As promised , I have returned to Las Vegas for work and this time I was much more prepared . I had lined up some top rated places and again, online reviews can be valuable but not because it’s super high ranked that it is actually worth it.
I am personally not a fan of hotel food but in Vegas its a whole different story. We will go over 2 of them and 2 regular restaurants.
Let’s begin our trip at Hakkasan straight in the MGM hotel . Superb decor. Just when you enter it something. We ordered a lot of food and shared and pretty much everything was outstanding. I will give some a big thumbs up to the lobster rice ( I think it was a special menu item for an event) it was amazing. Unfortunately, I didn’t think to take a picture of the before nor the rice but heres a sample of it. Would definitely go back
Next we have Ferraro Ristorante. Let me tell you after Hakkasan the bar was high but Ferraro delivered. I was looking for some authentic Italian food , not too Americanized and I was served . The service was impeccable , the food was fresh and tasty. The highlight for me was the tuna in the antipasto , I usually avoid tuna as its overfished but it was ultra fresh and the fennel complemented the fish so well . I did not taste the carpaccio or the prosciutto as I don’t eat meat but others at the table said it was as good as the tuna , which is hard to believe. I also had lobster spaghetti which was delicious. To be honest , it probably makes the top 10 best places I ate in my life.Definitely, will try to go back!
Back to hotel restaurant with Bobby Flay Amalfi in the Ceasar Palace. I had the flat iron shrimps which were delicious with the slightly spicy & lemon flavor. Then I had the lobster cavatelli . The fra diavolo sauce was amazing , super rich and perfectly spicy . Downside is for 42 USD you barely had any lobster and the portion was quite small.
The trip ended with a team dinner at Ocean Prime. I had read so many positive comments about this restaurant. Group reservation was not great as with large groups you have to spend X amount and have a set menu . This didn’t really work for us so we decided to get 2 reservations for 8 and take the gamble we would be sitting next to each other. An hour before the reservation, they called us and offered us a private room for free which was great. Service was pretty ordinary to begin with, the main waiter didn’t seem to enjoy his job and everything was a bit botched . Food was ok but we received extra food which we had not ordered and some we had ordered never arrived. He acked the mistake and when we were done eating, he brought one of the sides they had forgotten….. yeah a bit late . I had ordered again some fra diavolo lobster spaghetti to compare and we were miles away from the Amalfi. On top of it , the food was lukewarm. Not sure why we got such a bad experience but for the price , food and service were not on par. Would not recommend .
All in all , it was a great culinary trip in Vegas . As things look like I will be heading back next year again so we may have a part 3 !