bocastephen

The one thing about DTF is their consistency across their restaurants, with only the original in Taipei sometimes being a cut above the diaspora locations. Compared with our last DTF meal at Santa Anita, I would place it near equivalent in terms of quality - meaning, these aren't the best tasting dumplings in the world by far, but they are pretty OK. The restaurant was completely sold out, but earlier in the day when we asked if there was any priority for Virtuoso customers (it never hurts to ask), the hostess was able to overbook us for dinner. There were probably as many people waiting for their takeout orders as were eating in the restaurant, and I give kudos to the lady with the gumption to enter in her pajamas and spa bathrobe to collect her bag of dumplings, as that might have been one of us if we couldn't get a dining reservation.

We had been looking everywhere for the former breakfast/brunch restaurant we used to eat at before realizing the same space is now occupied by DTF. We also checked with a couple Aria employees and the consensus is the Aria buffet is gone for good and will never come back. The remaining MGM buffets appear to be all breakfast/brunch only, including, incredibly the Bellagio, so there is no dinner buffet option to use a Virtuoso or FHR dining credit. Don't get me started on how down-market the Bellagio has fallen since it was taken over by MGM.