Market Street Cafe, Las Vegas

12 East Ogden Avenue

Las Vegas, Nevada

Aside from all the trendy, upscale restaurants, there are many down-home, bargain eateries in Las Vegas. A quick Internet search led me to Market Street Cafe. Their website boasts their famous ox-tail soup, a $9.99 prime rib dinner special and many other awesome deals!  

The cafe is actually a 24-hour diner located within the California Hotel and Casino. Their extensive menu offers various American dishes and Hawaiian specialties.

Ox-tail Soup ($10.99)

For some reason, their ox-tail soup is only served from 11:00 PM till 9:00 AM the next morning. Well, it worked out perfectly for us because after attending the Backstreet Boys concert, W and I were hungry and the serving time has just started!

I don't know if my brain was fried from all the excitement of the BSB show or what but I did not have any pre-conceived notions of how the ox-tail soup would be like. W and I both ordered a soup for ourselves but when it came, it was a ginormous bowl of beef broth filled with stewed tender ox-tail pieces. There were also lots of simmered carrots, celery, tomato and onion chunks AND it came with a bowl of white rice! 

As a fan of meat and bone broth, this was simple and hearty. There was so much meat on the ox-tail that I didn't even touch the rice. For the ample portion of meat, veggies, soup and even a side of rice, the price was good. However, if you want to talk about price and portion, probably the best bang-for-your-buck at Market Street Cafe would be their prime rib dinner special.

From 4:00 PM to 10:00 PM every night, their Prime Rib Dinner Special is only $9.99!!

It includes soup or salad, an 8 oz. prime rib, veggies, a choice of starch, and Cherries Jubilee for dessert.

Both W and I went for the DIY salad at their old-school salad bar. Sure brings back memories of my childhood! The selections were typical buffet salad bar items (think canned corn, iceberg lettuce, imitation bacon bits, and goopy salad dressing) but for this price, we were A-ok with it.

Medium rare prime rib - served with horseradish and au jus for the steak, green beans and baked potato with butter and sour cream on the side

Our main event has arrived! I ordered my steak medium rare and it turned out pretty pink! I was quite pleased at the doneness! The meat was tender and juicy but the outer crust could have used more seasoning. The prime rib came with a side of green beans (which W did not touch), and I chose the baked potato as my starch. The green beans were salted well but overcooked. The potato was not bad. It came with butter and sour cream on the side. I used my artificial bacon bits from the salad bar to sprinkle on the potato too lol...

Cherries Jubilee

Finally, dessert time! The Cherries Jubilee was like a parfait of sweet cherry compote, a scoop of vanilla ice cream and whipped cream on top. A piece of wafer cookie was placed on the side. I'm not a big fan of cherries but it paired nicely with the vanilla ice cream. A nice bit of cold creamy sweetness to end the meal!

For all this, we dropped $20 (plus taxes and tips) and hugged our stuffed tummies back out the door! It wasn't like amazing, gourmet food but definitely something to experience while in Vegas.