Montana Meat Co.

In the poker bar of old, decor was sparse to nonexistent, if you didn't count the dark corners. The prevailing scents were stale beer and staler cigarette smoke, the prevailing sounds coins banging into the trays of the slot machines and occasional verbal outbursts either cursing or praising the fates. The food? Usually whatever could be kept in the freezer and thrown into the fryer.

In today's poker bar -- examples of which are almost legion but represented for our purposes today by the Montana Meat Co. -- decor generally is pretty creative; we liked the appropriately rustic look of the place and the fact that the Montana theme was carried even down to the menus, which have lots of pretty pictures of Big Sky Country and Montana-themed cocktails. The prevailing scents were pretty much limited to food (and in a good way), the prevailing sounds a reflection of the dichotomy of the rapidly growing northern part of the valley: a hipster family with rather overactive (or maybe that's underdisciplined) kids on one side ("Lindsey! Hey, Lindsey!"), a more subdued group discussing the vagaries of a beloved horse on the other ("She tried to run me in to a tree. I have a scar on my back. She was a mean old horse.")

And the food? Well, that's why we were there. The uniquely Las Vegas institution that is the poker bar has come a long way in terms of food, to the point that it's the main reason many of us go. If you need confirmation consider the names of the newer spots and you'll find that they either refer to food and wine or are sufficiently ambiguous as to leave the uninformed guessing.

There's nothing ambiguous about the name of the Montana Meat Co., of course, and so we'd certainly have to partake of a steak -- in this case a 12-ounce rib-eye "in our signature pepper marinade." And lo and behold: No, it wasn't a great steak, but it was a perfectly respectable, quite good steak, its flavor boosted by the fact that it was a rib-eye, one of the most flavorful of cuts, and also by that pepper marinade. And this for $18.95, when even some of not-so-upscale steakhouses in town are charging in the mid-$30s for essentially the same quality.

Fresh vegetables on the side were the requisite lathe-turned carrots, some green beans and -- an oddity these days-- yellow wax beans, all crisp-tender and reasonably fresh-tasting. And a baked potato (mashed, fries, onion rings and rice pilaf were the other choices) was just fine, although we wish they wouldn't use those nasty little plastic cups for the accompanying butter, sour cream and the scallions that stood in for chives.

Our meat theme also was carried out in an appetizer of tiny lamb chops ($9.95), flavorful but not too gamey, maybe a hair more toward rare than the medium-rare we'd ordered. The best part: an excellent honey-basil sauce in which the springlike, assertive flavor of basil naturally predominated for a particularly effective complement to the earthy flavor of the meat. I can't overstate how much I liked this sauce; the server left the little boat holding it after our appetizers were cleared and it was also excellent on the beef, as I'm sure it would be on numerous other foods.

While we're talking about particularly effective condiments, I'll include the sprightly orange-mango chutney served with the bacon-wrapped scallops ($9.95). The scallops were tender and moist, though they had a rather strong aftertaste and we'd just as soon they'd skip the little pile of slaw mix and cubed tomato in the center of the plate, which was sorta sad-sack and mainly gratuitous.

We were quite pleased with our other entree, the macadamia-crusted Alaskan halibut ($16.95). Crusted dishes often are a little too heavy on the crust but that wasn't the case with this one, and so the flavor of the nuts didn't get into a raging battle with the delicate nature of the fish.

In keeping with general poker bar sensibilities the wine list was reasonably well-varied (not as well-varied as the cocktail list, maybe) and reasonably priced. Our 2005 Kendall Jackson Cabernet was $30, and wine service was smooth.

Dessert? No, we'd scarfed too much of the excellent sourdough while awaiting our appetizers; dessert was out of the question.

But no problem; we're sure we'll return. Like its brethren in this rising genre, Montana Meat Co. offers good food at reasonable prices.

And a little video poker on the side.

Las Vegas Review-Journal reviews are done anonymously at Review-Journal expense. Contact Heidi Knapp Rinella at 383-0474 or e-mail her at hrinella@reviewjournal.com.