The Buffet at Harrah’s

I have been in numerous buffet style restaurants at casinos all over the country. This place is the best. Great fresh selection. Huge salad bar. Soup Bar has six soups all the time. Carved Turkey or chicken breast and brisket that is falling apart and perfectly seasoned.
Huge dessert bar with three flavor icecream and toppings People are super friendly. Im coming here for months and I was never disappointed.

It is small but okay. I went here on a Saturday night before the Saturday Night Groove Party that they have in their VooDoo Lounge every first Saturday to grab a bite to eat. I am a sushi lover but when you put a breaded shrimp in a sushi roll I get naseous! Here I stick with a simple california roll and stir fry, the crab legs were good but a little over cooked and this has happened twice. Great dessert and salad bar options, clean atmosphere as well.

Let me start by saying we had plans to eat at the buffet at ameristar but the line was ridiculously long so we decided to give the Harrahs buffet a shot since we have never been there. Horrible decision. The lack of any kind of line at all on a beautiful Friday night should have clued us in. The service was terrible. We all had empty drinks and weren’t offered a single refill. The Chinese options tasted as if they had been sitting for hours, it was prime dinner time of 6:30pm. No reason for anything but fresh food at that time. There were four of us and my husband was the only person to remotely enjoy his dinner. Well, fast forward three hours and he is sick in the bathroom at home. Hoping it’s not related to the food but he is pretty certain it is. The only redeeming quality of the meal was the dessert. That did have that figured out. Don’t waste your money, go to Ameristar.

DON’T WASTE YOUR MONEY!!! For $ 14, I expect a better selection & better preparation. We went during lunch. The «fresh baked» pizza was old & crusty. The baked salmon was dry & chewy. Plus, everything had some sort of meat in it on it or around it. I don’t eat meat so I couldn’t eat the cabbage, «seafood» gumbo (had sausage in it), beans, greens and a host of other stuff. My meal options were reduced to their dry breads, thick mac & cheese, leather-​like fish and hard rice. On the plus side, my lemonade was good! Keep driving… a couple of exits down is a much better buffet at Ameristar!

Went for breakfast and it was not as expected. Food was ok but some food was cold like waffles and french toast. Not much fruit options.

Being from NJ, and frequently going to AC Harrah’s… This is by far the best breakfast buffet I ever had. Maybe it’s the southern cooking, but everything was slamming!!! And so fresh and hot. Service was good too!

This is probably the best breakfast buffet I’ve ever had. The chicken fried steak was delicious!!! They had a lot of options I wanted to try but just didn’t have the room for. Also at $ 12 a person it was a bargain compare to some of the other buffets I’ve been to, especially for breakfast.

They got rid of the filet steak on Fridays and replaced it with some kind of jerky meat. This place used to be great but has really gone down hill. Nothing tastes fresh and the price went up even though they down graded their steaks. Such a shame. Have a diaper on before you start to eat. You wont have enough time to rush to the restroom.

if my husband and i could give a corner of a star thats what it would get and thats only for the sweet tea which was great. we stopped in on saturday night for the crablegs and sushi all you can eat for $ 30 each. the noise level in there was like you was at a wild party. between the music and all the people talking you had to practically yell to eachother. the profanity from the people who was sitting beside us was ridiculous all we heard was f**** this and f****
for the service we got it was great. now if you love crablegs and sushi like us great. but do not i repeat do not go here!!! within five minutes of us leaving after we ate both of us had bad stomach aches and pains and had to rush/​run to the bathroom. and not to pee either!!! we will definitely not be going back to this place. for this to be a famous casino it sucks for food warning if you go here you are going to regret it!!! our score for this place is –0

We have always thoroughly enjoyed every aspect of The Buffet. The food is hot, the fried chicken is delicious, the variety is better than many buffets, and the service is the best! (Sharon is our favorite waitress!) It is much cleaner than other buffets — even on the super-​busy crab legs nights.
I am a little surprised at the super negative reviews. On the many times we have eaten there it is usually busy, so I guess we aren’t the only folks who enjoy The Buffet experience. We will definitely be back.

Harrah’s buffet is okay. I’ve only been on Saturdays for the crab legs and they’ve always had a pretty decent selection. The crab legs are pretty good here, but I’m not much of a fan for some of the other items. The calamari is always too greasy and the catfish isn’t very good here either. Another casino in KC that is a few dollars more has a better buffet (in my opinion) but when I’m craving crab legs, Harrah’s gets the job done.

Had two meals here, a lunch and a breakfast.
Look, I don’t know what people expect when they go to these things. It’s not Michelin star food, but don’t you know that going in? You are going to get as much medium quality food, that tastes pretty decent, as you want.
Breakfast has everything you could dream of including a cook to order station.
Lunch had the standard hot food, cold food, and excellent salad bar.
Honestly, what more are you looking for from a small casino buffet?

Decent dinner buffet with a nod to the KC culture. Onion rings are always good. The breakfast buffet is very good however.

You don’t need much of a review when a cheap chinese buffet has better food than you. $ 24.99 was a complete rip off! You should be ashamed of yourselves. But I bet you’re not.

When peeled shrimp is the highlight of the dinner at a buffet, there are major issues that need to be addressed. I rate this as slightly better than nursing home food. Buffet was frequently out of food and what was there tasted canned and store bought.
Go to ameristar and bypass this dive.

The buffet at Harrah’s is just ok. I’m not a buffet person anyway, so my review is a little jaded. Anyway, decent food. Different types of cuisine. I like the division between the different food stations. For instance, all of the Chinese types of foods are in the Chinese station.
One of my biggest complaints with buffets is that the food gets cold too fast. I don’t eat cold food that is supposed to be warm. So, unfortunately I was quite wasteful. I do like Harrah’s buffet on crableg night. Their crablegs are the best in town.
I will likely go back on my next visit to KC because the customer service is awesome at Harrah’s

This was a comped buffet and I wasn’t really hungry but it was free and I needed to use it that day. I have to say it’s better than the buffet I had recently at another local casino. I had bacon wrapped barbequed pork tenderloin that was quite good for buffet, macaroni & cheese, crab rangoon (I would eat crab rangoon I find on the sidewalk), corn chowder soup, and whole catfish. I really enjoyed the tenderloin, mac & cheese and soup.
For dessert I grabbed a piece of chocolate pie… it was a bit weird. I actually had to cut through the topping with a knife… I think it had been sitting out for days and had dried into a weird gummy bear consistency. I ate one bite, but was afraid of its age.
I will go back (especially when it’s free). I’m not sure I’d really pay $ 16 or so for the buffet since I usually am a one plate type of person.

I was not that impressed. I thought the choices were kind of limited. The food was good but was plain and simple.

My coworkers that came here told me this place was not bad so I went with my other coworker for lunch. He had a «buy one meal and get one free» coupon that he got from a Royal’s game (I think). It was pretty close to where we worked so that was good. If you pay cash or credit card, then it’ll be $ 10.64 total (from $ 9.99). If you had the coupon we had, then it would jump up two more dollars. I think it was supposed to be $ 11.99 for lunch. I’ll post up the picture I took.
There were not a whole lot to choose from or maybe I was just picky. Everything I ate was barely okay or not good. The fried rice tasted a little bit off and I don’t know how fried rice can be messed up. I’d have to agree with my coworker on this but the mac n cheese was the only thing that was decent. I would say it was the best thing they had out there in the buffet. Besides that mac n cheese, there was nothing else worthy of me mentioning them. Mac n cheese gave this place two stars; otherwise, it would be one star.
Not worth the money for lunch and probably dinner too.

I’ve Tried (My Rating in Parentheses)
— Country Fried Steak (⁵⁄₁₀)
— Fried Chicken (⁵⁄₁₀)
— Hush Puppies (⁵⁄₁₀)
— Mac & Cheese (⁷⁄₁₀)
— Jambalaya (³⁄₁₀)
— Buffalo Wings (¹⁄₁₀)
— BBQ Beef Ends (³⁄₁₀)
— BBQ Chicken (³⁄₁₀)
— Sesame Chicken (¹⁄₁₀)
— Egg Drop Soup (²⁄₁₀)
— Cream of Potato Soup (⁴⁄₁₀)
— Lasagna (²⁄₁₀)
— Garlic Bread (²⁄₁₀)
— Chocolate Cream Pie (²⁄₁₀)
— Ice Cream (⁵⁄₁₀)
This is my first buffet review so…
Well, I’m from Chicago, and this place reminded me of Old Country Buffet. The dining area doesn’t look very elegant, and I’m sure it’s hard to keep a buffet clean, but even though I did see workers sweeping the floor often, the place looked really dirty. The inside of this place looked very low class. I was with California people and they said it reminded them of Hometown Buffet. I don’t know what that is, so I can’t comment on that. Buffets are kinda nice in that way. There really aren’t too many surprises. From the outside, if you look inside and it looks mediocre or not that good, it usually translates to their food.
There are 7 sections or so. There’s a Salad Bar, an American section, «Center Cut» meat section where they cut you a piece of brisket, etc, BBQ Section, Chinese section, Italian section, and a Sweets section. None of these stations are that big. I’d say each section had maybe 8 – 10 items. Now, I’m counting both a Country Fried Steak and Corn as an «Item,» so even though 8−10×7 = 56 – 70 items, a lot of those are sides, so don’t picture too big.
I’d say that the American side had the best food out of the bunch. The Country Fried Steak and Hush Puppies were actually pretty decent. I normally am not the biggest fan of Mac & Cheese, but theirs was so cheesy and thick that it was actually very good. I’m also a KFC or Bust fried chicken kinda guy, but even having said that, the fried chicken was certainly not the worst I’ve had. It’s not as crispy as some of the chains out there, but it was seasoned fairly well. Now take that with a grain of salt, because I’m pretty ignorant when it comes to fried chicken. Come on, I mean, «KFC or Bust»? You can see that it’s not my forte! I’m also new to Jambalaya, but I didn’t really like this one either.
Granted, a low class buffet isn’t the place to find authentic Kansas City BBQ, but even then, this whole section left much to be desired. The BBQ Beef Ends, which is unique to KC, had an interesting texture, not bad, but the BBQ sauce just didn’t really cut it. The BBQ chicken was pretty standard low quality buffet style BBQ Chicken. The buffalo wings were disgusting! Tasted nothing like buffalo sauce, was greasy, and just blech!
Oh yeah, I’ve already determined I don’t like brisket, and I didn’t want any of their ham so I skipped the Center Cut area. They had fried cod and catfish there, but I’m not a fan of those either, so I skipped the whole section.
The Chinese section is garbage! That Sesame Chicken was gross. Egg Drop Soup was really yellow and tasted off, plus it had like some curdled yolk looking stuff in it. God I hope it wasn’t anything added by a disgruntled employee or anything! Eek!
Italian section had pizza, Spaghetti, and Lasagna. I originally passed it on my first round and had my eye on that garlic bread, but there was no flavor to that. Lasagna was just whatever. I could’ve probably made that in a kettle. Throw some pasta, sauce, and cheese, and dump it in a buffet tray. Voila! I skipped the pizza too, that looked nasty.
Salad? I don’t do salads in buffets… unless I go to a salad buffet.
The ice cream was ok, it’s one of those ice cream dispensing machines. You can’t really go wrong. Their pie looked like it had been there since the last time KC Chiefs were undefeated. I don’t know where I found the courage to pick it up and eat it, but that was a mistake.
So all in all. Was it worth the $ 7.77 (Think of 777 as a slot machine — it was a special deal. This is a casino after all)? Yes. I was fed. Would I come back? Probably not. I’d rather go to the Sports Bar next door and get a beer and a burger and call it a day. Would I pay the $ 17.99 normal price? Absolutely NOT! Oh, and what’s worse, the only reason why we went in the first place was because their normal menu is «Prime Steak, Shrimp, and Noodles» on Saturdays starting at 4PM.” We got there just before 4, paid, and waited until 4:30 to ask the «Center Cut» people where the prime steak, shrimp, and noodles were, and he said, «Oh, since today’s a special $ 7.77 price, we’re not having it.» I was upset! But after having tried what this place had to offer, I’m starting to think that NOT having the prime rib, shrimp, and noodles may have been a blessing in disguise.
Oh, BTW, they couldn’t come up with a better name than this? This casino rakes in millions of dollars a day, and all they could come up with was «The Buffet»? They couldn’t come up with ANYTHING better?! Well, the lack of inspiration explains the food quality, I guess!