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 forget that Las Vegas is a big city and, like all big cities, there are plenty of superb places to eat around town. We guarantee that the 2 million folks living in the metropolitan area don’t limit their dining to The Strip. You just have to know where to go.

Fried okra, cabbage, and red beans and rice with sausage would make a superlative lunch as is. But don’t miss the pork chops and chicken.

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 choice nuggets. Cornbread is served pancake-style, and these are not to be missed; devour them when they’re hot and fresh from the griddle.

M&M serves the kind of cornmeal pancakes more commonly found in Nashville than Las Vegas. Best eaten hot!

No soul food café 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.

Sweet but not syrupy yams, cornbread dressing with gravy, and collard greens make up this well-balanced three vegetable plate.

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).

A side order of dark meat fried chicken includes two legs and a thigh. They do a superlative job of frying at the M&M. We love this chicken!

The fried pork chops have a well-seasoned crunchy crust. These are our single favorite things to eat at the M&M.

LAF TRAK: 

FOOD: 

BEST THING TO EAT: Fried pork chops

We are huge fans of the half-tea/half-lemonade beverage often called an Arnold Palmer. At M&M, they serve something called Muddy Water; same half-and-half proportions, but they are layered, not mixed. And the lemonade is homemade. Terrific!

Banana pudding is dense with softened vanilla wafers.

Dark, caramelized sweet potato pie; real home-style cooking.

Most of the seating at the M&M is at standard Formica-topped booths. But we especially appreciate this one chipped, landlord-green corner booth. The Jetsons-shaped table evokes that long-ago ultra-moderne image of the exotic future.

Soul food is as much about your soul as it is about the food.

We saw a few customers enjoying fresh-baked waffles served with fried chicken wings. Looked great!

We are not certain, but we believe this to be a branch of a Los Angeles soul food classic.