Carvings Buffet

I ate here last week on Friday for dinner. I know that Reno buffets weren't going to be elaborate like Las Vegas buffets. However I still believe the quality of the food should still exists. As in most buffets I went to the meat station to get prime rib. I request if the ribs of the prime rib were available. The cook said they weren't available. That already put a damper on my mood. Lately when I go to buffets I ask for ribs of the prime rib. They not only have the most flavor, but also I can determine the quality of the prime rib. The prime rib at this buffet was ok. I didn't eat a lot of at this buffet. A few items stood out that pretty delicious like sushi and butter pasta with Alfredo sauce. The one item I truly liked was the rhubarb pie for dessert. I love rhubarb and if I can have an opportunity to get some rhubarb pie I'll grab it because rhubarb pies at buffets are rare.

As a Total Rewards Member I was able to comp for a discount. The last time I got comp for a buffet as a Total Rewards Member was at the Le Village Buffet inside the Paris Las Vegas Casino and Hotel last March. I only paid about $7 at that buffet whereas at this buffet, even with a $10 comp discount, I paid around $29. (I did a 2 oz. Coors beer for $5.) Comparing these two buffets for price I paid the Le Village Buffet was much better than the Carvings Buffet. I ate ten plates of dishes at Le Village Buffet whereas I ate only five plates of dishes at the Carvings Buffet. That's why I believe regardless how big or small a buffet eatery is quality is always important. Despite a few items overall the Carvings Buffet wasn't worth the price, even with a comp discount.

(Asst?) Manager Donna was super helpful in solving a certificate issue we were having trouble redeeming for the buffet. She took care of it and even upgraded our seating area. Khaled was our server and he was prompt, friendly, jovial, and helpful. Great smile too! Customer service was definitely more than three stars, but I'm rating more on selection and quality of food.

There was a pizza station, Asian station, noodle bar, Mexican station, dessert bar, and American station that included a primE rib and turkey carving station.
I ate some Asian food, and while the egg rolls, pot stickers, and wonton were pretty good, the rice, chow menu, and pork and broccoli were just okay.
The prime rib and mashed pots were decent, and I wasn't really interested in trying too muCh more of the savory because the sweets is what looked the tastiest!

There are lots of desserts, mostly standard fare like cherry pie, lemon meringue pie, and soft serve ice cream. There were also some nice fruit tarts, creme brûlée, and cannolis as well. All pretty well done. The main showstopper was definitely the crepe station. Pick you fruit and other filler and you get a fresh made sweet filled crepe. We got the strawberry and Nutella. It's was pretty and pretty delicious!

So, Harrah's is closing pretty soon and I figured I'd try out the buffet. On Fridays and Saturdays, the steak and seafood buffet is $33, but it's half off for locals! But that's pretty much the last good thing I can say about this buffet--it's cheap and has all you can eat crab.

There was a large assortment of foods but from the Mexican food to the steaks to the desserts, pretty much everything was lackluster. The things worth getting were the crab and the crepes.

Carvings Buffet is located in Harrah's Casino. They have a variety of food from American, Asian, Mexican, Italian, and a fantastic dessert selection. There's crab legs, cocktail shrimp, and a meats carving station too.

The best feature of Carvings Buffet would be their desserts. Every dessert is crafted with quality, and you can tell. The first bite into the Strawberry Cake is mouth wateringly delicious. Creamy, sweet and tons of strawberry flavor. Chewy and chocolaty brownies. And the vanilla ice cream is so smooth. It would be worth it just to eat the desserts.

I liked the meat carving station, Asian noodle soups, crab legs and dessert.

If only the rest of the buffet had the same quality. The dishes were like eating at Sizzlers right before they went bankrupt. The food was just blah. Soggy chow mein, soggy fish and soggy chips. How was this even possible, it's all fried? Also, the Salmon Nigiri was literally a piece of salted smoked salmon on top of Jasmine rice. It's all wrong. Common!? 2 out of 5 stars.

However, the 5 star service was very impressive. From the table service, buffet servers and Harrah's staff their attention to detail was top notch.

A buffet is a buffet is a ...!

Look, when I was younger I ate like there was no end and that made any buffet a 5 Star eatery on my book! But now that I am older and counting calories, I just want one, I repeat one, full plate that I can finish and fully enjoy. Carvings Buffet did the job. They offer plenty of choices, the food is good and they are reasonably priced.

If you are staying at Harrah's, make sure to take advantage of the coupons that they hand out to you when you check in. You make get huge discounts if you are there in mid-week.

We saw something that said the Carvings Buffet offers a 50% discount to locals. Then we looked on Yelp and sure enough there were comments about the locals only 50% discount. We have been to the Hash House a Go Go next door and really enjoyed it but we had never been to Carvings, so we thought what better opportunity to try it out.

We went to the players club to sign up for their rewards program. They also told us about the locals discounts and placed a round silver sticker on my card which says, "Reno Local".

We then went up to Carvings. We were given a 50% discount for the entire check for both my wife and I. I only had to show my players card with the locals sticker.

We were taken to a table and began the adventure to see what they had. They were having their champagne brunch. We thought there was a pretty wide variety including prime rib, Mexican, Asian, Italian, breakfast items (eggs, bacon, sausage, waffles) and a large dessert area. My wife and I each sampled several things and returned to our table. Shortly after sitting down, our drink orders were taken. We were also offered mimosas.

My wife really enjoyed the prime rib but as we anticipated most of everything else was just allright. None of the food really stood out to us. It did fill us up and was adequate with many options and the price was awesome for locals.

I've been living in Reno for just over 7 years and I had no idea that locals get 50% off...yes 50% off of the Carvings Buffet!! If I had known that, I'd probably come here once a week! I'm only half joking. But yes what an amazing deal!

The Carvings Buffet is located on the second floor of Harrah's Reno Hotel and Casino. With our local's discount, we paid about $11 each. And that was on a Sunday evening for dinner!

After we were seated, we were all hungry so we went our separate ways to gather our bearings. I personally like to scope everything out before piling copious amounts of food onto my plate.

I noticed about seven food stations. The few stations I stopped by were the Asian, American, and Carving stations. For my first round, I grabbed some Sweet & Sour Chicken, a fillet of their Catch of the Day, steamed vegetables, an egg roll and a piece of Sake Nigiri. Honestly their sushi didn't look too appetizing, but I had to at least try a piece. Everything but the sushi was delicious. Their sushi had an abundance of rice and the fish was very soggy. Not my favorite.

For both my second and third rounds, I stopped by the Carving Station and got a slice of their prime rib with creamy horse radish and cranberry sauce. I love prime rib and they did not disappoint. I didn't leave any room for dessert, but their pastries on display looked cute.

All together, The Carvings Buffet was a delicious experience. It's not the best buffet I've had, but for the price we paid, I am not complaining. Whether or not you're a local, The Carvings Buffet will fulfill your hunger cravings while keeping your wallet very happy.

We've recently been on a quest to find the best buffet deal in town and for us we have settled on Harrah's.

1. They have a LOCALS 1/2 price discount when you have their card. That makes the $15 buffet (10-1 M-Th & 10-2 FRI) just over $8 for one person. Unlike other buffets, this 1/2 price Locals deal is available 7 days a week, both brunch and dinner. There is no other buffet this reasonable. (I'm told the Locals card also works in their other restaurants for a 25% discount.) And the half price works for singles, not just the 2for1 that other buffets offer (one day a week) only for Seniors.

2. Price CAN be our #1 reason ONLY because the food is actually delicious.

3. They have the BEST OMELET BAR all thru Brunch, and the best omelet CHEF. Her name is ABBY. Her picture is below. You have the option to ask for fresh whole eggs cooked to order AND you may ALSO request your omelet be made with REAL freshly cracked (in front of you) eggs.

For us, the omelet bar alone is worth the Locals price of admission. Abby is never stingy with ingredients. This means you can load the pan with as much of whatever you want, and end up with more of a scramble if you prefer. She will also cook everything LIGHTLY if you like.

A huge plate of scrambled omelet makes a healthy meal for me. But I also enjoy some other buffet flavors. So I fill the little EASY TO FIND SAUCE CUPS with different sauces and gravies and add them to different parts of my scramble as I go. I even get a couple tablespoons of warm maple syrup and add it to the last part of my scrambled omelet and pretend I ate a waffle

One of the reasons to eat at a buffet is to have it MY way. Be creative and you can have it YOUR way too!

4. Check out the pictures and you will see a lot of custom CREPES. We haven't tried one yet but we DID see one on a plate today. It was HUGE. It looks like a meal in itself. If you are a fan of crepes it looks to me like the custom crepes alone might also be worth the Locals price of admission.

We are also fans of eating pretty much everything with chopsticks...available at the Asian kitchen.

At first glance, maybe the desert bar doesn't SEEM as large as say, the Atlantis desert bar. And I didn't see scoop ice cream, BUT I'm a desert fan so I try everything and all the deserts here are actually DELICIOUS, as opposed to just pretty looking. I'm amazed by the FLAKY crust on their pecan pie. There is a wide enough variety to please sugar hungry appetites. However, if you include those custom crepes in the desert bar...hmmmmmm...this desert bar just got a lot bigger.

5. YES, they have all the other buffet stuff like meats and salads etc. AMAZING GRILLED VEGETABLES...Something for everyone. Even PIZZA that is fresh baked in an awesome oven right in front of you

I figured it out. If BOTH of us ate brunch here every day for 30 days a month, including the extra $2 on weekends, using the Locals discount, it would cost about $503 per month! Kinda AweSome.

October 27, 2019

"AYCE" always the best way to go if you're an indecisive person. Always something for everyone in one spot, you really can't go wrong at a buffet....or can you? Buffets, especially when being in the heart of a hotel/casino. As I make my way down the Virginia and Sierra St stroll, "Carvings Buffet" was another one I haven't visited. Being I'm now a member of the Ceasers Rewards program, I decided to go seeing I had $2.00 off. Let me tell you why it "was" and "wasn't" worth my time.

Carvings Buffet:
Carvings Buffet is located inside of Harrah's on the second floor. The set up of this buffet is pretty nice, having a line for regular guest and a separate one for members of the Platinum and Seven Star Ceasers Rewards program. Being this was the Sunday dinner time, the price of the buffet was $23.99 for Adults, with $2.00 off for rewards members. Seating inside is either booth or table seating, and all the food offerings are organized by the types of cuisine (Dessert, Asian, Mexican, American, Salad, Italian). I arrived about 30 min after they opened so the food was still very fresh. As I mentioned earlier, the experience "was" and "wasn't" worth my time. I'm going to tell you why..

"Was" - The price was pretty decent as far as Casino buffets go. They had a pretty good variety of food to choose from. The service is pretty good, and there is incentives to eating here.

"Wasn't" - The food is flavorless, not enough of items being set out at one time (not that that's a super bad thing). Crowed food stations, and not enough staffing for effective crowd flow and control.

Everything I had literally had no flavor at all. The dessert was the only thing with flavor..but that's not saying much because it's dessert. I only ended up eating one plate of food as it didn't really end up living up to my food standards for taste, although the quality was very presentable.

Overall:
I'm glad that I got to try out "Carvings Buffet" I came, I saw, and I can now cross this one off my list. I think I won't be returning though, there are more buffets in Reno. With so many options around it's kinda disappointing that this experience wasn't what I had hoped. The service was top notch here though and I did feel welcomed. So, I would say that everyone's entitled to their own opinion, so if you do decide to vist here, really come with your own mind. Because buffets always usually are hit or miss, some people may love it, others may dislike it.

Let me just start by saying I ma not a fan of buffets. We won this at a fund raising benefit so what the heck we gave it a whirl. The manager Donna was super helpful after the front cashier didn't know how to handle our certificate. After checkIng out the entire buffet we started with some AsIan food. All pretty tasty. Then we tried the prime rib. A bit too rare in the center but the rest was very good.

Now for the best part! Desserts!!! And lots of them. I went for the fresh made crepe and got the strawberry and nutella and my wife got a sampler. The crepe was amazing! The creme brûlée was excellent too. and because that just wasn't enough I saw soft serve and a bananas foster topping. This did not disappoint either!

Tried carvings buffet for Christmas Eve because of the two for one coupons which brought it down to about $11 a person. The food was suspect. The chicken was very dried out and greasy prime rib was good the Chinese was OK salad was great. Service was quick and the restaurant was pretty full. It is not my first choice of buffet in town but the price was right.