During Las Vegas Restaurant Week, eating well means doing good

Warning: Just reading this story — let alone actually indulging — might put on pounds.

For the next couple of weeks, more than 150 Las Vegas restaurants are offering special menus with tempting prices.

Dining out June 19 to 30 in Las Vegas will not only satisfy your taste buds, but also will make you feel good, since Las Vegas Restaurant Week is a fundraiser for a local food bank.

This yummy fundraiser keeps getting bigger every year. For 2017, more than 150 restaurants — a big bite of them on the Strip — will be offering two- to four-course, prix fixe menus for breakfast, lunch or dinner. In many cases, the eateries will have special menus for more than just one meal.

A cast of culinary stars

Several of Chef Bobby Flay’s best-known dishes — including ancho chile glazed salmon, charred shishito peppers, and tiger shrimp, above — are among the choices at Mesa Grill, Flay’s long-popular restaurant at Caesars Palace. (Caesars Entertainment)

The restaurants begin, alphabetically, from Alizé and end at Zuma, and their chefs read like a “Who’s Who,” with names including José Andrés, Mario Batali, Bobby Flay, Emeril Lagasse, Charlie Palmer, Wolfgang Puck and Roy Yamaguchi on the marquees.

Lip smackers for 30 smackers

An heirloom tomato salad prepared with basil, burrata cheese and red onion is among the first-course choices for lunch at Delmonico Steakhouse. (Emeril’s Las Vegas)

Lagasse’s Delmonico Steakhouse at the Venetian resort provides a good example of the variety you can expect on the special menus.

For $30, the restaurant is offering a lunch with appetizer choices including baby mixed greens, heirloom tomato salad and potato Parmesan soup.

For the main course, crispy fried chicken, grilled steak salad, a hamburger and Atlantic salmon are offered. For dessert, diners can choose either banana cream pie parfait or bread pudding.

Fine dining and a nightclub

A stir-fry of black pepper ribeye with Merlot is among the entree choices on the $50 dinner menu at Hakkasan inside MGM Grand. (Hakkasan Group)

Vegas visitors who have discovered Hakkasan at MGM Grand already know there’s a fine-dining restaurant attached to the multistory nightclub. The restaurant is offering two prix fixe dinners, one for $50, the other for $80.

The lower-priced menu features entree choices such as black pepper ribeye stir-fry and Pacific sole. The pricier dinner includes appetizers such as a fried dim sum platter, poached prawns and pear, and crispy quail with a Chinese wine and chili sauce.

For lunch or dinner

If “comfort,” rather than “fancy,” is more your style, laid-back dishes such as the St. Louis-style spare ribs await at Gilley’s Las Vegas. (Treasure Island Hotel and Casino)

Folks seeking a more casual dining experience have plenty of places to consider. Gilley’s at Treasure Island is serving lunch ($20) and dinner ($40) with such offerings as chicken tortilla soup, St. Louis-style spare ribs and, for dessert (at dinner), banana caramel pudding, peach cobbler or strawberry shortcake.

On Sahara Boulevard, a Mex fest

Nacho Daddy’s Sahara Boulevard location is dishing up Mexican creations on lunch and dinner prix fixe menus. (Nacho Daddy)

At Nacho Daddy, the casual Mexican menus include lunch for $20 (with Mexican street corn and chicken enchilada nachos) and dinner for $30 (with a lobster and crab enchilada and a churro sundae for dessert). Note that the special is good only at the location at 9560 W. Sahara Blvd., not downtown or at Miracle Mile Shops.

Excellent English fare

Chef Gordon Ramsay’s take on sticky toffee pudding, a classic English dessert, is available on both the lunch and dinner menus during Restaurant Week. (Caesars Entertainment )

(Larry Hanna /)

Traditional English fare can be found at Gordon Ramsay Pub and Grill at Caesars Palace. The three-course lunch ($30) features tomato soup followed by a pistachio-pesto chicken sandwich or shepherd’s pie, with sticky toffee pudding for “afters.”

Choices for the three-course dinner ($50) expand to include a flatiron steak, chicken curry and an additional dessert option: maple toffee cheesecake.

Four courses for $50

Fresco Italiano hopes to delight diners with a special four-course dinner that includes fried calamari and shrimp scampi. (Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino)

Fresco Italiano at the Westgate resort (you may remember it as the Las Vegas Hilton) is one of only a few restaurants offering a four-course meal.

For $50, diners begin with frito misto, a dish of fried calamari, cherry tomatoes and lemon in a San Marzano sauce.

A Caesar salad is then served before guests decide between chicken Parmesan and shrimp scampi for the third course.

That’s followed by gelato for dessert.

Away from the Strip

Chocolate tres leches, a dessert made with sponge cake, chocolate and heavy cream, is sure to tempt diners at the Black Sheep, one of the newest restaurants in Southern Nevada. (The Black Sheep)

If you’re driving to Nevada, you can try restaurants away from the Strip. At the Black Sheep, which opened a few weeks ago at 8680 W. Warm Springs Road about 11 miles from the Strip, the focus is on American-Asian fusion. That’s reflected on its special dinner menu ($40).

Consider starting with Vietnamese imperial rolls stuffed with Duroc pork, shrimp and heirloom carrots.

Entrees include smoked Japanese eggplant and king salmon in a clay pot.

Be sure to save room for dessert. The chocolate tres leches cake alone seems enough to justify the half-hour drive from the Strip.

The restaurants donate between $4 and $6 per meal to support Three Square, a food bank serving the Las Vegas Valley.

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