According to the website for the International Slow Food Movement, this is Tibetan Yak Cheese Week. Might I suggest we try barbecue instead?
Which brings us to Bird N Bones, a modest barbecue pit on the city's east side, which is already redefining the standard for good 'cue here in Vegas. All the food here is slow-cooked and tastes it; the brisket and ribs, especially, have those three-tiered pink smoke rings, which can't be faked or produced in a gas barbecue oven.
The restaurant belongs to retired businessman Hank Harvey, an African-American who is using a barbecue consultant from the Virgin Islands, of all places. I am familiar with all the various regional styles of 'cue in this country—from the hickory-smoked pork shoulder in North Carolina, eaten on a roll with slaw, to the alder-smoked barbecued salmon in the Pacific Northwest. But I must confess I'm not familiar with the Virgin Islands style.
No American food idiom so defines its respective region as does barbecue. In Texas, the thing is brisket of beef, often smoked over green oak and spiked with cumin seed. Kansas City and Memphis are famous for hickory-smoked pork ribs. In South Carolina, the meats are smothered in yellow mustard, vinegar and honey sauce.
Offhand, I'd say that the Virgin Island connection here is subtle at best. Mr. Harvey, being a proud Californian, uses pure mesquite to smoke his meats, a wood that imparts a powerful smokiness. Perhaps I am used to the flavor of mesquite, having spent almost 20 years in California, because I have to say I love the taste. If there is one knock on it, it is a tendency to dry out meats quickly. That's true here as well.
Still, Bird N Bones is a terrific addition to the local barbecue scene, with hardly a single misstep on its small but efficient menu. The best meal for the money here has to be wings, five to an order plus a pile of crisp, delicious fries and a choice of mild or hot sauce, only $3.99. The wings are a deep bronze, like a Rodin sculpture. The taste is deeply profound with wood smoke without losing the natural bird perfumes.
Ditto the brisket, a thing of beauty that must weigh a good 12 pounds, a meaty slab bearing a deep, dark crust. You'll watch them hand-carve your order, the meat falling away on the knife with surgical precision. And unlike a number of local briskets, served annoyingly tough, this one meets the slow-food credo.
The secret of the chicken, the menu tells us, is a process called pit-grilling, which leaves the center moist and the skin crisp. Obviously, the pork and beef is prepared for hours in a commercial smoker, a metal box that sits behind the counter. Whatever they are doing, I haven't had a single item here I was not impressed by.
The hot links, for instance, sliced thin, are properly spicy and provocative, with crunchy snap when you bite in. The pork ribs fall away from the bone when prodded, and have the finish that only prolonged exposure to wood, like a fine Caberbet, can demonstrate. There is, last but not least, pork shoulder sliced to order, a bit dry, but uncommonly delicious. It could be a bigger menu, I suppose, but it's clear that quality-control is a big issue here.
Side dishes are mostly up to snuff, as well. My favorite among them has to be the mustard greens, which have a little residual pot likker, the leftover liquid that they produce when cooked with a little smoked meat, and almost no residual bitterness. Pinto beans, too, are slow-cooked, almost to the point of disintegration.
The potato salad and Cole slaw are generic here. I wouldn't cross the street to have either one a second time, but I happily ate them, anyway. Most plates are served with a choice of two sides and Texas toast, but there are also homemade corn muffins if you prefer. The only issue I had at this place was when I asked for butter for my muffin. I was told that there was no butter, but they have it for the toast, so why not the muffins?
There are two desserts, both served in individually sized pie tins, with a rich homemade short crust. One is an impossibly rich sweet-potato pie, which had me saying Uncle after a single bite. But the other, a lattice-crusted peach cobbler, had me coming back for more. So did nearly everything else.