M & M Soul Food Cafe

When it comes to food for the visitor, Las Vegas is a funny place. All the attention goes to the casinos, for three things: the upscale restaurants run by nationally known chefs, the buffets, and the old-time bargains like 99-cent shrimp cocktails. People seem to forget that Las Vegas is a big city and, like all big cities, there are plenty of superb places to eat around town. You just have to know where to go.

M & M Soul Food is one such place. The menu and hominess are right out of mid-Tennessee (or Mississippi, original home of the founder). And so is the fried chicken, with a brittle, highly-seasoned skin enveloping juicy deep-down-good meat. The Loveless cooks would be proud of this chicken. Fried pork chops are similarly appealing; the rugged crunch of the crust melds with the porky savor, and we find ourselves searching the bone for any last hidden crevices so as not to leave any nuggets of meat. Cornbread is served pancake-style, and these are not to be missed; devour them when they’re hot and fresh from the griddle.

No soul food cafe is complete without a roster of well-cooked and well-seasoned vegetables. M & M does not disappoint. All the classics are represented: bracing collard greens, thick macaroni & cheese, sweet yams, porky black eyed peas, red beans and rice garnished with hot sausage, rice and gravy, cornbread dressing, fried okra, and more.

As in all the best soul food restaurants, service is as down-home as the food. Expect to be treated as a fellow human being (high praise indeed).