We decided to go to Paris for another buffet in the morning. To me, Paris is one of the classiest hotels on The Strip. Its very well planned and especially for one who had been to Paris recently, I could related to many of the designs in this hotel, in particular the Eiffel Tower, the Arc du Triomphe, the Fountain and Louvre.

The interior is designed like you’re walking down a cobbled Paris street in an evening. I love that feeling especially in the front entrance and the casino area where it does not feel overwhelmingly casino-ey.

The Le Village Buffet came highly recommended from a lot of friends as being the best buffet. It is one of the expensive ones, like Bellagio.

MammaViv told us that once they went to Le Village at 10:30AM and ended up having both breakfast and lunch at the same time. This is because Le Village changes their breakfast spread to lunch at 11:00AM. So, we decided to give that tactic a try to land a larger choices of buffet items for a lower breakfast price.

I thought I had timed it well. Well, I thought if I had gotten to Le Village by 10:15AM, I would have been OK to be able to get in by 10:30AM. To my surprise, the buffet line was already long at that time when we got there! Comparing this line with Bellagio’s, I estimated that it will take 30 minutes or even longer to get in. Fortunately, the line went faster than I anticipated and left us time to sample their breakfast spread.

The bill was $64 for the 4 of us. It’s more expensive for lunch but don’t have the numbers. I think it’s really cheap after what we had spent for Bellagio’s dinner buffet.

Everyone would love how Le Village is setup. It is designed like a French village square. You get a choice of sitting “out” in the courtyard or in one of the “buildings” along the sides. We were shown the “outdoor” table — just what we wanted.

Even though we learned that the buffet tables were organized by provincial cooking style in France, I did not even pay attention to it at all.

I like that they came by with a flask of coffee just as we sat down even without us asking for it. Suanne and I need our coffee every morning.

Oh, I expected to be greeted in French … well, at least a Bon Jour. The only frenchy thing about the waitress was her uniform.

You know what disappointed me the most? They don’t serve baguette! I was so looking forward to trying good old French baguette here and was pretty sure they would have it — but no, none at all. I guess behind the facade, this is also very much an American breakfast.

Well, this is French right?

I wouldn’t have taken the items below myself. Arkensen took these items. I am trying to figure out what type of food he really likes by setting him off alone to pick his food. They all looked dry to me. The croissant with ham looked good though.

Our (Suanne and I) strategy is to share our food for the first two rounds and then free for all after that. That way we can taste as many different types of food we want and towards the end, we both can go for seconds for our own favourite food. That works out OK for us except that I, er, dictated what we get or not get on the first two rounds! I should have said that it worked out for me. 🙂

Some pretty mushroom pastry below. Tastes good and looks very nice.

You tell me … is Egg Benedict a French invention?

There are several live-action stations. Our favourite is the crepes cooking station. It was great watching them make it and reminded of the ones I had in Paris a few months ago. Did you know that crepe originated from France? I did not but I do now.

I asked for a chocolate and banana crepe. It was while they were making it I realize that there is a difference between chocolates and Nutella. Well, I saw the people ahead of me having lots of chocolatey looking stuff in their crepe and I just had just a few squishes of chocolate on it. That will NOT work for me.

After the cook had finished wrapping up my crepe, I asked him to unwrap it and put in Nutella too. He did better than that. Instead of unwrapping it which makes the crepe cool down fast, he gave me a good smattering of Nutella on top of the crepe, and top it with icing sugar.

Man! That was the best crepe Suanne and I ever had. They were so good that we wanted so much to go for another round. We did not because it was so big and eating another one would have been at the expense of the lunch spread that is being brought out.

Another live cooking station is the omelette station. It’s always great being able to choose all your favourite ingredients and see your perfect omelette made on the spot. Makes you salivate as you watch, right?

I learn something new today … that omelette is known to have been first made by Napolean Bonaparte which makes this a French dish. So, Le Village is quite a Frenchy place after all.

Well, I am sure the stuff below are not Frenchy.

This might qualify for being frenchy … I can’t recall what’s in this crepe. Looked like it’s some pre-wrapped ones.

Oh, cheese. Someone told me they have 30 types of cheeses but we see only less than half a dozen. Maybe it’s because it’s breakfast time. Any experts who can tell us … at what mealtimes are cheese normally consumed?

Anyone can tell me what this is? It looked pretty.

Arkensen and I had lots of roast beef. We went for seconds.

We also had some mussels. There is something about mussels outside of Vancouver. In Vancouver, we had always had very big fleshy ones but the ones we had outside of Vancouver is really small. Even the ones I had in Brussels which I would had expected it to be bigger (i.e. better).

Like Bellagio’s, the dessert selection in Le Village is vast and every single item looked very pleasing. Suanne went for the cheesecakes first.

The tarts were certainly very colourful. Thin pastry with lots of fruits.

Chocolate Mousse — with a piece of logo chocolate chip.

Creme Brulee and Custard … always a favourite in the clan.

What would you call this? Blackberry Custard?

We had a great meal at Le Village and it was fun too. We would rate this buffet several notch above Belaggio’s. If not for our plan to hit different buffets on our trip, we would have returned here for dinner. We’ll certainly come back one day.

This one you must try … and go at least 30 minutes before they change from breakfast to lunch. You pay less for two the selection. Thanks for the tip MammaViv.

Vive la France!