Dining at Yardbird in Las Vegas

A couple of weeks ago I found myself in Las Vegas with a few hours to kill. Seizing the opportunity I hopped on a shuttle bus, headed to the Strip and…had a delicious lunch. What can I say? I’ll always choose a good meal over gambling.

I decided to try out Yardbird – Southern Table & Bar located at the Venetian.

With an original location in Miami Beach Yardbird is a fairly new player in the Vegas dining scene. Based on the good reviews I found online it seemed to be making its place in the culinary landscape. I checked out the photos on Yelp and one look at their Blackberry Bourbon Lemonade I was sold.

I arrived shortly after they opened at 11am and the first thing I ordered?

Good ole Blackberry Bourbon Lemonade. I was in Vegas, baby. The perfect place to do some day…er…morning drinking. And this lemonade was the perfect drink to have. After a few sips of the mixture of bourbon, blackberry puree, lemon, cardamom and bitters I was throwing out y’alls like there was no tomorrow. Ok, not really. But it was delicious.

The highlight of the lunch menu was their homemade fried chicken. Unfortunately, I’m not a big fried chicken fan so I opted for a different Southern specialty- biscuits. Now I love a good biscuit and the Smoked Brisket Biscuits sounded quite tasty.

A little smaller than I anticipated the dish was good but not particularly memorable. I loved the biscuits themselves but the topping of pickled onion & cucumber, tomato jam and brisket just didn’t stand out.

The size of my entree turned out to be just right because there was no way I was skipping the dessert menu. With choices like a Deep Fried Oreo or Lemon Blueberry Sundae it was hard to decide but I eventually went with the Yardbird Banana Split.

Isn’t it beautiful? Caramel popcorn and vanilla ice cream topped with chocolate sauce, a shortbread cookie and a caramelized banana it was almost too lovely to it. Almost. As soon as I took my first bite I knew I chose the right dessert. It was fantastic. The chocolate, ice cream and banana came together as a wonderful symphony of flavor. I LOVED it.

Overall, I was quite happy I chose to spend my short time in Vegas at Yardbird. If they decide to bring their restaurant to LA I certainly won’t mind.