Not true at Bacchanal. I thought there wouldn't be a ridiculous line because it was a Monday. I was wrong. I am grimly convinced now that there is always a ridiculous line. At all hours of the day, every day of the week. I know there was a ridiculous line when we got there, there was still a ridiculous line when we got in, and there was a ridiculous line when we left! At 3pm! I thought we could come back at a non-lunch hour and it would be better, and that was not true. We walked all the way around the forum shops, and outside Caesar's, but no. Still a line. So we just grit our teeth to get inside - it's a new buffet, and the decor is pretty interesting (chandeliers made of drinking glasses), so we wanted to check it out. The line of food is immense. Each international section could stand alone as it's own buffet - Chinese, Mexican, Italian, American. Because each section is so long, some uncommon offerings are among the regular fare. Fried donut sticks and peking duck, sliders and oyster shooters. The dining areas were split into an area where all the decor was glass, another area where it was all wood, and another where it was all ebony. The best part was at the end of the line, where some industrious dudes were juicing things and placing cups of squeezed juice on ice, and one industrious dude who was shucking oysters as fast as he could to appease the crowd. And there was a crowd - the down side of the super-sized Bacchanal is that no amount of food and servers can really keep up with that many people. Desserts were plentiful and creative, if not the most delectable I've ever had. The forum shops had a very nice atrium, actually, but the stores, like at Crystals, are so top-of-the-line that one need not bother going inside any of them. Well the H&M is probably reasonable, but check out the entrance:
We don't have a shot of it from far away, but that's a three story entrance. Also, I have a picture of the main entrance atrium. (Somebody loves him some curved escalators)
We left for the CityCenter to check out the Mandarin Oriental. I hadn't heard anything about it before, so I was surprised by the fact that the lobby is on the 23rd floor - almost nothing on the ground floor entrance except a bank of elevators that takes you to the real lobby. I was a bit thrown for a loop. But the lobby does have a really great view, so I suppose it's worth the moment of confusion. Between Aria and Mandarin Oriental there is a strip of galleries, and usually we don't care about that sort of thing, but we did peek into the Dale Chihuly gallery. After that, we watched the water wall for a bit and then headed to the airport.
