Palms Buffet Offers Unique Tastes, Great Value

Middle Eastern Food Highlights Offerings

POSTED: 1:58 p.m. EST March 22, 2002
UPDATED: 3:58 p.m. EST March 23, 2002

LAS VEGAS -- A buffet is just a buffet, right? I mean, how many different ways can you do warmed-up trays of food? Well, the Palms has done a great job of creating a new, unique, interesting and original buffet for a relatively inexpensive cost.

The first thing to be aware of is that the Malouf family, which owns and operates the Palms, is from Lebanon, which is important here because of the large selection of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern dishes available at the buffet. Some absolutely fantastic gyros with warm pita bread, hummus, baba-ganesh, tabouli, and kabobs of all varieties are in this area, and everything I tasted was fresh and flavorful.

This kind of variety is what makes the Palms Buffet so interesting. In addition to the Middle Eastern station there's also a huge section of Chinese dishes including chicken barbecue ribs, Cantonese chicken, dumplings, Mongolian beef, sweet & sour pork, egg rolls, rice dishes, and chow mein; a Mongolian barbecue; Italian entrees including pastas, meatballs, pizza, and sausages; a carving station with roast turkey, ham, beef brisket, ribs, pastrami, and corned beef; soups with egg drop, chili, chicken noodle, and more; a full salad bar with veggies and fruit; kosher foods including knishes and kugel; and a dessert bar with cakes, cookies, pies, ice cream, and some sugar-free options just in case you loaded up on too much of the other stuff.

Keep in mind that on your visit the exact selections may change, but this should give you a pretty good idea as to why the buffet is so special. It's has a bigger range of foods than a traditional buffet and some things you won't find anywhere else.

Of course all of that would be pointless if the food wasn't any good, but I found it to be terrific on all levels -- except for dessert. I'm a big dessert fan, as my waistline will attest, and I thought the offerings were a little thin in this area and not terribly special. But that's a minor whine when it has everything else going for it.

The dining room is nice, but nothing to write home about. High ceilings and an open floor plan eliminate any feelings of claustrophobia, but the fact that it is mostly open to the casino and lined with hard surfaces instead of softer fabrics or woods makes it a bit noisy.

Service was a little slow on the day I visited, but they knew it and apologized for it. One interesting trick they have is to ask you what you want to drink as you pay when going in, allowing the waitstaff to deliver your sodas or iced tea while you're off getting food. It didn't actually work that way on the first day I was there, but a subsequent visit proved the theory and made the wait for beverages non-existent.

Prices are downright cheap, with breakfast for $5.99, lunch for $6.99, dinner for $9.99 and Sunday Brunch for $8.99 from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Those are remarkable rates for a buffet of this size and quality, especially when places like Bellagio are charging more than double that for food that, while good, isn't twice as good.

The Palms Festival Market Buffet is a great new addition to Las Vegas.

Grade: A-

Palms Festival Market Buffet
Palms Resort
4321 W. Flamingo
Las Vegas, NV 89103
(702) 942-7777

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