Eat: Enoteca Otto Pizzeria in Las Vegas

In our continuing effort to eat all Italian food, all of the time, we decided to try Enoteca Otto for lunch on our first day in Vegas. I missed out on the chance to try Otto in New York during my last visit so I was keen on this second chance.Otto Pizzeria is located in the mall known as the shoppes at the Venetian. The Venetian Hotel is truly a sight to behold; if you have limited time to visit Vegas, be sure to make time for this hotel. Yes, it's kitschy, but it's also downright opulent. Not to mention, really well executed. I can't even begin to explain how much detail has gone into it's design, with the shops located around the canal under the 'bluy sky' ceiling. It really does have the vibe of an Italian Piazza. I've never been to Venice but I can say that it made me reminisce of lunch at Piazza Navona in Rome.

But back to Otto. When we sat down for lunch at Otto we knew we had to eat lighter than normal (i.e. only one course) because we also had dinner reservations later than evening. We started with some really nice cocktails. I had one which was called Sicilian Iced Tea, which contained (to my recollection) some kind of Sicilian digestif-style liqueur, lime juice, soda and bitters. It was a bit rough on the first sip but the herbaceous taste really grew on me, by the end I was wanting a second glass. I definitely want to replicate this one at home.

For my plate, I selected the Rigatoni with Ragu Napolitana (veal, pork, tomato) for $21. The pasta was delicious and the sauce had great flavour, all meaty, fatty salty, and tangy. You know, all that good stuff. It was served a bit too cold but I could get past that. The only issue was that the meat in the sauce was braised chunks of meat which had ample sinew and fat. This is not normally a problem but we had just come from the Bodies exhibit at the Luxor and let's just say that I am extremely susceptible to imagery....muscle, fat, bone... ughhh. I let my imagination turn me off of my meal. Trust me, I know it's not fair to review a plate based on this fact; it had nothing to do with the plate and a lot more to do with my crazy. But alas, I gobbled up all the pasta and much of the sauce while leaving a sizable amount of meat behind. Marc took the Piatti del giorno menu of Linguine and Clams with garlic & chili. He said it was seasoned differently than the ones he tried in Amalfi, but was very good.

A small lunch like that probably didn't give us a good enough sample of the menu to base our opinion on. It was much better than D.O.C.G., but I'm not sure if it was second visit worthy. That's the thing about places like Vegas and NYC, with so many options it's a real negotiation to decide if a restaurant is worth a second visit. If Otto was in Montreal I would probably go a couple times a year but with such fierce competition in both Las Vegas and NYC, it would be hard for me to choose it over other options.

On a side note, thanks to our gluttonous behaviour at breakfast (Wicked Spoon) and lunch (Otto), we were forced to cancel our dinner reservation at Rick Moonen's RM Seafood because we were too full to eat dinner. We actually skipped dinner entirely that night, opting instead for a half a bottle of wine (Hess, yum yum, don't see that in Montreal often) and some big @ss bottles of water. Yep...I'm such an old lady I can't even over-indulge with food when I go to Vegas, forget about booze.

Sadly, I did not think to take any food photos at Otto for this post.