I believe the meal plan is a good idea particularly if you meet two conditions: you want to go to one of the breakfast buffets and that you want to eat at the somewhat more formal (and expensive) dinner restaurants. If you are going to do both, then you WILL save a good deal of money with the meal plan. You can buy multiple meal plan booklets if you are with a large party.
Among the higher end restaurants: Azur (French with fantastic views over the property and out to the bay), Quinto (fantastic steak house on top of building 5 with insane views), Tramonto (Italian), Gong (Asian), Cost Arena (seafood), Epazote (Mexico) are all great. Personal favorite in NV are Quinto and Azur (for some reason Tramonto is much better in RM).
There are a number of mid level restaurants: Burger Custom Made has great burgers. Cantina for Mexican that has a nice laser light show on the pond outside, but when we were there was brand new and not great).
You can always go to the La Plaza and enjoy different types of food with tacos on the deck outside, crepe at Sweet Paris, and other pastries, frozen yogurt, chocolate inside.
There are others as well but these will certainly keep you busy. Check out the app as they have all the restaurants listed and many with menus. Plan the trip and plan to use, if you buy, the meal plan at the most expensive dinner options.
Do go to a breakfast buffet at least once. There are now a few different choices including Quinto and Fresh Co. which are newer editions. The big buffet is a great one time treat for us. We usually buy breakfast goods at Walmart (or even the grocer in La Plaza) and eat in the unit all but one morning. Easier and much cheaper.
There are also many good restaurants off campus to try - both in the NV marina and downtown PV. It is really not too hard to get off the resort and into town. Yes it takes some time. But, if you think of it as a laid back vacation and understand you will need to shuttle to the tax stand, then take the long winding road out, it is not an issue. Converted to US dollars it is also not expensive.
(as an aside and only tangentially related to food, PV is a fantastic town. We chose to buy at Vidanta because we love to explore the food, culture, history of the country. Every time we visit we spend at least one, if not two, days of the week on some adventure or excursion. I know a lot of the reviews, and for good reason, make is seem like it is like fort knox and impossible to get out, but it is not and it is usually well worth the little bit of extra effort).
