Came to this place with some family friends for our pre Penn & Teller dinner. Just made sense to do the dinner at the same hotel as the show. And yes this is the restaurant with that cheesy ad (as seen on Tropicana) with the Italian guy (that looks like Pit Bull) and the sexy woman in the background who can't resist the "Italian". We didn't realize we had ACTUALLY dined at the place with the horrific ad until post dinner.
Disclaimer: There's a little bit of cheesiness involved in dining here
1) Loud opera style music is playing.
2) Yes there are about six flat screens (estimation) staggered around the dining room. three flat screens were on the wall behind me.
But the food makes up for the cheesiness (if you can get past it). Server was mindful and the busers kept the table clean. Warm rosemary infused bread served with a trio of dipping oils. The extra virgin olive oil was very good. We got some version of a deconstructed caprese with balsamic gastric. Loved the fried basil they gave us with it. They devote a whole portion of their menu to a mozzarella bar. The mozzarella in our caprese was the best that I have ever had. Generally I would say the menu isn't all that revolutionary....lots of fried options and the portions are alot bigger than celeb chef run restaurants (like B&B in the Venetian). I ordered the bucatini all' amatriciana which was perfectly al dente and right on point sauce wise.
For dessert we got bananas foster with waffles and tiramisu. Both were good but oh my god the bananas fosters with waffles sounded disgusting to me (on the menu) but it tasted really good. By the time I got around to taking a bite of it (we were doing family style among the whole table for dessert) the waffles was soaked with the butter from the caramel of the bananas foster. It was like a waffle with seven layers of butter!