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| - I had dinner at Spiedini once before, when I first moved to Vegas, when Yelp didn't even have a foothold. At that time, it had been suggested by our real estate agent, who joined us for dinner. My recollection was of a dimly-lit, sorta romantic upscale place, with high prices to go along with it. Fast forward 10 years, and what a difference a decade makes.
We were warmly greeted at the entrance and immediately shown to a table. The first thing that struck me was how bright the restaurant is: every pendant, recessed, and accent light at full blast, making it seem like the good old days at Senior's restaurant in Brooklyn, aptly named for its clientele. Where was the mood lighting of my memory? Gone, gone, gone.
Service was excellent throughout our dinner. I was happy to see a good German Riesling on the menu, rather than the ubiquitous Chateau Ste. Michelle that's on every other restaurant's list. Two kinds of decent bread were in the basket, promptly delivered along with olive oil/balsamic.
Hubby started with gazpacho. It had a good taste, though it was missing the usual garnish of chopped veggies. It did, though, have a bit of avocado. But in my book, gazpacho needs to be served very cold, even on ice, and this one wasn't quite cold enough.
I ordered from the list of specials, a pork tenderloin w/ prosciutto, served with sauteed spinach and garlic mashed. The pork was sliced paper-thin, but wasn't dried out. It was covered with a tasty brown sauce chock full of fresh dark mushroom quarters. Normally I'm not a fan of sauces, but I liked this one. The fresh spinach was full of garlic slices (yum!), but the mashed potatoes were shockingly bad: thin, watery, flavorless, and tasting as if they'd come out of a box (a dollar store box at that). I asked for a replacement, and cheerfully was served a large portion of the roasted potatoes, and those were very good. There was plenty of pork, and those potatoes, so I have enough for another meal.
My husband had the meatballs and spaghetti. He thought they were okay, but wasn't smacking his lips. I tasted the meatballs and didn't like them, but I detest meatballs made with pork, which this seemed to have. And it's rare for me to like a meatball that doesn't taste like the ones my mom used to make, even though her cooking in general left much to be desired. (Well-done liver, anyone?). I didn't try his spaghetti, so I can't speak to it's "toothsome-ness," but it wasn't a very large portion.
The prices, while not low, aren't as relatively high as they were 10 years ago. My entree, at $20, was a much better value than Herb's, which was $19. In a contrarian move, this restaurant seems to buck the tide of all the others: many of the specials are the same price or lower than the ones on the regular menu. That's almost unheard of these days.
I've been seesawing between 3 and 4 stars, but downgraded it to 3 because of the lighting, the awful mashed potatoes, and the stingy portion of balls and pasta. I enjoyed my dinner, and three stars means A-OK so I'll stick with that for now.
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