FIREFLY -LAS VEGAS

http://www.fireflylv.com/

My wife ( God bless her) always wants to share my meal at restaurants.   Now myself, I love to eat- I love to eat whats on my plate. I love to eat all of it. I don't like to share. But when you go to a restaurant that serves tapas you don't really have much of a choice.
You share, no questions asked. Such is the case with Firefly Tapas Bar in Las Vegas. Located on Paradise Road and also in the downtown Plaza Hotel and Casino, Firefly is well know for its great assortment of sharing plates. This was our second visit.

The first thing you see when you walk in is the view . It is probably the best view of Downtown Freemont Street that you will see. It is the perfect place to take in all the sights including the Freemont Street Canopy show. Simone and I had no trouble finding a seat, although it was dinner time. We looked through the rather extensive menu and decided on our first couple tapas plates. The staff is very smart and always leaves at least one copy of the menu at the table so this way you can just keep ordering until you are ready to explode, as well as your wallet.

We started out our meal with The Artichoke Toasts. It was simple yet satisfying consisting with 6 slices of  toasted french bread topped with  baby artichoke hearts marinated in Italian seasonings with diced roasted red pepper and drizzled with a Lemon Aioli and sprinkled with fresh basil. A great combination of flavors.

Next up was more bread ( you gotta love bread). This tapas plate was called Tomato Bread . It was diced , crushed tomato & garlic rubbed on french bread slices topped with fresh shaved manchego cheese and thin sliced serrano ham.  Again, simple and delicious and another great choice, although you may want to pass it up if you are on a first date as it does leave a bit of garlic aftermath on your breath.

After the cold tapas, we moved on to some hot options. First up was the Crispy Duck Rolls. These consisted of Cherry Hoison marinated shredded duck stuffed in an eggroll wrapper and fried crisp, then cut in half and served open faced with green onions and more Cherry Hoison Glaze.  These were great. The sweetness of the sauce was perfect with the duck, which was perfectly tender.  I could have eaten a dozen of these.

At this point, the bread began to catch up with Simone who raised the white flag on her meal. However, for me the battle was still on. So I decided to finish the meal with the Merguez tapas.  Merguez is homemade spicy lamb sausage and it is served with a roasted tomato and red pepper confit and (yes more) toasted bread. This was actually the largest tapas plate of the whole meal. When I first cut into the sausage I found it to be a little undercooked for my personal taste, but people who enjoy rare lamb would have found it perfect. The lamp itself was indeed spicy , and had a gamey venison flavor. However, with the sauce and confit it came together nicely. This was not my favorite appetizer but it was good.

So after the lamb, our evening at Firefly came to in end. Although I had to play nice and share with  Simone it was still overall a very good "meal" and experience. Three stars for Firefly ***