Prime rib in Las Vegas: what it is, what to order, what to avoid

Overview

Prime rib was not invented in Las Vegas. It is a standing rib roast, the American dining room’s big occasion meat of the mid-twentieth century: a whole section of beef rib, seasoned on the outside, roasted slowly so that the inside stays evenly pink, then rested and carved to order into thick slices. It arrives with its own au jus (the thin pan juice, not a gravy) and a pot of horseradish, usually creamed.

What belongs to this city is not the roast but the special. Casinos have long used cheap, generous food to keep people inside the building, and prime rib suited the job perfectly: one roast feeds dozens, it holds for hours, and a thick pink slab on a plate looks like far more than its price. The low-priced prime rib dinner, served in a casino’s coffee shop or at a buffet’s carving station, became one of the city’s fixtures, and it survives today mostly away from the Strip, in downtown, which the Deuce bus reaches from the Strip, and in the casinos that cater to residents. That is the honest claim: the dish is national, the institution is local.

One word needs untangling before anything else. The “prime” in prime rib refers to the cut, not the grade. The roast comes from the rib section of the steer, one of its primal cuts, and a roast of any grade from there can carry the name. USDA Prime is a separate thing, the highest of the government’s beef grades, above Choice and Select, and only a small share of beef earns it. Most prime rib, and nearly all of it at special prices, is Choice. That is not a deception, but a menu that says “USDA Prime prime rib” is telling you something the bare name does not.

What to order

The order has two parts: how much, and how cooked.

Size is sold by the cut, and the names vary from room to room. The words you are likely to see:

• regular or queen cut — the standard slice, usually the one on the special.
• king cut — a much thicker slice, often with the bone. It is a lot of meat; plenty of people order it once and the regular the next time.
• English cut — the same weight carved into several thin slices rather than one slab. It is easier to eat and the jus reaches more of it.
• end cut — the outside slice of the roast, with more crust and seasoning and a more cooked interior. There are only two per roast, so you ask for it rather than expect it.

Doneness is where prime rib differs from a steak, and it is worth understanding before you answer the question. A steak is cooked to your order; a roast has already been cooked, and the slice you get is whatever that part of the roast is. The center of a good roast is rare to medium-rare, which is what the dish is built to deliver. Ask for medium and the carver will take a slice nearer the outside. Ask for well done and the slice is usually finished in hot jus or on a grill, which turns it gray and firm. If you want it more cooked, the end cut is the version the roast itself produces, and it is the better answer.

Then the sides, which on a special are often fixed: a baked potato or mashed potatoes, a vegetable, sometimes a salad and a roll. Steakhouses may add creamed spinach or a Yorkshire pudding, the puffed batter that is the roast’s traditional companion. Ask for extra jus if the slice looks dry; nobody minds.

Horseradish is not a garnish to push aside. It cuts the fat, and a little on each forkful is how the dish is meant to be eaten.

What to avoid

Nearly every bad plate of prime rib has the same cause: the slice sat too long. A roast held warm for hours keeps cooking slowly from the outside in. Fresh from the oven it is pink almost to the edge under a thin dark crust; late in its life the gray band widens, the pink shrinks to a stripe and the meat goes tight. You can see this on the plate before you taste it, and it is the one thing worth looking at when the dish arrives. At a carving station you can see it before you take any.

A grilled “prime rib steak” is a different dish. It is a bone-in rib steak cut raw and cooked on a grill, which is a fine thing to eat and not a slice of roast. The menu wording is the clue: “prime rib” on its own means the roast; “prime rib steak” or “grilled prime rib” usually does not.

A sandwich called prime rib can be anything from carved roast on a roll to shaved deli roast beef. The first is the dish; the second is cold cuts with a better name. Thin, uniform slices with no crust at the edge are the giveaway.

Watch the jus too. Real au jus is thin, beefy and tastes of the roast. A dark, salty, uniform liquid that is the same every time is a base mixed from powder, and it does the meat no favors.

Finally, read the conditions on a cheap special as carefully as the price. The price on the sign is often not the price for everyone. Many are tied to the casino’s loyalty card, limited to certain hours or days, or for a smaller cut than the photograph suggests.

Practicalities

The casino special is the cheapest prime rib you will find, and its range has risen a long way from the figures people remember: roughly $15 to $30 for a regular cut with sides, often less with a loyalty card. A steakhouse on the Strip charges several times that, and the gap usually buys something real: a higher grade, a thicker cut, a roast carved for a dining room rather than a crowd. A special far below the casino range almost always comes with a condition attached, and it is worth knowing which one before you sit down.

Prime rib is dinner food, and timing decides the quality. Roasts come out of the oven for the evening service, so the first hours of dinner get the freshest slices; the last plates of the night come from a roast that has been waiting. Popular specials can sell out, and when they do, they are gone until the next roast. Prime rib is also a traditional holiday roast in this country, and around Christmas it turns up on menus that do not usually carry it.

The loyalty card costs nothing and is signed up for at a desk inside the casino, usually in a few minutes with photo identification. If a special requires one, that is the whole of the requirement in most cases.

Cards are accepted almost everywhere, and the coffee shops and buffets are no exception. Table service carries the ordinary American tip, around 15 to 20 percent, and that applies to a cheap special as much as to an expensive one: the server carried the same plate.