Firefly Tapas Kitchen & Bar

Restaurant: Firefly Tapas Kitchen & Bar

Cuisine: Mexican/Spanish/Tapas/Fusion

Last visited: August 26, 09

Area: Las Vegas

3900 Paradise Road

Price Range: $20-30 (average bill per person)

1: Poor 2: OK 3: Good 4: Very Good 5: Excellent 6: Tres Excellent!!

Food: 5

Service: 4

Ambiance: 2

Overall: 4

Additional comments:

• Casual atmosphere
• Busy, late night crowd
• Mexican servers/kitchen/staff
• Mexican and Spanish style
  
• Comfort food tapas
  
• Tapas style - so everything is meant to be shared
• Generous portions for tapas style
• Reasonably priced (around $7usd on average per tapa)
  
• Famous for stuffed dates and Sangria
• Very popular to locals - off the strip

**Recommendation: Stuffed Dates, Tuna Tartare, Stuffed Peppers, Veggie Empanada, Manchego Mac n' Cheese, Baby Back Ribs, Lamb Skewers, Sangria

My friend who lived in Vegas for 2 months brought us to this restaurant. Very familiar to locals, this place shouldn't be missed. It's casual, enjoyable, and full of energy. The decor is nothing special, and the food is nothing fancy, it's simple and down right tasty. Typical Mexican comfort food style tapas that are very reasonably priced. I went with 6 people so we made quite a dent in the menu. Everything was extra tasty becuase it's all bite sized finger food so it leaves you craving more. It's all too heavy to have a plate to yourself - so almost everything tastes good, and even if it doesn't you don't really notice because you only had a bite. This review will be done a bit differently because we tried so much stuff I won't go into too much detail. I also didn't get any pictures because it was too dark inside. You'll spend about $20-30USD per person including tax and tip.

On the table:

• Boquerones 2/6
• Spanish white anchovies on toasts with roasted red pepper, yellow pepper vin
• These were nice and salty - not fishy tasting and really typical ingredient from Spain. It kinda tastes like a quick appetizer you can throw together at home, but it's still good. One of those easy/simple/quick appetizers.
  
• **Tuna Tartare 5/6
• Layers of mango, marinated ahi tuna, avocado and taro chips.
• One of the favourites. I liked the taro chips - it was a nice twist, better than serving them with the usual tortilla chips. You get quite a bit of tartare too.
• Ceviche of Shrimp 4/5
  
• Tiger shrimp, avocado and crispy corn tortilla chips.
  
• I liked the tuna tartare better. A bit more expensive, $8.50 for a cup full, but they are relatively big pieces of shrimp so it's ok - it was quite heavy on the lime flavour. Very fresh tasting and tangy. Simple flavours that are easy to pick out.
  
• **Stuffed Dates 6/6
  
• By far THE favourite! This is what they're famous for! And they should be, and I know why. They're pretty delicious. It's a date stuffed with an almond and blue cheese, then wrapped with bacon and served with a red wine reduction sauce.
• These dates are nice and sticky and the combination of flavours merry together so well. I'm not even a fan of bacon or blue cheese and these were still amazing! No ingredient was more powerful than the other. They are bite size and just perfect. A little savoury (bacon), sweet (date), tangy (sauce), creamy (cheese), crunch (almond) and crispy (bacon) - it hits all my taste buds in the right way! You bite into a date and it oozes out warm and creamy blue cheese...then you get the crunch of the almond and the salty crispiness of the bacon and the sticky moist date - oh my god...it's amazing. Perfect in flavours and in textures - these are real treats.
• **Veggie Empanada 5/6
  
• Deep fried pastry pockets stuffed with spinach, mushroom, artichoke, and herb cream cheese and red pepper aioli.
• This is yummy! Really creamy and rich. Meant for sharing - one to yourself would be a bit much.
  
• Roasted eggplant cannelloni 3/6
  
• These "cannellonis" are rolled up roasted eggplant slices. They are stuffed with a lot of goat's cheese and marinara sauce. The goat's cheese overpowered the eggplant and it kind of felt like eating warm goat's cheese and that's it. It needed to be spread on a cracker or crostini or something.
• **Stuffed Peppers 6/6
  
• Spanish piquillo red peppers, mozzarella, garlic cream cheese and tomato sauce.
  
• These are really cheesy and really rich. But they're so small so 1-2 per person is perfect. These little red peppers are nicely marinated and really sweet so they go so well with the savoury cheeses and tangy tomato sauce.
• Mushroom Tart 4/6
  
• Puff pastry covered with mushrooms and a boursin cheesy cream sauce.
  
• This was delicious and it was a generous portion. It's actually quite big and it comes loaded with mushrooms and a bechemel type white cream sauce. I mean the puff pastry is your standard puff pastry and it tastes exactly like the description. Simple recipe and still good.
• **Manchego Mac n' Cheese 5/6
  
• This mac n' cheese was homemade and you could tell. Really cheesy, creamy just like grandma would make. Really hearty and rich yet thoroughly enjoyable.
  
• **Lamb skewers 5/6
  
• Marinated chunks of lamb with tomato and red wine sauce. It's served on a bed of lentils which I really liked. I'm not a fan of lamb, but my friends are and they all loved it so I put it as a recommendation.
  
• Crispy duck rolls 2/6
  
• It's served with a cherry hoisin sauce which is nice and creative. The duck was ground up duck though - so it tasted like sweet ground beef or something. It was crumbly and dry and bitty - I think they mixed the duck with some ground beef to save costs. I'd pass on these next time, but the sauce was nice.
• **Baby Back Ribs 6/6
• Steamed - falling off the bone ribs with a mango BBQ sauce.
  
• These taste like they're slow baked! The meat slips right off the bone and they're smothered in this sweet and tangy BBQ sauce. You get 4 big ribs for $9.50USD - A bit more expensive, but still worth it. They're really tender!
• Firefly Fish Sticks 2/6
  
• A fish stick is a fish stick. It has a panko batter though and a spicy tartar sauce.
  
• Steamed mussels 4/6
• A huge bowl of mussels served in a red curry, white wine and coconut cream sauce.
  
• This is a deal for $8USD - we got about 10 mussels. The sauce is amazing, our mussels were a bit undercooked though. 6/6 for the sauce though!
• Big Bowl Pasta 3/6
  
• I could have done without this. I would rather have tried other stuff on the menu - since marinara pasta is kind of blah. We had 6 people though so we wanted to order a filler. My favourite part of this was the big chunks of roasted and marinated artichoke hearts.
• Paella
  
• I did not order this and I probably won't because a restaurant with this type of volume won't be able to make a paella very well. I'm almost certain it will be a frozen paella. I wouldn't bother.

Dessert

• Lemon-berry Tarts 2/6
  
• Four bite sized lemon tarts with fresh berries and whipped cream.
  
• These are probably frozen too - don't taste homemade at all. But they were cheap and worth it if you need something sweet at the end of your meal...which I always do =)