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| - I haven't seen this much pink and aqua since the days of Miami Vice! The decor of Hot Sauce Williams doesn't look like it's been updated since the 80's-esque crime drama either.
Yeah, I get it. Bourdain went here. An episode of Man vs. Food was shot here. East 79th & Carnegie has never seen so many white foodsters flocking here because their favorite TV-foodie says it was good. It's an institution to some. Criticizing it would be akin to criticizing your Mom. Despite all of that, I will still go on record as to saying that Cleveland STILL doesn't do good BBQ. At least no public place that I've found yet does.
Hot Sauce Williams is kind of overwhelming. A lot of locals seem to come here. They know what they want even before they arrive. As you enter, a line forms, similar to that of a fast food counter. Place your order, pay, wait for the already prepared food in chaffing dishes to be sauced and packaged and eat it either in the dining room or take it to-go. But wait; there's no menu on the wall! Luckily I found a stack of paper in the dining room that resembled a menu. In no specific order or fashion, the piece of paper spouts off an assortment of food offerings and prices. A different piece of paper that's plastered to the wall says something about substituting sides will cost an additional 85-cents.
The typical dinner will include fried chicken/ribs/pork.etc, a side of slaw, fries and bread. I ordered the chicken dinner. The slaw looked way too liquidy for my tastes, so I upgraded to the mac & cheese. The chicken, smothered in hot sauce was bland, un-crispy and tasted like it was sitting around for a while. The fries were packaged frozen cottage fries (not fresh cut) with their signature sauce dumped on top. The mac and cheese was overcooked and so tender, it almost melts in your mouth. I'm not sure pasta should dissolve like that. They were unfortunately out of cornbread when we went, so we got slices of Wonder bread to go along with our meal. The whole dinner, packaged in a Styrofoam to-go box had to be rubber-banded together because it was overflowing with food.
The meal was good in a sloppy, messy, down-and-dirty kind of way I guess. That's the way most BBQ is meant to be eaten I suppose. I was just completely underwhelmed by the whole thing. I do BBQ at home in the summer. I have a wood burning smoker where I smoke meats of all varieties. I make cornbread in my cast iron skillet. I love greens and mac and cheese. Needless to say, I've had much better at home and with not much effort. I know the potential for this type of cuisine and I'm not giving this place any sort of break because it's a so called "Cleveland institution". Cleveland deserves better BBQ.
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