Thanksgiving at Wynn Las Vegas Buffet

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving with friends, family and lots of vegan food. Extra love to those lone vegans at the dinner table, I’m with you! In the past I’m not going to lie, my family and I had choice words over food {shocking!}. So this year to keep the peace and have some extra holiday cheer we had Thanksgiving at the Wynn Las Vegas. Good call mom!

The Wynn is my favorite hotel in Las Vegas for many reasons. First the decore is warm, chic and artistic. Secondly, it’s an international destination with many Chinese tourist. I lived in China a couple of times and I LOVE speaking Chinese, it’s one of my great passions in life. Every time I go to the Wynn there are signs in Chinese, lots of Chinese conversations and just an awesome boost of international culture. Lastly, the Wynn being vegan friendly is SO cool! I really don’t know what else I could ask for. Oh wait I know… no smoking inside the casino. Aside from that, it’s fantastic. 

My family and I decided on the buffet so we all can just eat what we want and have a real fest. It was a 3 hour wait so I was guessing it was worth the wait. The family behind us in line had a vegetarian in their family so the Wynn is a family favorite too. I would like to think the majority of people where there for the vegan food : )

Once we finally got in the buffet, it was GO time! I did a tour of all the vegan options. FYI, our vegan options are among the regular options. I started with the Asian foods. I haven’t had good Korean, Japanese and Chinese food since leaving New York City so I was happy. Check out my Asian food plate… I went back for seconds! Even their white rice tasted extra good. The vegan vegetable sushi rolls were a crowd favorite and most popular roll at the sushi bar. Kim Chi was nice and spicy. My favorite was the “Asian Slaw”. I’m not 100% sure what was in this magical slaw but it really was amazing. Don’t you love the clearly marked “vegan” on the sign? It was great to just look for the vegan sign at each station.

After my stop in Asia, it was off the the Middle East. My favorite here was the spiced lentils. Other vegan option included hummus however the naan bread had egg in it… would have been nice to have a vegan bread option. To be honest, I have had better vegan Middle Eastern food.

Once my lentils settled, it was off to the Italian food. There was vegan raviolis with two different options of sauces. There was a chef stationed to create your own personal Italian pasta creation. The only thing is I saw the chef use the SAME tongs with a pasta dish that I saw had chicken in it and then touched my lovely vegan raviolis. It all happened so fast that there was no going back. I double checked my raviolis and it looked clean. I would just kindly like to ask the Chefs to be more careful when preparing vegan food {we are vegan for a reason}. Overall, my vegan artichoke and spinach raviolis with vegan veggie sausage bolognese sauce were tasty.

After the Italian food, the only section left was the salad bar. Surprisingly,  the salad bar was the least vegan friendly section. There was different grain dishes including a barly, quinia and butternut squash which looked vegan. I asked if they were vegan because I thought maybe someone forgot to add the “vegan” sign. Well once I explain to two different cooks what vegan meant, all the grain dishes had honey in it. That was the only non vegan ingredient. It would have been nice to have three more options and I’m sure the non vegans wouldn’t have mind not having honey in their grains. Also there was no vegan soup or salad option. The one vegan option was roasted cauliflower and it was pretty good but would have liked more options.

After a not so great experience at the salad bar, I looked to the dessert room to make up for it. The dessert room had two vegan options. We had vegan chocolate chip cookies with pecans and candy apples. I have to say, those cookies were the BEST cookies ever! My family was eating the vegan cookies too : )

I always love my cookies dipped in coffee with soy milk!

In summary, for vegan options it was quality over quantity. It was great having clearly marked vegan foods and the majority of vegan options were full of great flavor! It was fantastic to have a peaceful family meal because everyone ate their favorite foods {my omni family also loved the buffet too}. Luckily I wasn’t looking for traditional Thanksgiving vegan options because they were none. Their Asian food was excellent and that made me really happy! My vegan wish is they make a couple of easy changes like omitting honey so we have a few more basic food options. Also, please separate tongs for vegan food. Aside from that, it was a fun and tasty experience with my family. For $49.95/person go hungry and eat up buttercup!