Centrally located on the Las Vegas Strip, Bellagio's buffet is widely considered to be the very best. Its carving station goes beyond the usual prime rib to include St. Louis barbecue ribs and chicken Wellington. The large variety of cuisines includes Italian, Japanese, Chinese, and American. It's not the cheapest -- $21 breakfasts, $25 lunches, $36-$41 dinners, and $31 weekend brunches -- but it's worth the experience.

Studio B, the buffet at the M Resort, serves upwards of 200 different types of dishes a day. In terms of quality, the food is on par with other top Vegas buffets, including the highly touted one at the Bellagio, but the prices are lower.

The remarkable all-you-can-eat buffet at the Rio is well worth the short trip from the Strip. At $33 (and $48 for the seafood buffet), the 300-plus-dish buffet is pricey, but solid.

The remodeled buffet at the Wynn is on the high end of Vegas buffets ($42.99 weeknight dinners). But for that price, diners get 15 staffed cooking stations, including ones serving seafood, Italian, Mexican, and American cuisine, and an impressive dessert spread. Plus, in contrast to most Vegas buffets, the grand dining room is large, airy, and filled with enormous displays of brilliant flowers.

The whimsical, Disney-esque Le Village Buffet at the Paris has cook-to-order stations, each serving a different regional French cuisine. Lines can be long, and the gooey pie filling on top of the Belgian waffles is no substitute for real fruit, but Francophile diners with American appetites won't find such a vast spread of French food at a better price ($22-24 breakfasts, $31-34 dinners).

Unlike most Vegas buffets, which tend to be dark and windowless, the scenic Flamingo Paradise Garden Buffet overlooks the streams, gardens, and live flamingos of the hotel's wildlife preserve. For food, your best bet is the $23 champagne brunch: some 60 different breakfast foods, including made-to-order omelets and waffles, corned beef hash, and smoked Norwegian salmon. The $29 dinners, however, are no better than average (except for the crustacean corner).

The Treasure Island buffet is not the biggest on the Strip, but with a chef who makes salads to order, a custom pasta station, sushi chefs on the floor, and barbecue, it's definitely a notch above the typical Vegas all-you-can-eat spread, and all for a reasonable price ($20 breakfasts, $24 lunches, $30-$32 dinners, and $27 Champagne brunches). Plus, the food is fresh and the servers are attentive.

There are plenty of mealtime choices at the Green Valley Ranch; the casino has nine restaurants, including Feast Buffet, a classic Vegas buffet experience.