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| - Before heading out to the airport, we decided to check out Cucina by Wolfgang Puck for lunch. An open restaurant with nice clean modern decor in the Crystal shops near Aria. Only a few patrons for lunch today, the hostess sat us quickly and the waitress came quickly and offered is water immediately after we sat down. We decided on the wild mushrooms and hen egg pizza ($17) and the Papardelle pasta ($22) after looking at Yelp reviews and recommendations by the waitress. The food took a while to come out, I'd guess 15 minutes, which is a bit long especially since there weren't many other customers in the restaurants.
Anyways, when the food came out, I was surprised by the portion. The pizza was a 10-inch pizza but most places that offer pizza on the menu is this puny sized a bit bigger than your hand pizza but this one was huge! Maybe 6 good sized slices. The pappardelle portion was pretty big too. My pizza was in one word, amazing. The pizza was like paper thin and the crust was nice and crunchy. The mushrooms, braised leeks, and fontina and taleggio cheese were rich and delicious. The hens egg (albeit a bit dry looking) was cooked okay so I could slice the egg and the yolk spilled out into the pizza. Altogether the bite was very tasty, with the richness and earthiness of the mushrooms and egg with the right balance of the salty cheese. Next the pappardelle was very impressive. Hand-made and cooked to order (as per the waitress), the pasta was very silky and tasted fresh. The marinara was alright to me but altogether, a fine pasta. After the disaster of last night's crap dinner at another name chef's restaurant (a dude famous for Creole), I was impressed and satisfied at this chef's restaurant. I'd definitely try again! 4/5 stars only because despite having quality and tasty food with good service, it was only pizza and pasta. Nothing inventive and outrageously delicious.
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