Ate at Pappy's Smokehouse Last night

[TTNuge]

Well I guess it's official, I am now a BBQ snob.  I'm glad we went, I enjoyed the food, but I talked my co-worker into going on our first night here in St. Louis because I was hoping to go multiple times during our stay but I can honestly say we won't be taking a cab back another time.  I had the ribs and brisket, my co-worker had brisket and pulled pork.  In all cases the food was good but didn't knock our socks off.  My co-worker has had some of my BBQ, mainly pulled pork, and we both agreed that my stuff was better.  Everything was just a touch on the dry side, the brisket was a little tough but not bad, pulled pork seemed to be the most dry of everything.  Ribs had a great flavor, I really liked their rub and it's something I will look to replicate at home when we want a dry rubbed rib instead of a sauced rib but they just weren't juicy or tender.  I would say they were pretty close to a competition style rib but I think they were even a bit dry for that.

All and all I'm glad we went.  I guess maybe my expectations were too high.  It's OK because I really love my BBQ and I'm glad I feel I can do it just as good as some places making money doing it.  Obviously things change when you change the scale of food you are preparing.   They did run out of brisket as we were leaving but they had plenty of ribs left.

Oh yeah, and I got the T-Shirt to show I Was there!

Trent

[oakville smoker]

Sorry to hear of your disappointment
I had the same experience at another BBQ joint up here

My best friend is 85 and right now is house bound
I thought it would be a great gesture to take him out for dinner to a place he had not been before
We settled on some BBQ

We had a BBQ sampler, pulled pork, ribs and some chicken
Well Kenny is not shy about sharing his opinions
One bite into the ribs he muttered yours are better than these!
Your sauce is better than this sauce !
Cant you teach them how to cook chicken?
They call this pulled pork?

I am my own toughest judge
Kenny might be my biggest fan !  LOL

Sometimes you just have to go home

[classicrockgriller]

Smoking on a smaller scale like we do, we get to adjust from one smoke to the next

to make ourselfs happy. I agree there is no good BBQ except at home. The small amount

of times I go out to eat we don't go to Q joints. We tend to go Mexican Food cause we

can't make it like they can. We are a lucky group of people.

[Ka Honu]

SWMBO almost always refuses to go to (any of our very limited number of) southern, Cajun or BBQ restaurants saying that I do it better.  That may be true (within my limited repertoire) since making a given meal better than most restaurants is not all that difficult.  Doing it consistently in volume is the problem. 

Add to that the fact that most people go to a BBQ joint with an (often unreasonable or incorrect) expectation of what the meal should taste like.  Think of all the comments we make about every brisket, butt, and (to some extent) bird being slightly different and requiring some adjustment.  Now think about how to do that every day for 100 servings of each.  Oh yeah, and you're preparing them for let's say 100 different people who all think each dish should taste exactly the way each one of them favors.

Fame & fortune in the food world are obviously not in my future - I'll stick to the backyard grill and smoker and endear myself to friends and family.

[NePaSmoKer]

T-Shirt Time  ;D

We eat here when we go to OKC.



From a good friend of mine  ;D



All my t shirts that were very large i tossed. I should have got pics of em from the BBQ joints i been to  :-\

[York]

I run into the same problem. I go to a BBQ joint and I end up disappointed. I am not saying I am the best cook, however my family seems to like my food better.

However, there are some places I would still like to go to just to say I have been. For instance Black's and Kreutz.

[hal4uk]

Last week...  I had "world famous" bbq... 
"3-time world grand champion" bbq...  yada yada...
(I was working on the Illinois State Fair grounds)

It was good.
Mine's better.
Awrighten.

[DarqMan]

Nepas, the Sante Fe Cattle joints all closed down here that I know of.  I think there are still some in the state, but the ones in the OKC area are all shut down.  The building in Edmond where they were is one of those "jinx" locations.  Several place have opened but they always close shortly afterwards.  It's empty right now.

[Ka Honu]

... Black's and Kreutz.

They're both pretty damn good.  I might make a brisket as good as theirs occasionally but not every time and I don't make sausage so can't match them there.

[beefmann]

i've been to places and felt the  same way  where me food was better,

[NePaSmoKer]

Nepas, the Sante Fe Cattle joints all closed down here that I know of.  I think there are still some in the state, but the ones in the OKC area are all shut down.  The building in Edmond where they were is one of those "jinx" locations.  Several place have opened but they always close shortly afterwards.  It's empty right now.

WOW

And as busy as it was all the time....who da thought

[lumpy]

After years of smoking on my own the best thing that I can remember about most (not all) of the BBQ joints are the T-shirts.
Not saying that I am better, just like my own product over the commercial stuff.

Lumpy

[smokeitall]

Well I guess it's official, I am now a BBQ snob.  I'm glad we went, I enjoyed the food, but I talked my co-worker into going on our first night here in St. Louis because I was hoping to go multiple times during our stay but I can honestly say we won't be taking a cab back another time.  I had the ribs and brisket, my co-worker had brisket and pulled pork.  In all cases the food was good but didn't knock our socks off.  My co-worker has had some of my BBQ, mainly pulled pork, and we both agreed that my stuff was better.  Everything was just a touch on the dry side, the brisket was a little tough but not bad, pulled pork seemed to be the most dry of everything.  Ribs had a great flavor, I really liked their rub and it's something I will look to replicate at home when we want a dry rubbed rib instead of a sauced rib but they just weren't juicy or tender.  I would say they were pretty close to a competition style rib but I think they were even a bit dry for that.

All and all I'm glad we went.  I guess maybe my expectations were too high.  It's OK because I really love my BBQ and I'm glad I feel I can do it just as good as some places making money doing it.  Obviously things change when you change the scale of food you are preparing.   They did run out of brisket as we were leaving but they had plenty of ribs left.

Oh yeah, and I got the T-Shirt to show I Was there!

Trent

Man Trent usually Pappy's is better than that.  I haven't been there in a while, I'll have to take a ride over and try it again.
SIA

[TTNuge]

Well I'm back home in MN now so it'll be time to fire up the MAK ASAP.  I didn't want it to sound like I was totally disappointed, it was still good food.  I really think a lot of it was based more on having too high of expectations going in.  Up here we don't have a lot of choices so the thought of heading into "BBQ Land" and eating was probably over hyped in my mind.  I still ate good, I think the only thing better was the burger at the Lumaire Burger Bar.  They make some killer burgers and it's only about 50ft from the craps table.

I'm definitely willing to give them another try on the next trip.  It very well could have been that we were on the tail end of a batch of food and it sat around a bit longer than normal.  They did run out of brisket while we were sitting there so that was getting low.  And they talked about their different batches of ribs that were done at different times, while we were sitting there they were handing out samples of the ribs to people in line saying they were from the tail end of the last batch and the ones you get when you order would be better.  So odds are we got the same ribs they were handing out as samples for free just a few minutes later.  And I can't personally say anything about the pulled pork as my co-worker didn't give me a sample, but I could tell by looking at it that is was pretty darn dry.

I still appreciate the recommendation to go there and I love my "There's no such thing as too much Butt" T-Shirt.  I'll give them another chance in a few months when I'm back.

[smokeitall]

Yeah you can't beat them Lumiere burgers....hope you had good luck at craps.