Il Mulino has been a Vegas favorite of mine for a while. It’s in the Forum Shops section of Caesar’s Palace up on the top floor. It’s a dark place, kind of pricy, with Captain’s wearing white bow ties and black jackets. This is one of those places where the food is really good and plentiful. So far to the point that it’s hard to walk out without being uncomfortable… Stomach distended to the point that your chin rests firmly on top of it and you waddle out looking like some sort of grotesque penguin-like creature with olive oil glistening in the corners of your mouth.
Every year, we head out to the SSA convention in Las Vegas and meet with the people that we do business with throughout the year. It has been a tradition, for a few years now, for us to have a dinner with our partners at Il Mulino and hoot and holler as we eat great Italian food and good wine.
We were a small group last night. Six of us to start, but, Larry had to catch a plane and left before dinner. So, just 5 this time… a far cry from the 20 or so that we had crammed into a small, private dining area the year below, with crazed brokers demanding bottles of Crystal Champagne (he was vetoed, of course, so, he did the next best thing and took our female project manager for a night out on the town). But, I digress…
Il Mulino has a standard script… You are seated, started off with cocktails (a negroni for me, of course… When in Italy…) After your cocktail orders come, a server comes with an enormous wheel of Parmaggiano Reggio. He takes a wide knife and pryes a chunk off and places it on your bread plate. Tasty, dry, dense, authentic Italian Cheese. Also on the table is a small plate of paper thin zucchini that is sauted and soaking in a bath of olive oil next to a plate of thinly sliced sopresata salami.
The servers then bring out a small bruschetta that is placed on your bread plate next to a single, tiny, steamed mussel. I don’t quite get the mussel thing, but, I eat it anyway… Garlic bread is also placed front and center as the Captain recites a seemingly endless list of specials that are not on the menu.
They’ve always got longostino as a special. This cracks me up… seems that it should just get put on the menu. Normally the bring them out to display, but not this time, we just hear about them.., they also have a lobster fra diavalo as a special that I was considering before coming to my senses… Gotta maintain my reputation as a ravenous carnivore…
We start out small. A beef carpacio over arugula drizzled in olive oil and lemon with a bit of shaved cheese. Tasty, lemony… I have a bowl of Florentine soup with spinach, egg droppings, and cheese in a salty broth. It’s ok, but, not something I’d do again.
The pasta at Il Mulino is the best. I know, it’s hard to get too excited about pasta, but, it is really good. The can make up a trio of pasta’s as an appetizer and plate it and serve as a first or second course. For the three pastas they served us, there was a porcini mushroom ravioli in a mushroom cream sauce. It’s earthy, rich and delicious. The actual pasta part is great… Fresh semolina rolled out and filled with fungi. The second pasta is a broad fettucine type pasta covered in a Bolognese… This is a tomato based sauce filled with ground veal. Also, delicious… Finally, a dollop of potato gnocci covered in a creamy pesto. It’s more of a sauce than a traditional pesto and you can’t tell the component parts of basil, pignoli, cheese, and garlic.
Already full, and here come the entrees. I have a veal chop… It’s probably 5 pounds of meat with a big bone sticking out. It’s cooked medium rare and topped with mushrooms. The meat was good, but, the topping wasn’t really holding up for me. It was too light for such a robust piece of meat. Steve had a half rack of lamb, Sal had a NY Strip cooked to jerky (He ordered it that way) and there were a couple of osso buccos at the table complete with a marrow fork protruding from the bone shank. This was served with a hearty rissotto and we had garlic saute’d spinach and broccoli rabe as sides.
Writing this, it doesn’t seem like as much food as it was in person. The thought of desert was an unpleasant one. I had my requisite espresso, and they brought by a 5 gallon chunk of ice, hollowed out, and filled with homemade lemoncello that they served to the table.
In the past, this restaurant has been hopping… Very busy, long waits for tables… Last night, it was half empty with lots of white linen looking at us with nobody sitting. Hopefully, this institution doesn’t become a casualty of a tough economy because it has become part of our experience at our annual trade show.
One Response to Il Mulino