The Best Dishes Eater Las Vegas Ate This Month, April 2025

Food / Drink

Hot and sour Iberico pork soup dumplings are a centerpiece dish at Mott 32. | Mott 32 Eater Vegas’s favorite dishes and sleeper hits from Las Vegas restaurant menus in April 2025 Eater Vegas’s Editor dines out several times a week — if not per day, which means frequent encounters with standout dishes and sleeper hits from Las Vegas restaurant menus. Here’s the very best of everything Eater Vegas ate this month. Paisa breakfast bowl at Chica Janna Karel Paisa breakfast bowl at Chica. An ideal brunch comes with a variety of small dishes for mixing and matching: There’s the requisite combination of sweet and savory, the necessity of having one coffee-based beverage and one cocktail-style drink. And, ideally, there are at least a couple of light starters for the table to share. Chica at the Venetian Resort provides the makings for a great brunch — all set in a warmly lit dining room that is compatible with slow Sunday mornings. The Paisa Breakfast Bowl is perfect for leisurely indulging. A base of rice and black beans gets covered with sliced skirt steak and a bright chimichurri sauce. Slices of chorizo lend a spicy touch while lightly caramelized fried plantains, nestled on the edge of the bowl, retain a firm texture. Sliced avocado keeps things cool. Of course, brunch is a maximalist affair. Here, the breakfast bowl is best paired with strawberry guava waffles, and both a latte and hand-pressed juice with kale, cucumber, and apple. BBQ sampler plate at the Pioneer Saloon Janna Karel BBQ sampler plate at Pioneer Saloon. A slow weekend called for a short road trip down to Goodsprings, Nevada. While only a 45-minute drive, the commute through the uninhabited Nevada desert makes a visit to the Pioneer Saloon feel more like an adventure. The place has been slinging whiskey since 1913, housed in a pre-fabricated building with all the hallmarks of a Wild West saloon — century-old bullet holes in the wall, a time-worn cherrywood bar top, and a desert landscape made for kicking up dust while sauntering in on horseback — or, more often these days, on a motorcycle. A more modern addition to the historic bar is the kitchen. In the courtyard where local bands like the West Coast Travelers play, smokers and grills are put to work making St. Louis-style barbecue. A heaping sampler tray comes with a little bit of everything: Beef ribs are slathered in sauce and tender enough to fall off the bone without trouble. Chicken legs have well-seasoned skins that still stand out when dipped in a creamy Alabama sauce; the bites are juicy and smoky. Wash it all down with a thick and old-timey bananas foster milkshake. Neptune’s pillow at Bazaar Mar Janna Karel Neptune’s pillows at Bazaar Mar. Chef José Andrés’s newest Las Vegas restaurant, Bazaar Mar, is a celebration of all things under the sea. The restaurant at the Shops at Crystals captures Andrés’s penchant for blending the sophisticated with the playful, putting forth a menu of impossibly fresh and deftly prepared seafood in platings that are as vividly imagined as the restaurant. Don’t leave without the Neptune’s Pillow: Two lengths of hollow and delicately crisp bread get generously filled with spicy tuna sashimi. Lush slices of raw tuna lay over the top with beads of spicy rocoto mayo. It works together for a side that is robust in its flavors and textures, without veering into fall-apart-while-eating-it territory. It’s woefully absent from the tasting menu, but well worth ordering a la carte. Soufflé pancake at Sweet Talk Janna Karel Souffle pancakes at Sweet Talk. These pancakes are almost as enjoyable to jiggle as they are to eat. A craving for thick, airy, and wobbly pancakes brought my friends and me to Sweet Talk in Chinatown. The small cafe is the epitome of kawaii, with tea drinks and desserts that are almost too cute to eat. While an expansive menu inspired side orders of milky shaved ice with mango and cream-topped boba drinks, the priority here was the souffle cake. A stack of pancakes comes enrobed in a creamy purple ube sauce alongside a bowl of mashed ube for extra dipping. They’re impressively jiggly, joyous to watch when passing plates around the table. These Japanese-style pancakes are more eggy than the American preparation and subtly sweet; the lavender sauce lends a touch of vanilla. Another order came with an Oreo topping, but the butterfly-topped ube pancakes were the crowd favorite. Hot & sour Iberico pork Shanghainese soup dumplings at Mott 32 Janna Karel Hot and sour Iberico pork Shanghainese soup dumplings at Mott 32 Mott 32 has long been a favorite of mine when I’m craving a warm, savory, boldly flavored soup dumpling. The whole ritual of eating a xiao long bao satisfies — transferring it from a steamer basket onto a spoon, puncturing the side with a chopstick to release some of