Food

[ICYMI]

Simple and delicious, the aptly named Tacos & Beer excels at both

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T&B delivers street-style tacos that are just as good as its crunchy-shell counterparts.
Photo: Mikayla Whitmore

Taco shops have effectively taken over Las Vegas, and that’s absolutely fine. Recent years have seen a proliferation of street-style taco shops all around the Valley offering cheap, fast, delicious food, and if you pay close attention, you’ll also notice the vast majority of new Mexican restaurants focus on offering as many different kinds of tacos as possible. One of our best of the latter type is simply known as Tacos & Beer.

There’s other creative Mexican fare on this menu, including standout guacamole ($7.95) to which you can add bacon and corn or toasted pumpkin seeds and pomegranate; chicken tortilla soup with avocado and cilantro ($5.95); and a fresh, crisp salad ($6.95) loaded with chopped romaine, black beans, pico de gallo, mango, pickled radish, cucumber and more. You can also opt for a burrito, enchiladas, nachos, a big platter of carne asada ($17.99) and a steak huarache ($11.95), a thick soft tortilla covered with roasted poblanos and mushrooms. But it’s pretty impossible to miss the fact that you’re supposed to eat tacos and drink beer here, so, you know, feel free.

At last count, there were 19 different tacos on the menu, not counting the platters of mini-tacos available in orders of six ($8.95) or a dozen ($15.95). Some do fall into the category of street-style tacos, like carne asada ($3.50) or pork al pastor ($2.95), succulent meats dressed minimally in soft, warm, house-made corn tortillas. Others come in flour tortillas, like the grilled fish with mango habanero salsa ($3.95) or the more familiar Baja fish taco ($3.95), beer-battered tilapia with coleslaw, chili-lime crema, guacamole and pico de gallo. There are favorites like chicken tinga ($2.95) or traditional cochinita pibil ($2.95), which T&B does particularly well: pork shoulder roasted in banana leaves and topped with pickled red onion. There’s even a few of those odd-animal-part tacos that only some of us love, like beef tongue ($3.50).

T&B has a secret weapon, and it’s mashed potatoes. A rich, smooth dollop is deployed in the uniquely awesome barbecue beef taco ($3.50), layered with shredded beef in stout-molasses barbecue sauce, cheddar cheese, lettuce and sour cream in a crispy tortilla shell. Similar genius occurs with the crunchy taco ($2.95), which subs in ground beef and hot sauce, and the crunchy chicken ($3.50), with chile morita salsa. These are far from traditional tacos, but they’re so satisfying; you might not be able to finish two.

The beer list is as impressive as the taco list. Twenty rotating taps offer local and regional brews from Ballast Point’s Grapefruit Sculpin to Almanac’s Saison Dolores to Tenaya Creek’s God of Thunder Baltic porter. Bottles and cans show off plenty of diversity, including a handful of sour beers, which pair well with rich, spicy tacos.

If this is what a Las Vegas taco shop looks, feels and tastes like, then we should be pretty happy with our taco situation.

Tacos & Beer 3900 Paradise Road, 702-675-7572. Daily, 11:30 a.m.-2 a.m.

Tags: Dining, Food
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Brock Radke

Brock Radke is an award-winning writer and columnist who currently occupies the role of editor-at-large at Las Vegas Weekly magazine. ...

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