STRIPLV DINING

 

EATALY
By Vegas Food Nerd


Located at The Park MGM Las Vegas, Eataly is a food lover’s paradise. Walking in, it’s bright, clean and feels like you are in an outdoor market in the heart of Italy somewhere with gourmet oils, a vast wine shop, gourmet varieties of tomatoes and hoards of other Italian gourmand treasures to indulge and splurge on.
 
Within the market, they have two anchor restaurants, one serving fresh pizzas and the other promising an authentic meat-lover experience with custom butchered meats. In the center are a variety of stands with different treats, offering a chance to sample various delicacies. There is a seafood counter and meat counter at both stops where you can select one of their high-quality cuts of meat, or fish, and they will grill it up right in front of you. There is a street food stand offering fritters, panini, a mozzarella
bar, and roasted specialties. There is also a stand for fresh pasta creations, a pizza stand for freshly made pies, a cannoli stand, a crepe stand, a center bar, and of course an Italian coffee stand.
 
When we visited, we took our time and browsed the unique items in their store, and perusing each menu carefully at each stand. The seafood counter was calling us after we saw the chef shucking the oysters for another customer. They looked supremely fresh and ideally sized. Sorry, I’m not a fan of oysters that are too big. These were small west coast farmed oyster’s that were sweet briny bites served with a perfect vinaigrette sauce. After we polished off that dish, we opted to stay with the seafood and sample the sea bass grilled for our next course. We picked out our cut of fish, and then we could select the style we wanted the fish prepared. We chose the Fregola style, which is served on a bed of roasted corn, summer squash, cherry tomatoes, and Israeli couscous. When the dish came to our table, it was hot, fresh, and a fantastic combination of flavors. We both took a moment to make that oh my god look to each other.
 
We forced ourselves to visit another stand or two and landed next at the mozzarella. They make their mozzarella right smack in the middle of Eataly every day, so I was eager to try this offering. We paired ours with roasted cherry tomatoes and roasted beets. The cheese was a bit of a letdown; I expected the homemade cheese to be very tender, but what we were served was denser than I’d typically want my fresh mozzarella to be. However, the beets were roasted impeccably, and we were so pleased with all of our other dishes that the cheese was just a minor gaff.
 
After our cheese course we couldn’t help but stop by the pastry section and got a made-to-order cannoli. You pick the shell, the filling, and the toppings that you dip on the ends of our favorite Italian confection—yum. Pair that with an excellent strong espresso to round out our visit, and it was a very happy day at Eataly indeed.
 
The prices for the food weren’t over the top, the prices on the wine we had were a bit steep, but also to be expected on the strip. If you have an Italian food lover that you’d like to show a good time this is a stop you should definitely make.
 
 
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