Breakfast Buffet Review: Cravings at The Mirage

The Cravings Buffet was not very good this time.  I’d had breakfast at the buffet a couple of years ago – right after they remodeled it, I think – and it had been really good then.  We found the food to be very hit-or-miss this time, and we arrived around 9:00 a.m., when all the food should be fresh.  

Some of the hot foods weren’t heated well enough, and the Eggs Benedict had been sitting out for a LONG time because I couldn’t even cut a corner off of the English muffin.  After two attempts, I gave up trying.  Eggs Benedict is my favorite breakfast food in Vegas, and I was disappointed to say the least.

There was no line, and we were seated at a 4-top (square) table near the middle of the room, where we were equi-distance from any part of the buffet, which is only open on the sides during breakfast.

Here's a listing of the foods we tried, and our opinions:

Chilaquiles - Yum!  This Texas girl liked them and had them twice.

French toast - Good and thick, with deep holes for syrup.

Ham and cheese quizza (quiche pizza, in case you’re wondering) - Good, but it could've been hotter.  It was only lukewarm, which led to me not finishing my slice.

Scrambled eggs - I found them delicious, but I also like mine slightly underdone (but not runny), and these were.  

Sausage links - Our hands-down favorite food on the buffet.  Slightly spicy, and easy to cut with a fork.  We had several helpings  apiece.  Don't judge.

Eggs Benedict - Too hard to even cut.  The egg was  hard, too, so they'd been out for awhile.  I don't even want to think about it...but it's pictured above, in the bottom right-hand corner of my first buffet plate, if you're interested.  It obviously looked better than it really was.

Bacon - Too "bendy", and not at all crisp.  We are a crispy bacon family, and it should break when it hits the plate (in our opinions).

Pancakes - A little on the tough side, according to my cousin (she was only one who tried them).  Pancakes shouldn't be tough.  Ever.  They should be fluffy, even on a buffet.

Watermelon - Good and sweet, and served cold, as it should be.

Croissant bread pudding - It was sweet and filled with raisins.  No sauce needed to top this bread pudding.  My cousin didn't find it sweet enough, but she also likes chocolate donuts (bleh!), so use that as your guide.

Fresh pineapple - Very sweet and fresh, but they sliced it too close to the core, so we had to cut the pieces up to avoid the hard center.

Carpaccio - Cold and fresh, like it should be.  You could tell it'd just been put out, and I'm glad they didn't leave large portions out to harden.  I hate that.

Cheese Blintz - My mom said these had no taste (she was the only one who saw them, I think).  They originally put them in the space that was marked for Apple Turnovers, but there were no turnovers and these were clearly blintzes.

In addition to these items, there was a crepe station, breakfast pizzas, tons of muffins and donuts, biscuits and gravy, smoked salmon, bagels and lox, corned beef hash, hash browns and some assorted breakfast casseroles that none of us apparently found appealing enough to try.   In their defense, I don't usually eat Mexican food outside of Texas (except for the chilaquiles - they looked too good to pass up), so I didn't even bother trying any of the casseroles with Mexican names because I can find really good Mexican food in Texas.  Who knows?  They might have been really good.

Our waitress was not the best.  We had to get a hostess to hunt her down and get a coffee refill, and she forgot my juice twice before I was finally able to successfully reminded her again.  At least the bussers were quick to clean off dirty plates and replace silverware, and they were everywhere, all the time.  


I have a serious question about the Cravings buffet:  What’s with the giant, unwieldy tongs for every dish on this buffet?  The basic, 10-pound hinged salad tongs - where one side is a spoon and the other side is a fork - do NOT work for every dish, yet they were the only things available.  I felt like I was playing one of those crazy crane games where you attempt, in vain, to pick up a stuffed animal in a giant claw when I was trying to grab a sausage link, and I stabbed my French toast and couldn’t get it released from the fork end when I finally got it maneuvered just right to even pick a piece up.   Really?  You don’t just have regular tongs anywhere in your kitchen?  Invest in some basic tongs and let your customers enjoy their food while it's still hot instead of making everyone wait it out in a game of chance.  


This was the only meal I paid for on the trip: $44 + tax for three   buffets ($15.99 per person).  We only left the waitress a tip because she finally got her head unstuck from her nether regions and paid some attention to us.  We were seriously considering stiffing her the tip if she didn't get a clue.


Overall, I'd rate this buffet as a 6.  If the Eggs Benedict had been fresh and the service a little better, I might even say a 6.5, but we were disappointed by the meal and service as a whole.  With just a few bright spots in the whole experience, it's not likely we will return again.  Harrah's offers a much better breakfast buffet across the street for $2 more, and that one is definitely worth the price.


If you are interested in checking out the Cravings buffet for lunch or dinner, here is the website with their hours of operation and a phone number: http://www.mirage.com/restaurants/cravings.aspx.  They do have special menus for occasions such as Easter, Mother's Day and Christmas, so be sure to check out the website before you go if you're looking for something in particular.