The 38 Essential Restaurants in Las Vegas

"About as tucked away as a hidden gem can be, Moia Peruvian Restaurant sits in a quiet strip mall in Las Vegas’ Historic Westside. Here, it slings bowls of fresh white fish in rich and citrusy marinades and plates of stir-fried strips of tender lomo saltado sirloin over crunchy fries and salted white rice — all poised for dipping and dabbing with aji verde cilantro sauce or sharply spicy hot sauce. The food here is Nikkei cuisine at its best — a fusion style of cooking that marries Peruvian ingredients with Japanese cooking techniques. It’s a technique perhaps best demonstrated in Moia’s ceviches — raw tuna and hamachi are sliced sashimi-style into broad and supple strips, tossed in fresh lime juice with cilantro and hot Peruvian chiles, and then served with toothsome sweet potatoes and large-kerneled corn. The leche de tigre — a tangy sauce of fish stock, lime, onions, and aromatics — is vibrant enough in both flavor and amber hue to stand up to the restaurant’s bold design. Murals of jungle cats are saturated by gently pulsating purple lighting — glowing light cubes dunked into glasses of sangria appear to strobe in time with the low thrum of electronic music." - Janna Karel