7 Best Restaurants in Paradise Road and the East Side, Las Vegas

If you're looking for a type of place where the waitress calls you "honey," this locals' diner for more than 35 years has an old-fashioned, family-owned vibe. The food is better than most nearby chain places, serving up hearty Mexican specialties, fruit-topped pancakes and waffles, and senior specials. Blueberry Hill has four locations, two of them near each other on the East Side, a couple of miles apart on Flamingo Road. This one is closest to both the Strip and UNLV and is open 24 hours a day.

As the name suggests, this bistro focuses on small plates that encourage sharing and camaraderie, especially when it's the daily happy hour and/or paired with Firefly's signature sangrias or mojitos, both available by the glass or pitcher. The rough rule of thumb is for each person to order two plates, drawn from four categories: Chilled, Hot, Seafood, or Meat & Poultry. The range of choices is head-spinning, from beet salad and stuffed dates to empanadas, steamed mussels, and even manchego mac & cheese. In 2023, the original location moved a mile or so to a larger building (which some may remember as McCormick & Schmick's) on the edge of the Hughes Center office park. The atmosphere is completely different: plenty of windows and light paint replacing the dark and romantic, folk-art plastered original. There is also a second Firefly in Southwest Las Vegas (7355 S. Buffalo Drive).

There will be no quiet conversations here, just a loud dose of kitsch at this gargantuan offshoot of Munich's most famous brewery. Pair your beer with hearty Bavarian classics, including Schnitzel with mushroom sauce, and marinated pot roast with wine sauce and red cabbage, or updated dishes such as chicken schnitzel salad or vegan frankfurters. For dessert, try apple strudel or Black Forest chocolate cake.The interior beer garden can make you feel like a tourist within a tourist town. As you down a brew in those notorious liter mugs, the drinking contests and strolling musicians somehow become more and more agreeable on too-hot Vegas evenings. Just save room for ... more beer.

The surrounding neighborhood isn't great, so don't walk here from the Paradise Road hotels—but also don't be deterred from this clean and solid Indian establishment, which has weathered the neighborhood's many changes. The Palace's famed all-you-can-eat lunch buffet runs from 11:30 to 3, and the evening menu is a refuge for conventioneers who aren't on an expense account. The menu is packed with tandoori delicacies, crispy rice-crepe dosa, and some 20 vegetarian choices, such as Veg Kolhapuri, a blend of vegetables in a South Indian curry.

The vibe is spelled out in the name of this sprawling indoor-outdoor casual Italian space from Los Angeles restaurateur Nick Mathers. The versatile menu follows the cues of the day, from "green eggs" or avacado toast at brunch to creative appetizers or full entrees in the evening. While a DJ spins beneath a disco ball, you can try the deceptively complex pizzas and salads or delve into more ambitious fare like lobster pasta or branzino. It's a 300-seater with three bars; the atmosphere changes from the bar-centric lounge near the front entry to "beachside" near the Virgin Las Vegas pool area with a lot of low-slung seating to encourage sociability.  

This chain of zero-ambience fast-food eateries serves Hawaiian-style barbecue to a heavily Hawaiian clientele (Las Vegas is known as the "ninth island" to Hawaiians). The plate lunch is the draw here, and considering that it comes with two scoops of rice and one of macaroni salad (along with whatever protein you'd like; the choices naturally include Spam), it's no surprise that there are so many guys walking around calling themselves the Big Kahuna. The former Taco Bell on Maryland was one of the first of now many locations in the Valley.

Javier Barajas, the congenial owner and host of this colorful cantina group, named this restaurant after his birthplace in Mexico, where he learned to cook while growing up in the culinary capital of Michoacán. Don't miss such outstanding specialties as the carnitas or cabrito birria de chivo (roasted goat with red mole sauce). Guacamole is made tableside, and the flan is a silken wonder. There's no reason to stick to Mexican-restaurant basics when the menu is so expansive—the lunch menu alone offers 37 choices. This local success story began in 1990 and now boasts three other locations—in Henderson, Summerlin, and in the Palace Station casino—but the original is a singular experience: a dense labyrinth of rooms (with a capacity of around 300) with arched ceilings and brightly colored walls covered in bric-a-brac, and table visits from strolling mariachis.