Eating Better for Less - Las Vegas - page 99

(I had to wait about 20 min. to get in for my after-show meal at 11pm one night).
A word of warning: Avoid Tuesdays. While your palate won't suffer then, your
eardrums might, thanks to the karaoke contests every Tuesday night (9pm-3am),
which seem to be fueled by beer far more than talent.
$ Like its namesake, Ellis Island also serves as a gateway to New York, culinary
N.Y.C. in this case, in the form of the finest Big Apple-style pizzas in town. Thin-
crusted, with the smoky taste of a real brick oven, and a sauce made from vine-
ripened tomatoes, the pies at Metro Pizza 55 (in the Ellis Island Casino, 4178
Koval Lane; % 702/312-5888; www.metropizza.com; daily noon-3am; AE, DISC,
MC, V) are the real deal. As well they should be: Founders and cousins John Arena
and Sam Facchini come from a long line of pizzaiolo (pizza makers). When their
grandparents emigrated to New York in the early 20th-century, they lived just 50
yards from Lombardis, the first pizzeria in the U.S., and learned their trade there.
Recipes were passed down from relative to relative over the years until 1980, when
the cousins lugged two ovens to Vegas in a borrowed car and set up shop. Now a
mini-chain with three shops around town (the other two are at 1395 E. Tropicana
Ave. and 4001 S. Decatur Blvd.), the Ellis Island branch is the nearest to the Strip
and the most bare bones, with no seating—just a glass case of freshly made pies.
Still, it's a prime choice for a late-night snack; and if you're sick of bland, over-
priced casino room service, you can order up a pie from just $6.25 (individual) to
$9.95 (large) until the wee hours of the morning. Go to one of their stores directly
and you can order by the slice ($2.50).
$-$$ For many people, of course, Las Vegas itself is the new Ellis Island, a hot
spot for immigration from all corners of the globe, with 8,000 new residents
searching for housing each month (an increasingly difficult task, by the way). In
their wake has come a flowering of ethnic restaurants, a welcome blast of ginger,
garlic and lemongrass in a town that was meat-and-french-fry-centric for far too
long. Take, for example, Paymon's Mediterranean 5 (4147 S. Maryland Pkwy., at
Flamingo Rd.; % 702/731-6030; Mon-Thurs 11am-1am, Fri-Sat 11am-3am, Sun
11am-5pm; AE, DISC, MC, V), the little Mediterranean restaurant that could,
which grew from a deli with a sideline in pita to a tiny empire of two restaurants
and a groovy hookah bar (see p. 218 in the nightlife section for our review of that)
in just a bit over a decade. Turkish, Persian (read: Iranian), and Greek fare are the
focus, and it can mash chickpeas with the best of them, serving up saucy, com-
forting food to throngs of college students (UNLV is nearby) and others who
crowd this place throughout the day. Try the moussaka ($12), a paradigm of how
to cook eggplant well (it's thinly sliced and oh-so-tender, served in a layered casse-
role of potatoes, cinnamon-scented ground meat, and creamy béchamel); or the
flaky spanakopita ($11, aka spinach pie). Exotic dishes, such as meat-stuffed grape
leaves ($9.50) and fesanjan ($12), Persian in origin, and consisting of chicken
breasts doused in a pomegranate and walnut sauce, are also recommended,
though the kitchen sometimes falls down on more familiar dishes such as tab-
bouleh and gyros (which were bland in the extreme the last time I visited). The
other Paymons is on the West Side of town (8380 W. Sahara Ave.).
$-$$ There was a large sigh of relief that blew across the desert when Lindo
Michoacan 555 9 (2655 E. Desert Inn Rd., between Eastern Ave. and Pecos