Buzz BBQ

VERDICT: Cold, heavily smoke-flavored food served in a crappy atmosphere.

I had to beg and beg to go to this restaurant.  Greg just wouldn't give in.  He just "knew" that Buzz BBQ would be crappy, just like his bad experiences at other BBQ places in town like Memphis BBQ and the now closed Buckingham BBQ.  Anyway, Buzz BBQ won the Las Vegas Review-Journal Poll Best BBQ of Las Vegas in 2008 and 2009, so how bad could it be?

After eating at Buzz, you realize what a sham these awards are.

By the way, Taco Bell won for best Mexican when I first moved to Vegas.

I finally broke down Greg's resistance with the help of his mother.  We pulled out all the stops.  We even accused him of not wanting to try anything new; something that he relishes to do to me.  I didn't even care if it turned out to be bad.  At least, I would have gotten to try it and get rid of the nagging feeling that I'm missing out on something great.

Right when I opened the door, Greg's eyes seemed to say, "I told you so".  The atmosphere was just hideous.  The walls were painted red and there was a rustic, giant patio arbor covering most of the restaurant. It was brightly lit with cheap-looking tables and brown 70's banquet chairs.

Nothing says cheap like a banquet chair.

Let me break away here and tell you of one of my pet peeves.  I hate it when there is a large, empty restaurant and the hostess sits every group right next to each other.  Why do I have to have the inconvenience of being crammed elbow to elbow when there is plenty of space?  Cramming is, of course, what happened.  The hostess decided to put a large party of frat boys right next to us; they even had to pull tables together.  There were at least 10 other tables to choose, but no, people love to crowd.  In the end, it was for the best.  We got to hear one of the frat boys say, "Collard greens is a green".  Another responded, "so, it is an actual vegetable?"  To which, Greg responded to us, "Quite the Mensa meeting going on over there."

There was quite a wait for our food.  Greg and I shared a three meat combo with ribs, brisket, and andouille sausage.  

1.  The food was cold, despite the waitress bringing it out after I heard "order up" from the kitchen.

2.  The only flavoring on the meat was smoke.

3.  The andouille sausage was really just polska kielbasa (if I wanted kielbasa, I would have heated some Hillshire Farms up at home.)

4.  The sides are not even worth the effort to complain about them.

I would feel remiss if I didn't mention Greg's Mother's obsession with real butter.  She always feels insulted when a spread is offered with bread.  After all, she was the one that felt it necessary to bring her own butter to The Tournament of Kings.  Obviously, Buzz BBQ uses a spread instead of butter.  Greg's mother immediately threw it down and declared how they were monsters for trying to deceive their customers.  It really is just another reason out of many to never go to Buzz BBQ again.

The meal ended with a lot of "I told you so" moments.  Greg never did say it though.  I felt like an idiot all by myself.

Update:  Buzz BBQ (at least at the Northwest location) has gone out of business.  

Little Dumpling

VERDICT: Another Las Vegas Chinese crap-fest.

I often complain about the Chinese food in Las Vegas as either being crap or too authentically full of chicken beaks and moth balls.  This is just crap.  Although, to its credit, it is cheap crap, which is a nice twist.  I'm used to paying through the nose for crap in Las Vegas.  I thought this little place might be different with its slick look.  Just look at that font on the sign...trendy!

 

It already broke one of my rules:  I never eat at an Asian restaurant that serves food from more than one Asian country.  Chances are that they can only cook one well or even cook neither well.  I can't speak for the Thai food, which there wasn't very much of, but I can say that the Chinese food is bland.  I had the Kung Pao combination.  The shrimp was obviously low quality and not fresh with its overpowering fishy taste.  Overall, I've had more spice from a carrot than was in this flavorless Kung Pao.  Little Greg had the strawberry chicken, which appeared to be deep fried bread stuffed with small nugglets of chicken, covered with store bought strawberry glaze.  That's right, I called them nugglets; they were way to small to be considered even a nugget. 

 

I forgot to mention that flavorless fried rice.  The soup was super thickened and tasteless.  The hot and sour soup was like eating hot gelatin spattered with sparse egg whites.  The corn egg flower soup was like eating hot corn-flavored gelatin spattered with sparse egg whites.

In the way of a compliment sandwich, I must say that the crab rangoon appetizer was deliciously yummy.  By the way, this is an open-faced compliment sandwich.  There is only a compliment at the end.

Cici's Pizza

VERDICT:  The place should be called Cici's Lightly-Flavored Cooked Dough.

I love pizza.  I mean I love pizza so much that it is part of my identity.  A pizza has to be really bad for me not to like it.  So, I was excited to see Cici's Pizza open up so close to me.  A pizza buffet for $4.99!!!  How could I not love it?  And the ads on TV, where the lady gets a salad and then piles on pizza...a salad bar, too?  I'm there.

There's just one problem though.  No one would go with me.  I couldn't go with myself.  I have this thing that I don't like to go to a place with a lot of kids by myself, because I think that it makes me look like a pedophile.  I bet I'm the first restaurant review to include the word, "pedophile"...another great first!!  Anyway, Greg said, "There's a reason that it is only $4.99.  It's crap!"  I then read other reviews that said that the taco pizza is great.  I whined at Greg stating how long it has been since I've had taco pizza and he caved.

Joy, oh joy!  I get to step foot in the promised land that is Cici's Pizza.  We get the the parking lot and Greg is starting to white-knuckle it.  I pry him out of the car and ignore his protests as I enter the restaurant.  First, there is no salad bar.  Rather there are two pre-made salads.  It turns out that the one salad that we did eat was really good, even for having Italian dressing.  That, as it turns out, is the only nice thing I have to say about Cici's pizza.

They basically serve cooked dough here.  The sauce is a mere suggestion of a sauce.  I'm thinking that they use a flavorless red food coloring.  The cheese is spotty and well they have perfected the technique of using no cheese and making it look like some cheese.  What we end up having then is bread with various illusions of toppings.  Yes Virginia, there is such a thing as bad pizza.  My taco pizza....a myth.  They never put any out, but I doubt it would have been of any different flavor.

That being said, kids are dumb and will love it.  So, it is a good cheap place to take the dumb children that you might be raising.

Feast at Texas Station

VERDICT: Cheap through and through, price and quality.

I hate buffets. They are orgies of second-rate, poorly prepared food attended by the fat, the poor, and the "family-heavy". That sounds like I'm being snobby, but I fall into two categories myself.

The exception to bad buffets are the "gourmet" buffets in town which are expensive, but delicious.

Alas, we got a 2-for-1 buffet coupon at our local "Texas Station" Casino. Reluctantly, I went. This particular buffet is aptly named "Feast". On the way there, I kept saying, "What is this 'The Feast'?" I was disappointed to learn that it is simply called "Feast" as Greg pointed out.

Of course, there is no easy way to get to "Feast" in the casino. You must wander through the maze of table games and slot machines and observe the happy gamblers as you go. By "happy", I mean "intent" and by "gamblers", I mean "old people with oxygen tanks".

We arrived at "Feast" and were greeted with a Disneyland-esque, snaking-line formed by shiny brass rails. Luckily, it was only half as long as it could be and we made it through within 10 minutes.

"Feast" has food from "around the world". OK...OK the actual name of the place is "Feast From Around the World." I prefer to call it just "Feast". By "around the world", they mean America, China, Mexico, and Italy. I guess that really does represent the world in its entirety. They left out Kazakhstan, but who likes food from there. Also, they have a section named "Salad Bar", so they have America, China, Mexico, Italy, and Salad Bar...oh and Dessert.

I started my adventure with Mexico. Apparently, potato skins are a mexican food. I took one with some sour cream. I also took one of the in-vogue taquitos. When I was growing up, I don't think I ever even heard of a taquito and now they are everywhere. What is the next mexican food craze going to be? I wonder.

At Italy, they had pasta and pizza. I took a piece of pepperoni pizza. The pasta was premixed with the sauce. I don't know why, but pasta premixed with the sauce can only mean one thing, Chef Boyardee. Nothing against the fine culinary skills of Chef Boyardee, but Chef Boyardee and raw conch are the only two foods that actually make me vomit when I taste them. Conch just tastes horrible with a horrible texture. It's like eating someone's tongue that has been soaking in sea water at low tide. I know you think it is mean of me to describe it, but I'm the one who ate it while trying to be polite in front of the people who bought it for me. I tried to swallow it, but kept vomiting it up back up into my mouth. I kept hoping no one noticed me turning pale and having tears stream down my face. Definitely, it was one of my worst food experiences. Another bad food experience was with Chef Boyardee. In third grade, we were working on paper mache when the girl sitting next to me vomited. Mixed with the art project paste, it smelled of sweet and sour bile. When I asked her what she ate, she said Chef Boyardee and pickle juice. No wonder she vomited. Now I vomit, too.

I skipped America where they had corn-on-the-cob, corn bread, and other corn products. I got some of the chicken-fried-rice from china along with some chicken chow mein and a chicken egg roll. Greg got some lemon chicken. They also had some sort of chinese bbq chicken too. I guess they really like chicken in China. They like chicken in Mexico, too. It turned out that my taquito was a disappointment in that it was chicken as well. Maybe they don't like chicken that much, but the casino sure does like chicken for its price.

The worst thing by far was the rice. It was cooked perfectly, but was the worst tasting rice ever. Greg had the spanish rice and he asked if it tasted sour. "No little Greg, it is just the cheapest rice they could find. Cheap and bad." Skimping on rice, how cheap is that?

The next two lands I visited were Salad Bar and Dessert. I got a salad and some dessert, both were OK.

I feel like I need to get my money's worth or get away with as much as I can. Basically, once you pay admission, it's free. The two problems are that I don't like the food and I don't like to feel really full. I'm perfectly happy with a similarly-priced hamburger or even a cheaper taco. I don't feel hungry afterward and I don't feel like a bloated pig either.

Tournament of Kings

VERDICT: It's liked force labor with bad food.

OK, I know this is on the strip and these are off the strip restaurants, but what local hasn't been tempted by dinner and a show?  You've been warned.

So, Greg's parents were very kind in taking me to the Tournament of Kings at the Excalibur Hotel and Casino in beautiful Las Vegas.

This was a belated birthday gift and I really did appreciate it. The tickets are $55 each and that includes dinner. Let's talk about the food first. Actually, let's talk about Greg's mother first. I call her the dairy queen. Before leaving, she made sure to put a ziploc full of butter in her purse as well as a ziploc full of ketchup. She heard that butter was not provided and being that she occasionally eats just plain butter, well that is just not acceptable. Who thinks of things like this before going out to dinner? This isn't the first time she's done it either.

So, dinner consisted of a small serving of tomato soup...oops I mean Dragon's Blood soup served in a little plastic bowl that you drink out of. Next comes a cornish game hen, cold broccoli, a slightly stale dinner roll, and three large freezer burnt potato wedges. All of this you eat with you hands. The cornish game hen was actually not bad and I don't like cornish game hen.

The beginning of the show consisted of Merlin and a small man showing the audience the proper way to cheer. I hate audience participation, let alone participation the requires pre-determined cheering. We were required to yell "Hazaa!" and raise our hands. We were required to pound the table with our hen-greased palms. We were required to raise our drinks, say "Hear, hear", take a sip and then say "ahhh". We were also required to cheer whenever our section was mentioned. We were sitted in "Hungary". Each section was given a king. Everyone cheered when their king was presented. When France was presented, the rest of the crowd (not in France) booed. I personally don't like Parisians, but the people that I met from Lyons were quite nice. I think the France-hating thing is old. A lot of people don't even know why they are suppose to hate France. Next come the wenches, obviously all former cheerleaders. They would stand in front of you and "encourage" everyone to cheer the correct cheers. It was like having your own private Nazi watch over you. If you didn't cheer, you were singled out and given a stern look. Then the kings had a tournament that included jousting. Interesting to note that the King of Russia was a cheater. He would hit people when they were down and pull dirty tricks. The winner was the King of France, to my personal satisfaction.

The kings whenever they rode or walked by their section would try to get their section to cheer. Our king, the King of Hungary, would just smile and shout "Hungary". I noticed that the King of Austria would look at his subjects and simply glare at them and wave his hand upwardly to get them shout louder. We had a good king even though he performed horribly in the tournament.

Then there was the King of Dragon, who wasn't in the Tournament. He could shoot fire from his hands and therefore was my favorite. He of course ended up being killed. We were reminded by our Nazi Cheerleaders to "boo" him at the appropriate times. Secretly, I was cheering for him though.

Then there were acrobats, a coronation, and some indoor fireworks to round the deal off.