MORE PLEASE Bottomless mimosas are par for the course at Vegas buffets, but how about a real-live open bar? That’s the situation at the M Resort’s Studio B Buffet, which offers complementary wine, beer and cider to go along with its 200-plus dishes. I was there on a weekend, when sparkling wine to spike your OJ is added to the mix, and found myself seated all the way across the room from the booze station. Sometime between plates one and two I started double-fisting—at brunch, not a toga party at a frat house. But I wasn’t alone; every other table had diners working with two mimosas, beers or ciders, and some mimosa fans even asked to upgrade their Champagne flutes to larger wine glasses. Was I still ashamed? Slightly, but that cider is damn good. —Mark Adams

MSG FOREVER I love Chinese buffets. My mom loves Chinese buffets. And though I can’t know for certain, I imagine I come from a long line of devotees. They’re a cheap thrill for the adventurous eater, honoring the pillars of the Asian palate with a fount of seafood, soups and greens. Crawfish and choy sum, eggy broths and chicken wings … for these delights I can overlook the fact that they’re basically a slurry of cornstarch and MSG—until I can’t anymore. Nearing the end of my second-ish plate, this good idea turns decidedly bad. But no matter: I always leave in a state of self-loathing, and I always enthusiastically return, as if it’s in my blood. —Kristy Totten

COMBO PLATE I take great pleasure in assembling odd and possibly offensive plates when I buffet. It’s less about wanting to bite everything and more about creative consumption; I won’t conform to standard social-eating structures. Meatloaf and mashed potatoes? Psh. Try lox and egg rolls. I think it’s funny and ironic to sculpt sushi swishes around chunks of deep-fried cod and beer-battered scallops. I make sandwiches out of expensive strips of imported charcuterie using greasy slabs of pizza as bread. I drop glops of fruit cobbler atop a breakfast latticework of bacon and sausage. My masterpiece so far: a mountain of lanky crab legs cradling a single, solemn taco—crunchy shell, ground-beef sludge, nacho cheese, guac-ish ooze. How did it not topple on the way to the table, DayGlo orange sauce dangling over crustacean limbs? It’s my art. —Brock Radke