Proper Eats Food Hall — Restaurant in Paradise

My family and I have been talking about visiting this Food Hall for quite some time...well, it was more like my daughter has been itching to try Pizzaoki because of the infamous "Mic Drop" pizza. Regardless of the reason, we finally experienced this Food Hall on 28 Mar 2024. As a Las Vegas local, I'm not always enthusiastic about hanging around the strip area because of the inflated prices and massive crowds; however, I agreed to come here because it was midweek; also, I enjoy visiting the ARIA from time to time, and of course, it was a new place to try.

When we walked up to the Food Hall, I was amazed at how it looked. Sometimes online pictures can be deceiving but I can say that this place looked exactly like the pictures posted on Google. I had a very difficult time in picking out which restaurants to order from because I wanted to try an entrée from each station so I didn't have to revisit another time to try the rest. Unfortunately, we could only stomach enough food from four different places; Laughing Buddha, Seoul Bird, Pizzaoki, and Lola's Burgers. Details of each restaurant is broken down below with individual ratings (1 to 5 star Google rating scale):

LAUGHING BUDDHA (4 stars): 😂🙏🏽 We ordered Tonkotsu Ramen and Pork Belly Bao Buns. At first, I was a bit skeptical of ordering ramen at a fast food/casual place and not at a table service ramen restaurant. The results were astonishing...the flavor of the ramen was good and the texture of all the ingredients were on par. I was a little disappointed that there weren't more options to add to your ramen, but I also understand it's a Food Hall as well. Also, the Bao Buns weren't the best I had in my life, but it was still satisfactory.

SEOUL BIRD (3 stars): 🇰🇷🐦 We ordered the Atomic Chicken Sandwich with Curly Fries and Seoul Bowl. The sandwich was good and the fries were magnificent. However, the bowl was less than adequate. For one, I know it's a bowl, but I wish they wouldn't mix any kind of extremely pickled ingredient(s) with the rice because it made the rice taste a little sour/tart. Also, the kimchi was not good. I don't know if this is normal for this place, but as a fellow Korean, I am embarrassed to label that concoction as kimchi. Folks, head over to KoreaTown or anywhere off of Spring Mountain Rd.

PIZZAOKI (3 stars): 🍕🎤 We ordered the Mic Drop Pizza. There were other pizzas I wanted to try but we already ordered a lot of food at this point. I know my family enjoyed the pizza but for me, it was just ok. For one, the pizza was really greasy (yes, I get it...it's pizza...but I also have experienced many pizzas that don't drip grease as you're eating it). Also, I'm not too big of a fan of the small pepperoni; I like the larger ones. I'm not certain if BTS would approve of this slice of pie, but for me, I wouldn't be dropping any microphones just yet. C'mon Steve...

LOLA'S BURGERS (4 stars): 🍔 We ordered the Smash Burger. I wasn't a big fan of their burger, but I know that my family loved it. So the rating is a balance of our opinions.

The places available to the public, yet, I didn't get to try these: TEMAKI BAR (not open during the time of our visit), WEXLER'S DELI (not open during the time of our visit ), EGGHEAD (not open during the time of our visit), SHALOM Y'ALL (limited amount of stomach space), AND EASY DONUTS (not open during the time of our visit).

There was limited customer-employee interaction, therefore, this is one of few instances in which I cannot provide any feedback on "actual" customer service and/or engagement. However, the employees did seem friendly whenever your order was ready and you picked up the order. I am willing to revisit this Food Hall because I want to try the other restaurants, otherwise, if the places that I did experience were the only options, then I probably wouldn't return for a second visit. Music selection was great, but can be a little loud for folks with sensitive hearing or with small children. Overall, this Food Hall is ok and I still recommend this place to everyone to try it...

I tried an assortment of dishes from 5 of the restaurants in this food hall, a part of the Aria hotel. While the ambiance was alright, it was loud and the vaguely fruity vape-pen like smell of the Aria casino sadly wafts into this space so that wasn’t great. The biggest strengths were the convenience (order/pay on phone for pickup was nice), the Coca-Cola drink machines and the price (substantially cheaper than most Vegas food, and of similar quality to all but the best restaurants). Here are my thoughts on what I tried:

Laughing Buddha - 1 star food. Tonkatsu amen was bland, too many noodles though they were of reasonable quality, pork slices were thin, unpleasantly fatty and flavorless. Pickled cucumber salad was worse, and clearly prepared ahead of time. Miniature cucumbers tossed in a cheap tasting soy, garlic and red pepper flake dressing. Meh.

Parm Italian - 2 star food. Caesar was okay—notably fresh romaine tossed in an uninspiring creamy dressing, then topped with stale, tooth destroying industrial strength croutons from a bag, and waxy Parmesan. The meatballs were better—globs of properly cooked ground beef, spiced nicely and topped with an unpretentious but tasty red sauce, sprinkled with more flavorless Parmesan for visual effect.

Lola’s Burgers - 2 star food. Smash burger was a bit too salty and greasy, in my opinion, but otherwise what you’d expect—two crispy thin patties, melty American cheese, jarred pickles, sliced onion and “special” sauce that tasted like a mayo heavy In-N-Out sauce. 3x the cost of In-N-Out, less than half as good.

Happy Leaf - 3 star food. Had a grilled salmon salad—properly cooked/seasoned salmon, mixed greens with some arguably unnecessary herb leaves, soy beans, pickled red onion, sliced cucumbers, sliced red radish and an awkwardly large hunk of unsliced avocado. A slightly too sweet soy, ginger dressing. Nothing to write home about but served its purpose and tasted quite fresh.

Egghead - 4 star food. On my way out of town I tried the Chelsea breakfast sandwich. Two eggs cooked to be somewhere between sunny side up and scrambled, with runny yolks which I quite liked, American cheese, bacon, tomato slice and spicy aioli, served on a griddled brioche-like bun. Definitely not for health nuts but tasty and filling.

Overall: Would have given the food hall 3 stars overall for food, but the vape smell was nauseating and the Laughing Buddha Ramen place was so bad that I had to drop the overall review down to 2 stars.

Did not try pizza spot, sushi spot or the deli. Maybe...

Proper Eats Food Hall is located inside Aria. Personally, I prefer the vendors at Resorts World food hall. The atmosphere at Proper Eats was a mixture of sports bar, night club or family, depending on which section you dine at. Plenty of seating and even games like shuffle board.

There’s a speakeasy at the Easy Donut shop. There’s also happy hour with $1-ish oysters on the weekdays.

Everything is ordered on the self kiosk but half the machines were down. Or on your phone through the website. They text you when the food is ready.

Temaki Hand-roll: The kiosk and app will not allow you to order hand rolls. You must eat at the bar because it’s made to order. So we got cut rolls and nigiri sushi. The cut rolls are tiny like half dollar size. If you have the opportunity, sit at the bar for hand rolls.

Laughing Buddha Ramen: Tonkotsu ramen, pork belly bao and crispy eggplant bao. I really enjoyed the eggplant bao. Was like a tempura eggplant.

Pizzaoki: Another one affiliated with Steve Aoki In Vegas. NY style pizza. We got Mic drop which is basically pepperoni. Then Boneless which is cheese. I’m not a fan of the thin NY pizza so this was my least favorite.

Seoul Bird Fried Chicken: I really enjoyed the Signature sandwich. The bun was soft and bouncy. The chicken had a secret marinade and fried twice with extra crispy texture. You can add $14 for a drink and curly fries. Not a savings at all because it cost $7 each on its own.

We did not try any items from Lola’s Burgers or Mediterranean place. There are two morning vendors like Egg Hen and a coffee/sandwich place.

The chairs are comfy like nightclub lounge style in the dim lighting with music blasting. Or bench style at the sports bar with...