| rev:text
| - 3.5
I'm a fan of the food but this place is rather poorly managed, which is unfortunate.
Had dinner here on a Friday evening around 7 pm. It's an open kitchen so if you sit at the bar like we did, you'll be able to see all the chefs preparing the food and communicating with each other as they work through each order. You'll witness both positive and negative exchanges between the chefs. On one side, it's cool that they don't feel the need to put on a fake show for patrons but on another hand, it can make you a little uncomfortable when you see the main chef reprimanding a waiter or chef over some hiccups.
However, a major perk to sitting at the bar is being able to get some samples (i.e.: brussel sprouts, ribs) randomly handed to you by the main chef. They're unexpected and a nice touch as you wait for your food.
For 2, we ordered the sampler which comes with 3 meats and 3 sides ($48.50). We chose chicken, beef brisket and ribs for our meat and sweet potato waffles fries, mac & cheese, buttermilk onion rings for our sides. Then because of FOMO, we got an additional 1/4lb of pulled pork and sausages to REALLY try everything.
Meat highlights are none other than the ribs & pulled pork. Their smokey BBQ sauce is fantastic, perfectly complementing the meat. Although to be a little critical, certain parts of the ribs were way too smokey/burnt which made it a bit bitter and consequently, less enjoyable. The 1/2 chicken probably has the highest value as the portion is quite substantial. It comes with a good chunk of white meat. However, there was nothing amazing about it. Tastes like your regular smoke-roasted chicken. The same could be said for the beef brisket and the sausages. Nothing special.
What stole the show were the sides! Possibly the best onion rings out there and their mac & cheese is like no other. Each bite had me asking "how is this so good?!" to my boyfriend. Absolutely delicious and a must-try. The mac & cheese is so creamy but not heavy at all. Ugh. I also loved the sweet potato waffle fries which was super tasty and a generous portion. You can't go wrong with any of these! (Also, I had a sample of the brussel sprouts while waiting for our food and I wasn't the biggest fan. I would recommend getting the other sides.)
So in what aspect does this place fall short? Service. Our waiter pretty much disappeared during our meal and only came back at the very end. We couldn't ask for anything we wanted because nobody was around. He was there for one part of the meal though - when we had to ask if our beef brisket was coming out (we waited an extra 20 minutes after everything was served to see if it would). The kitchen had forgotten about our order despite a plate was sitting right in front already prepped with the braised red cabbage packed onto it for the longest time. I was watching it pretty hard lol. We had asked to cancel the beef brisket since we were getting pretty full but the waiter made some excuse saying it would be hard to calculate the final bill if we removed it. Huh?? They could've just added the 1/4lb of pulled pork into the platter and counted that as the third meat since it was the same amount served in the sampler anyways. I don't recall an apology and the lack of attempt to accommodate us put me off.
Another quibble I had was the amount of time we waited for our food. Sitting at the bar, we were able to hear every order being called out and worked on. 80% of them were all for delivery/take-out and there was a LOT of them. I tried to be really patient but as time passed, I couldn't help but wonder when they'd actually start working on the food for people who were literally sitting right in front of them or even in the actual restaurant. I mean I'm sure it's prioritized on a first come first serve basis which is fair but by focusing too much on these external orders, they're compromising the experience of the dine-in customers.
Perhaps it's best to not sit at the bar because you see and notice way too much. I'd recommend sitting at a table.
P.S.: The bar had such dim lighting I couldn't take too many good photos and I didn't want to be the person with the flash on.
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