Caviar is one of the most expensive delicacies in the world, a single ounce can cost upwards of $1,000.
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So, of course, the Bellagio is now offering a caviar station with the "gourmet dinner" buffet.
If you're loading the car at this moment to make your way to that beacon of excess in the desert, perhaps you should reflect upon this caviar introduction from Thomas Keller before choking down a mountain of the stuff just because it's expensive. Also, the gourmet dinner buffet is served only Friday through Sunday.
The press release promises that your caviar feast can be enjoyed on "Delicate, house-made blinis, miniature buckwheat waffles, freshly rolled sushi, and Ahi tuna cones." Which actually sounds pretty good considering that "miniature waffles" sound like an idea that needs to catch on as a general practice. Beyond that you can get unlimited drinks for $8 more, in case you want to wash your caviar down with a bucket of Bloody Marys.
But, given that the gourmet dinner buffet is only $37, how on Earth can they afford to do this? Granted, the caviar station also features salmon roe (ikura) and flying fish roe (tobiko) which are a good bit cheaper than straight-up caviar. Still, the caviar brand featured in the press release doesn't come cheap. It's Keluga farmed caviar which is currently selling for over $1,000 on Amazon.com to mere mortals such as ourselves. That works out to around $125 per ounce, which means that a dedicated buffet eater trying to get his money worth easily could slurp down a couple of spoonfuls of caviar and be secure in the knowledge that he's stuck it to the Bellagio, right before heading back to the casino to blow $300 on craps.
It seems reasonable to suspect that the Bellagio is buying its caviar at far cheaper prices than the rest of us and that the overall buffet ends up paying for itself since it's rare that someone would just camp out on the caviar station for dinner. After all, the house always wins, right?
