j biesinger
TVWBB Platinum Member
I've mentioned that I often cook from the cook book authored by the founders of this small chain of bbq restaurants (4 and counting, will buffalo be next?). This was only my second time eating at it since its an hour plus drive from my house. I thought I'd document the experience since I know at least maybe Bill Hayes might be interested in the pics.
We went on a saturday, and smartly we called ahead (no reservations allowed for parties smaller than 6) to get our name in the cue. They told us over the phone there would be a 90 min wait. By the time we found a parking place (watch out for amerk's games, dinosaur is right by the arena so we had to pay 4 bucks to park) and got to the bar we whittled 30 min off the wait.
The bar has a nice selection of beer, unfortunately I went local, like I usually do, and came up with two duds: the ape hanger ale (produced by middle ages, syracuse, ny, for the dinosaur) and rorhbach (rochester, ny) scotch ale. The ape hanger was light and fruity with not much going on, the scotch ale was about the most flavorless scotch ale I've had.
Luckily for the little one's sake (or should I say me and her mom's sake) we got our table 15 min before our 90 was up (1:15 wait for the math challenged).
we started with a favorite recipe of ours from the book: fried green tomatoes with ranch. I actually thought our (or the books) rendition was better. The tomatoes were cut thin and heavily breaded. the book recipe calls for a thicker cut and a panko crust, which lets you taste the tomato and get a slight crunch. The ranch was good, it tasted just like the stuff I made from the book, so I know I'm not too far off from what they serve.
The 5 of us decided to split up our meals family style. We ordered a pork plate, a brisket plate, and a full rack of ribs which added up to 8 sides. The pulled pork was decent. I thought the brisket was excellent, and I think they must start with well marbled beef, because it was extremely moist. I'm assuming the must start with good meat, because I can't imagine any other way, I could get the choice packers I cook to be like that (plus the sliced flat was not unlike the marbled point parts I find in my packers). I was temped to ask what they use for briskets but I figured the waitress wouldn't know or they would be coy about revealing any "magic." The ribs were probably the weakest of the three. They were extremely meaty with almost a 1/2" of meat sitting on top the bones. The fat inside of them wasn't rendered out so they tended to be kind of fatty. The bones off the smaller end, were close to the right tenderness, but the opposite end needed some help. As far as sides go: the mashed sweet 'tatos with marshmallows got good reviews, corn bread was decent, the beans were heavy with allspice (not great), and the bowl of new england clam chowder that we mistakenly got, and my wife slurp up, was good I hear.
here's a shot of the entrance:
The have their large smokers outside, so you get a good look of the back of them as you walk towards the entrance. and you can really smell them over a block away.
once entering, you see the grill station and the pass (a nice opportunity to window shop, if you prefer to not wait for a table at the bar).
Here's our brisket plate and our full rack plus sides.
sorry about the picture heavy post, but I was planning on trying to put together a slide show and I ended up having issues with photobucket and their helpful antivirus ad, so I went this route to avoid complicating things.
We went on a saturday, and smartly we called ahead (no reservations allowed for parties smaller than 6) to get our name in the cue. They told us over the phone there would be a 90 min wait. By the time we found a parking place (watch out for amerk's games, dinosaur is right by the arena so we had to pay 4 bucks to park) and got to the bar we whittled 30 min off the wait.
The bar has a nice selection of beer, unfortunately I went local, like I usually do, and came up with two duds: the ape hanger ale (produced by middle ages, syracuse, ny, for the dinosaur) and rorhbach (rochester, ny) scotch ale. The ape hanger was light and fruity with not much going on, the scotch ale was about the most flavorless scotch ale I've had.
Luckily for the little one's sake (or should I say me and her mom's sake) we got our table 15 min before our 90 was up (1:15 wait for the math challenged).
we started with a favorite recipe of ours from the book: fried green tomatoes with ranch. I actually thought our (or the books) rendition was better. The tomatoes were cut thin and heavily breaded. the book recipe calls for a thicker cut and a panko crust, which lets you taste the tomato and get a slight crunch. The ranch was good, it tasted just like the stuff I made from the book, so I know I'm not too far off from what they serve.
The 5 of us decided to split up our meals family style. We ordered a pork plate, a brisket plate, and a full rack of ribs which added up to 8 sides. The pulled pork was decent. I thought the brisket was excellent, and I think they must start with well marbled beef, because it was extremely moist. I'm assuming the must start with good meat, because I can't imagine any other way, I could get the choice packers I cook to be like that (plus the sliced flat was not unlike the marbled point parts I find in my packers). I was temped to ask what they use for briskets but I figured the waitress wouldn't know or they would be coy about revealing any "magic." The ribs were probably the weakest of the three. They were extremely meaty with almost a 1/2" of meat sitting on top the bones. The fat inside of them wasn't rendered out so they tended to be kind of fatty. The bones off the smaller end, were close to the right tenderness, but the opposite end needed some help. As far as sides go: the mashed sweet 'tatos with marshmallows got good reviews, corn bread was decent, the beans were heavy with allspice (not great), and the bowl of new england clam chowder that we mistakenly got, and my wife slurp up, was good I hear.
here's a shot of the entrance:
The have their large smokers outside, so you get a good look of the back of them as you walk towards the entrance. and you can really smell them over a block away.
once entering, you see the grill station and the pass (a nice opportunity to window shop, if you prefer to not wait for a table at the bar).
Here's our brisket plate and our full rack plus sides.
sorry about the picture heavy post, but I was planning on trying to put together a slide show and I ended up having issues with photobucket and their helpful antivirus ad, so I went this route to avoid complicating things.