Firefly

Firefly
3900 Paradise Rd
Las Vegas, NV 89109
(702) 369-3971
http://www.fireflylv.com/

This is from 6+ months ago, so let’s call today Flashback Friday – I have plenty more of these older posts rotting away in my drafts queue. During one of my visits to Las Vegas last year, we (myself, Han, Lawrence, and Daniel) decided to focus on hitting up off-Strip restaurants. Of course, I visited Raku once again (my favorite restaurant in the city, Strip or off-Strip), as well as acclaimed choices of Lotus of Siam and Monta. But while those seemingly obvious choices are the equivalent of Oscar and Golden Globe winners of the off-Strip restaurants, the People’s Choice winner has to be the multiple locations of Firefly Tapas Kitchen & Bar. When asking people for restaurant recommendations off the Strip, a fair number of people named Firefly (rather quickly too, as if they were Jeopardy contestants). The 1200+ reviews on Yelp at a 4.5-star clip supports the muggles’ sentiments. But a few of these 1200 people have to be right, no? Of course they were – the ones that gave 3 stars.

Firefly is the epitome of a solid restaurant. For the most part, the food was…solid. There is nothing groundbreaking on the menu – just some standard Spanish tapas that can be considered watered-down in its approach and execution. Rather, it’s really just a good neighborhood bistro-type place, which has been over-hyped by out-of-towners who aren’t accustomed to traditional Spanish tapas fare. Again, the food isn’t exciting here, but nothing was bad. I enjoyed most of the dishes we ordered, and they were very reasonably-priced. A huge problem with small plates restaurants, which dominate the L.A. restaurant scene, is that you really don’t get much portion-wise per dish, and each dish is extremely expensive. So when everything adds up, you’re paying the equivalent of a $$$$ meal. But you’ll never be disappointed in that regard at Firefly, where we feasted like kings for a fraction of what we would pay for a similar meal in L.A. During lunch, the atmosphere is airy, the sangria is flowing, and everyone seems to be having a good time. Not really impressed from a culinary perspective, but as an experience I enjoyed my visit to Firefly.