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| - As a foodie who grew up in Kansas City, my great frustration with the Las Vegas food scene for many years was the absence of authentic wood-smoked barbecue. The dirty little secret of the BBQ business is that a lot of it isn't smoked, but just baked in a regular oven. Oven-baking is a zillion times easier - no fire to tend, no smoke burning your eyes - but it lacks the delicious smokeyness that BBQ fanatics live for. You will never see a wisp of smoke coming out of Famous Dave's, Lucille's, or Memphis Championship. But if you drive up to Rollin' Smoke, you'll see the smokers billowing away right in their parking lot. Rollin' Smoke, Top Notch (both relatively new) and Annie's Kitchen (open for a while now, but not in the best neighborhood) are the only three BBQ joints in Las Vegas where they actually smoke the meat. And believe me, once you've tasted the difference, you'll never go to the oven-baked frauds again.
For BBQ lovers who must know: hickory is the wood of choice at Rollin' Smoke, the dry rub is fairly mild, and their sauce is closest to the sweet Memphis variety. If you're not that concerned with the fine-print details, suffice it to say that Rollin' Smoke is exactly what barbecue should be: smokey, meaty, and falling-off-the-bone tender. If you're looking for a LOT of meat for a terrific price, go with the St. Louis ribs, the $12 half rack feeds two normal adults or one BBQ glutton. The $20 full rack should easily feed a family of four; the size of the rack is straight out of The Flintstones. While most people prefer babybacks because of their tenderness, my problem with babybacks is that there just isn't enough meat on them. My eyes popped when I saw the babybacks at Rollin' Smoke because I've never seen babybacks anywhere (well OK, not in Kansas City, Memphis or Texas - 3 of the 4 "capitals" of BBQ) with so much meat on the bones - all the tenderness of babybacks but twice as much meat.
There are plenty of other great items on the menu. The pulled pork and beef brisket are both winners. For lovers of Texas-style, they even offer beef ribs, done to perfection (beef ribs are a lot trickier than the pork kind). My favorite side dish is the bacon potato salad. The mac & cheese is great too. One side to avoid is the yams, which I thought were blechy. True to the owner's roots, two Southern classics are available for dessert: banana pudding and peach cobbler. They also serve up a blackberry cobbler which is pretty good (even though I don't like blackberries). Two caveats before you eat here: 1) be very specific about what you're ordering, because mixups can happen; and 2) order less than you think you can eat, because the portions are huge. If you're looking for food late on a Fri or Sat night, Rollin' Smoke is open until 1:30 a.m. - a far better option than the overpriced mediocrity of casino coffeeshops.
The typical BBQ joint is formica tables and white plaster walls, bare except for a few pictures of the owner posing with whatever celebrities have eaten there. Rollin' Smoke is a bit nicer than most because it took over its space from a failed restauranteur whose background was interior design, not food. But forget the interior, all you need for ambience is a view of those beautiful billowing smokers in the parking lot.
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