubs of mashed potatoes, it now can cost more than $32 to dine at a casino buffet.

But don't be misled. These buffets still move a lot of food. Tons of food. All the time.

The Aladdin's Spice Market Buffet feeds from 3,500 to 4,000 people a day. It goes through 3,000 pounds of salmon and 900 pounds of veal osso buccu a week. Assorted sushi? Try 13,000 pieces.

'Got to be standards'

"Everything is made from scratch," says Aladdin buffet chef Charles Clark. "There's no cutting corners on the buffet. There's got to be standards."

Hold the iceberg lettuce and Thousand Island dressing; today's tourists line up for mixed greens and balsamic vinaigrette.

This new theme in dining can be found in its extreme at the Bellagio, which sits atop the buffet pyramid.

The other day, hordes of people paid more than $17 for a chance to chow their way through the casino's lunch buffet, one that featured more than 60 items extended over 11 food stations.

Executive chef Michael Frauenheim presides over the vast operation that serves some 4,000 people a day and employs 82 men and women. The monthly price tag to stock this extravaganza: $1 million.

"Buffets aren't made to be profitable," he says.

But they are made to draw in customers.

"Think about the people staying at their casinos," says David Hickey, an expert on Las Vegas culture. "Who gambles? One millionaire from Taiwan or 10 rednecks in a camper?"

The Bellagio offers a "gourmet buffet" every Friday and Saturday night that includes Kobe beef, venison and buffalo. Frauenheim intends to raise the price to $34 in the next month or two. He said people will continue to pay for freshness and quality -- a novel idea considering the Las Vegas buffet's reputation for casseroles, popcorn shrimp and heat-lamped fried chicken.

The Bellagio's vast kitchen cleans and fillets its own whole fish -- salmon, sea bass, wahoo, red snapper, monk fish and mahi mahi -- and prepares its own stocks. There are even sugar-free deserts. The shrimp, sadly, is frozen.