Touring the Wicked Spoon, Las Vegas

No trip to Las Vegas is a complete without a gluttonous visit to a buffet.  Yes, I said a buffet.  While there are inherently undesirable traits about buffets, we visited one nonetheless.  Not once, but twice, we visited the Wicked Spoon.  The first time was because I had read that this was one of the better buffets.  The second time was because both @Windaddict and I won a free dinner buffet.  Before we jump into the photos, I'll go through the pros and cons.

Pros:

• The cheesy carbohydrate dishes were absolutely amazing.  In particular, the cheesy grits and gnocchi were probably best I've had.  I'm fairly certain that there was a copious amount of butter and mascarpone cheese those dishes.  This statement does not include the cheese covered vegetables.
• A variety of foods including the roasted beef marrow and snow crab legs as dinner. I liked that there were were a number of different cuisines represented.
• The chao siu bao (Chinese pork bbq buns) were pretty tasty.  I think I had five of them over both buffet visits.
• The mac and cheese station at dinner was also wonderfully fantastic.  You get to choose your ad-ins and type of cheese.  They customize your mac and cheese right then.
• Visually pleasing dessert display. 
• The Cosmopolitan does not have overwhelming smell of cigarettes like many other hotels. 

Cons:

• The price of the buffet is pretty expensive compared to other buffets at $22 for a weekday brunch and $35 for dinner. Don't forget to add tax and tip.  There is plenty of overlap on brunch and dinner, so I wouldn't recommend going to both. The brunch was definitely worthy of $22, but $35 for dinner is too steep for my pocketbook.
• The snow crab legs were over salted, and many of the meat dishes were overly greasy.  Avoid the tacos.
• Serving sizes: I thought they were too big as I like tiny little bites.  While the pots were a cute presentation, they were pretty big sizes for a tasting.  I'm sure other people might think that the servings were too small. I felt guilty throwing out so much food. 
• While the desserts were pretty, some of them were just plain odd and not tasty.
• Avoid the rolls pictured below.  They were as hard as a rock.  I could probably use them as a military weapons.

Avoid the tacos.  The sweet potato hash was kind of dried out too.

Pretty desserts, but some were not as palatable as they appeared. 

Yellow jello with pine nuts and a purple macaron?  I'm not sure who came up with that idea.

Oh yes, that cheesy grit was fantastic.  The bacon was tasty.  Avoid that roll in the bottom left side.  I saw many of them left on plates.  It was not even edible. 

I didn't eat most of these, but I do appreciate the time it took to make them. 

Carrot cakes and pecan pies.  These were actually pretty good.

The mac and cheese station was brilliant.

The shrimp and grits wasn't all that great.  The cauliflower au gratin was just alright. 

The sushi was just alright.  The lamb meat ball was tough, though the sauce was quite nice.  Those gnocchi with goat cheese were out of this world fantastic.

Beef marrow, yes.  Snow crab, just alright. 

These little balls were also kind of hard. 

The chocolate covered strawberries were gigantic.  I took the chocolate off and ate the strawberries. 

These cones were filled with vanilla mousse, and the chocolate balls were filled with chocolate truffle.

I did eat all of it, and it was quite nice.

I'm not sure what was going on with the dessert on the right.  I tried the dessert in the middle, and it was too hard to bite through.  Sad waste of butter and sugar.