If you have been to New York City then you have probably heard of Carbone – an Italian restaurant serving up delicious pasta. Well Carbone has a restaurant inside the Aria Hotel in Las Vegas.
Their menu is large but each dish is meant to be shared family style. While looking over the menu, the server will bring the table an assortment of breads (everything from garlic bread to pizza bread), fresh sliced pepperoni, chopped cauliflower marinated in a vinegar sauce, and fresh-cut parmesan cheese. The options are enough to fill you up if you are not careful.
Their homemade minestrone soup sounded good, even though it was almost 115 degrees outside. When the soup was presented, a bowl with all the pasta and vegetables was placed in front of me; then my server poured the broth into the bowl. It was a great way to keep the broth hot before getting to the table.
The table shared two pasta dishes. The first was a vodka sauce penne. According to our server, this was one of their most popular pasta dishes. The sauce was very cream and had a generous helping of grated parmesan cheese on top. What I wasn’t expecting was the heat. There were a few crushed red chili flakes in the sauce that gave each bite a kick.
The second dish was the lobster mac and cheese, because who doesn’t love mac and cheese; throw in lobster and you have a party going on in your mouth. The cheese sauce was extremely rich and creamy. The added texture from the large chunks of lobster helped break up the cheese overload.
The table decided just to stick with two pastas because the dessert cart was calling our names. Each dessert was a beautiful presentation of editable art.
The carrot cake had a spiral design on the outside and the cream cheese icing was layered between each slice.
The chocolate cake topped with ice cream was heavenly. If you are a chocolate lover then this dessert is a must.
No Italian meal would be complete without cheesecake. They made a lemon cheesecake that was sweet and tart with a refreshing after-taste. The desserts were large enough to share and allows for everyone to get a taste of everything.
If you are hungry for Italian while in Sin City, make reservations for Carbone. Check out their menu at www.aria.com/restaurants
Enjoy!
T
