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| - Wow. A lot of comments on this place. I didn't have quite the variety of eats that others did as I came here really only to sample the BBQ.
We ordered the meal for two, which is a special running perhaps for a limited time. It came with 1/2 chicken, 8 ribs (St. Louis spares and Babys) and probably about 1/3 lb. of tri-tip. Add to that a salad, 2 sides, and dessert. All for $32. From a value perspective it was a great deal.
I saw a review below that took issue to the reference to "St. Louis" style ribs. Please inform yourself before you go all loco about this being a southern restaurant but St. Louis is north of the Mason-Dixon line. FYI, St. Louis style spares typically refers to the cut of rib (you basically cut the riblets off the spare ribs), not how they are cooked or seasonings. It would be like someone complaining about a New York strip steak being served in a French restaurant.
Ok, now that I've gotten that off my chest...
Biscuits, salad, and sides (which we got vegetables and the peanut slaw) all rated C+/B-. While I understand the sides aren't the most typical BBQ side fixins, we didn't want to go too overboard. Hey, they are on the menu, they should be better. The salad was your typical crappy house salad. The biscuits were hockey pucks save for the sweet butter, but I don't think I could have handled greasy biscuits anyways.
Ribs - they use hickory to smoke which I'm never a fan of for pork, and I don't know if they use an commercial electric smoker or a wood burning pit (I'm guessing the former), but overall they were above average. The babys were much better than the spares. The spares really lacked a smoke ring or good smoke flavor, but the babys were very tasty and moist. Spares were pretty dry, which is unusual considering spares are typically fattier. Perhaps they don't move them as fast and they are "held" warm longer as another reviewer speculated. But the bonus for me was the meat wasn't "falling off the bone". Anybody who knows anything about good BBQ knows this is a sign of overcooked mushy ribs. The meat held on the bone and a good tug cleaned the meat mostly off. Finally someone knows how to cook ribs and stick to their guns with the doneness.
The sauce kind of blew it for me. Sooo sweet...tasted like a typical Kansas City style sauce. I'll probably order them dry next time, and moreso to really get a sense of the flavor of the naked meat without the sauce killing the flavor. I tasted the Memphis style sauce they had at the table, but other than the fact it was too thick, it had good Memphis tomatoey/vinegary flavor and lacked all of the sugar. Overall I rate the ribs a B.
Chicken and tri-tip were really tasty. The tri-tip was a tad dry, but certainly not enough to stop me from ordering it again. I wouldn't call it a traditional Santa Maria-style tri-tip, but really good nonetheless. Probably because it didn't have sauce coating it! The hickory really complements beef much better.
The chicken was probably the highlight of the meal. Both dark and white meat were cooked perfectly and were juicy. The sauce was applied sufficiently so that it wasn't too sweet but added to the good flavor of the chicken. I doubt they solely "smoked" the chicken, as doing so typically yields a rubbery skin, but they could have either cooked it over an open pit or did some sort of hybrid cooking method to give the skin a good texture while infusing some good smoke into the meat. B+ for the tri-tip, A- for the chicken.
Finally, the desserts were mixed. We ordered the peach cobbler and banana pudding. The pudding was rich and thick and not too sweet, while the cobbler was pretty brutal. They use dried peaches which were reconstituted, or at least that is what it tasted like. It was a very commercial tasting cobbler. C- for the cobbler, pudding was a B.
Overall service was good, and as mentioned good value. I'm still going to cook my own ribs in my smoker and get a better product (and cheaper). But for those days I don't feel like firing it up and want a fix, I'll go back for the chicken/tri-tip/baby backs.
All in all, I wasn't overwhelmed, but this restaurant will please most BBQ fans but will leave the true die-hards wanting more. Ya can't have it all (well, at least in Phoenix). If anyone feels differently, let me know. And don't mention the unholy Honey Bears.
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