Tremendous disappointment


 
T

T Bounds

TVWBB Super Fan
Friends,

In my life I've eaten so much Q that I thought I had tasted it all, pork-wise speaking. However, today I had lunch with my wife at Red, Hot and Blue for the first time. They promote true southern food and Memphis Q, so what the heck, right? Wrong! I had a pulled pork plate and it was likely the worst q I've ever eaten. There was not a bite of flavor on the whole plate, and I had plenty of "bark" and it too had no flavor at all. Add in that the whole dish was as dry as a bone, and it was a miserable lunch. I'm not usually a complainer, but this was very disappointing. I'll have to make some of my own Q soon just to get my flavor back. Thanks for letting me vent.
 
I feel your sentiment 1000%. Once you've mastered que-ing at home, have your methods and techniques straight, and have been able to churn out consistent good barbecue yourself, going to restaurants - any of them - will be a HUGE disappointment.

Restaurants - especially "famous" and chain joints - often put priority on volume of sales once they get any sort of name recognition, and can't/won't devote the time to flavor or attention to detail to satisfy purists like ourselves.

They essentially do the right things to gain recognition, then go the quicko-churno route (quickly churning out 'cue), and try to compensate by shifting focus instead to sauce (another component which increases sales).

I had a -VERY- similar experience last Friday when I went to "Texas Roadhouse" grill - mind you I live in Georgia. I ordered "rotisserie" chicken after the waitress (less than half my age) rambled on about how it was slow cooked for "6 to 8 hrs". Well the chicken was a flavorless, salty, brine-injected undercooked mess. I give them credit by offering me another option, and the manager himself delivered the replacement meal - and took the expense off my ticket. I told him (nicely) that I could turn out consistently better chicken with my Weber kettle, some KBB, apple wood chips, and 3 hours.

Anyway, there are exceptions to the "sellout" rule, but they are few and far between.
 
We have one place (it's Toronto, we're lucky to have one) that seems to be highly regarded. I ate there once and had the combo of ribs, pulled pork and brisket. Nothing special at all with very little flavour. I later learned that their "pit" was a single grate offset smoker that we can buy at Home Depot for $150. Apparently, food was precooked, reheated and (over)sauced to order.
Very disappointing.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by James Harvey:
We have one place (it's Toronto, we're lucky to have one) that seems to be highly regarded. I ate there once and had the combo of ribs, pulled pork and brisket. Nothing special at all with very little flavour. I later learned that their "pit" was a single grate offset smoker that we can buy at Home Depot for $150. Apparently, food was precooked, reheated and (over)sauced to order.
Very disappointing. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
Who Jim? So I know not to go there.
 
I Had the same experience at Ruby Tuesday last night. I ordered a rack of baby back ribs and although they were very tender, they had absolutley no flavor except the taste of sweet bbq sauce. It's hard to beat cooking your "Q" at home and being able to control the "flavor" with your favorite rubs and smoke woods.
 
We have a Red, Hot, and Blue around here that I've been to twice. First time it was excellent - the second time it was so bad that I vowed never to go back (and I hadn't started q'ing yet). Everything was so dry and flavorless. My wife and I have an agreement - we each get something different so we can try the other's food as well. She had the sausage which wasn't bad but still not "great".
 
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