Sometimes you’re just in the mood for something basic and uncomplicated, wouldn’t you agree? No fancy plate stylings or exotic garnishes, just a bowl of good old spaghetti and clams (aka pasta alle vongole),

and boy can Mimmo Ferraro’s fill that bill. This may be the best version of this Italian-American classic we’ve had since we visited Umberto’s Clam House in NYC’s Little Italy years ago, to see where Crazy Joey Gallo bought the farm.

As we were double-booked for lunch (a common occurrence for ELV), we then hightailed in to Caesars to Mesa Grill to chow down on a Bobby Flay Cuban burger — that was tastier than anything we’ve had there in a long time.

Equally surprising: good grilled mahi-mahi tacos, a quesadilla more agressively spiced than we remember the food being here, and a cornbread pudding dessert that had three grown men fighting for the last bite.

To hear how tough I’ve been on Mesa Grill in the past, click here. And to read Frank Bruni’s review in the NYTimes (echoing my thoughts of three years earlier), click here.

To hear a past review of Ferraro’s, click here.

Ferraro’s Italian Restaurant

5900 West Flamingo Rd.

Las Vegas, NV 89103

702.364.5300

Mesa Grill

In Caesars Palace

3570 Las Vegas Blvd. South

Las Vegas, NV 89109

877.346.4642

www.mesagrill.com/lasvegas/

We’re long overdue to feature Paul Bartolotta’s as-fresh-as-it-can-be Italian seafood on KLAS TV’s Restaurant of the Week. Now that the segment has officially been re-named: Dishing and Dining, we thought we’d kick it off by featuring this Italian master and his craft.

Now that you’ve seen ELV espouse the virtues of this magnificent restaurant, go here to hear him praise its pisciform productions in the sonorous tones for which he is known.

FYI: Alan Richman loves to tell people the best (and most affordable) way to experience Paul B’s food is to go here an not order the whole fish. As tempting as that may be, unless you’re celebrating your inheritance (or someone else is picking up the tab), stick with the pastas and a la carte items and you’ll have an incredible meal for less than a house payment.

BARTOLOTTA RISTORANTE DI MARE

In the Wynn Hotel and Casino

3131 Las Vegas Blvd. South

Las Vegas, NV 89109

702.770.3305

Here is our ROTW on Channel 8, which allows you to hear me extol the virtues of Los Molcajetes using the word “authentic” so many times that someone should’ve strangled me with some ropa vieja. Instead of repeating myself, I should have noted that the restaurant is CASH ONLY. So bring a small wad or be prepared to cross the street for the ATM at the 7-11.

This week on Channel 8 we feature Rao’s in Caesars Palace. It’s the toughest table in New York and the best Italian-American food in Las Vegas. Shhhh…but here’s a tip: the food here is identical to that on 114th Street in Manhattan. So save yourself the trip (and the aggravation) of trying to score a table there, and just stroll into Caesars here, and enjoy the best meatballs in town. Buon gusto!

ELV has sung the praises of L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon so many times (KNPR, KNPR, JohnMariani.com, KLAS TV et al), another rave review seems redundant. It was our Restaurant of the Year in 2006, and Chef Steve Benjamin, Pastry Chef Kamel Guechida (Bon Appetit Magazine, KNPR and KLAS TV’s Pastry Chef of the Year for 2007), along with General Manager Emmanuel Cornet, run such a tight ship that updating any of those past reviews is unnecessary. But we cruised by there last week and were as impressed as ever by the food, so we thought we’d feature some tasty snaps to inspire some serious salivatory stimulation.

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Friday’s ROTW segment on the KLAS TV Morning News features all the great MGM restaurants in the opening (and the specials they run this week for Restaurant Week benefiting ThreeSquare.) From there we segue into a look at Shibuya, ELV’s favorite Japanese restaurant in town. It may not compete with the finely-tuned sushi and sashimi of Urasawa in Los Angeles, or Masa or Kuruma Zushi in New York, but for what it is — a huge restaurant in a huge hotel — the creations turned out by Chef Stephane Chevet and his raw fish brigade are mighty fine indeed. And there’s no better place to expand your sake exposure than among the 130 bottles offered here. Unfortunately, we found out after the segment aired that Ryan Steimer – Shibuya’s sake sommelier — is no longer with the restaurant. ELV regrets not giving Steimer more attention over the past year, but ELV also regrets that most restaurant employees have wanderlust that makes jazz musicians look like these guys.

Osteria del Circo is our favorite Italian restaurant in town and has been so ever since it opened ten years ago in the Bellagio. Chef Vincenzo Scarmiglia continues to make this Tuscan kitchen hum with pastas, fish and meat dishes that hew close to their Italian ancestry and never fail to dazzle. Click below for this week’s ROTW segment on Channel 8 with my good food buddy, Denise Valdez.

Osteria del Circo

In the Bellagio

3600 Las Vegas Blvd. South

Las Vegas, NV 89109

702.693.8150

http://www.bellagio.com/restaurants/circo.aspx

 

Yes food fans, it’s that time of the week again. Time for your weekly dose of The Man in the White Suit.

This week we feature more incredible summer bargains among our plethora of big-hitter Strip restaurants.

All of these deals (at Fiamma, Fleur de Lys and Craftsteak) represent about 50% off regular pricing, and are good through the first week of September. So eat out early and often….and tell ‘em Channel 8 (and ELV) sent you!

For those of you who don’t get up with the pigs and chickens, but who require your Friday dose of The Food Man, here is our Restaurant of the Week segment on the Channel 8 Morning News with Denise Valdez and Dave McCann, featuring DAL TORO RISTORANTE in the Palazzo.

Please ignore my verbal gaffe at calling Mitsuo Endo a Chinese chef on last week’s ROTW segment! Quelle horreur! I hereby publicly beg his forgiveness and promise to commit seppuku if I ever do it again.

RAKU is so good it’s scary. Fresh, pristine, pure Japanese robatayaki cooking like Las Vegas has never seen, and fast becoming a foodie mecca like we’ve never had off the Strip.

Uber-seafood chef Paul Bartolotta told me he’s been twelve (12!) times in two months and still isn’t tired of it.

We (Food Man, #2 Son of Food Man, and The Food Gal) went last night and tried three desserts (after some pickled Bonito guts, beef liver, cold soba noodles et al), and found the melting chocolate cake to be possibly the best in town - ditto the watermelon grantinee (called sorbet on the menu).

Chef/owner Mitsuo Endo told us (through his interpreter - the adorable Risa) that he originally came here to cook in a restaurant in, of all places, Anthem - that bastion of bad taste in Henderson.* Anthem’s loss was the rest of the town’s gain.

And for the first time on TV, watch the world’s greatest restaurant critic** eat a pig’s ear on a morning news show.***

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* As in: houses (ginormous), cars (nothing but SUV’s), traffic (unbearable) and good restaurants (non-existent)

** Self-proclaimed

*** YouTube here I come.