An evening of music and antipastini...

Usually I am not the one to attend late evening parties on weeknights since I do have to be up early, but last Wednesday was an exception as my friends asked me to come out to Ferraro's Italian Restaurant and Wine Bar for the Food & Music event at their exciting new location. What enticed me of course was the fact that I was famished and that an old friend Matt Tuttle better known as DJ Shoe would be spinning on the decks well into the evening.

I am not a food critic I leave that up to the man himself John Curtas http://www.eatinglv.com/ but I do have a bit of a discerning palate thanks to my Argentinian roots. Argentina where my parents are from has an interesting culinary past thanks to the huge Italian, Spanish, German, Jewish, French and to a lesser extant British immigrants that make up the nations population. Even my ancestry is deep rooted in Spanish, French and Italian, the latter being the most prominent so I am definitely no stranger to Italian food. As a matter of fact a lot of the Italian food that is served in Las Vegas is just terrible glop covered in so much sauce that in many instances you forget what type of pasta you ordered. Heck I even remember my parents complaining when we went out for dinner at so called "Italian" restaurants at how terrible the sauce was and how much they would serve on the pasta. So when I finally sat down at Ferraro's for a bit of "antipastini," which is basically smaller servings of their normal fair I was pleasantly surprised.

As my friends ordered all different types of Italian "tapas" I ordered the Gnocchi. Gnocchi is a type of dumpling that is made with potato and other ingredients. The dumplings are also one of my favorite Italian dishes and one that I am highly critical of because my mother used to make it religiously. Though when the server brought it over to me I was a little disappointed that it did not look like my mothers, who always rolled the Gnocchi on a small wooden board to give it the little ridges that are traditional, it was the taste that ultimately blew me away and of course the most important part. I almost asked Gino Ferraro himself if he had hired my mother to make them! Now granted the Gnocchi would never stand alone without the sauce which was also very tasty and not over powering. In addition they were conservative with the amount of sauce that they served which just covered the dumplings enough without completely making them disappear. In the end I was very happy with what I dined on and I will definitely be back to try again.

This evening Food and Music returns to Ferraro's where the young and hip Las Vegas intelligentsia will gather to listen to the sultry sounds of Dj Shoe and dine on some fabulous "antipastini." The event begins at 9pm please dress with class, tip well and have a great night! Ciao!!!

Ferraro's is located 4480 Paradise Road across from the Hard Rock Cafe www.ferraroslasvegas.com

Brian Paco Alvarez enculturating Las Vegas into the millennium...