| rev:text
| - Is it.. I'm pretty sure.. Yea. It's love. I've been here twice in the past week, and I'm meeting up with them tomorrow at the Tivoli Village Farmers Market.
It all started with the antipasto.. hot capicola, peppercorn flecked mortadella, calabrese and genoa salami sliced paper thin, the best pepperoni I've ever set taste buds on, tavern style ham, provolone cheese, and the proscuitto... best. Ever. In the middle is a green salad dressed simply with balsamic and olive oil, topped with garbanzo beans and thinly sliced red onion. This plate.. which is huge.. is only $14 (for two people, addl $4 p/p after). Paired with the amazing hot bread they serve brushed with garlic oil and parmesan, I wish I could make a meal out of this alone. I say wish, because it's just not that easy here. When Chef Marcus comes over to explain the specials.. you're in for the long haul.
Their Pappardelle with Bolognese is quite possibly the most comforting food I've ever eaten. It tastes like a hug. Or your favorite sweater on a cold day, if your favorite sweater was perfectly al dente. Perfectly toothsome, all the pasta here is homemade, and the sauce was thick and rich, you could see bits of carrot and peas.
The escargot was tender, garlicky, lemony, not gritty, but very very salty. Whoever was making it that night certainly had a heavy had with the salt but it did not deter me from using the crostinis they serve with it to soak up some of that sauce. I love salt. The menu described this dish as having truffle oil in it, but the only earthy notes I got were from the escargot itself.
The charred octopus.. wow! I didn't know octopus could be this tender. It was almost like a scallop. Chef Marcus cooks the tentacles in wine and beer for almost three hours before finishing it in the oven to give it that slight char. The cabbage slaw on the bottom is very acidic (lemon) and it a nice contrast to the soft sweetness of the octopus. This is served with sliced apple and celery.
The uni with linguine (special) was delicious, and a unique offering here in Vegas. The sauce is creamy with red chili flakes and shaved garlic. The taste of the uni was perfect and fresh, like clean ocean water, and there was a lot of uni in this which just melted in your mouth. The only complaint on this was that the garlic was a little burnt and lent a bitterness to an otherwise perfect dish.
If you haven't been here yet, you should make it a point to go soon. I've only been here for dinner, but would love to try their lunch offerings. Their menu changes often on the chef's whim. The deli case is always impressive and they also have some Italian dry goods for sale, as well as homemade pastas to take home.
Wednesday nights ~5:30pm-9:00pm is pizza night and they do neopolitan style thin crust pizzas. They're also at Tivoli Village on Saturdays selling their homemade pastas and amazing parmesano reggiano (best I've found in Vegas) until 1pm.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)