Saturday, May 3, 2008

Nothing Is Sadder Than Bad Barbecue

On Thursday night, BPLJ and Pescado treated us to Gus's Barbecue (mainly because Pescado wanted to go to The Cigar Sultan next door). Mr. Monkey and I had a great time with BPLJ and Pescado. Lots of laughs and good times!

I must say, however, that the restaurant itself was rather disappointing.

And that's saying a lot because the Monkeys love barbecue.

Gus's has been around since 1946, yet the place smacked of chainy-ness.
And we all know how I feel about chain restaurants. So very very sad.

Dinner started off well. The shredded onion strings were a mountain of greasy goodness.

But my pulled pork was pathetic. Pescado's opinion was right on point -- it was bland and not vinegary enough.
My side of "pecan rice" was disgusting. I couldn't figure out why it was called "pecan rice" because, no matter how hard I hunted, I didn't find even one pecan. It was just rice slathered with weird sweet stewed peppers. Gag gag gag. Luckily, my baked beans were tasty enough, as they were smothered with bacon and brown sugar.

Mr. Monkey's baby back ribs were decent but far from droolworthy. They paled in comparison to the ones we'd had from Dr. Hogly Wogly's Tyler Texas BBQ last weekend (and those were take-out, no less). The accompanying sweet potato fries and creamed corn were better than everything else we had. Thank God.
We ended with a slice of red velvet cake. This was pretty good, and the cream cheese frosting was particularly noteworthy, even if it was a bit excessive for my liking. When I said that, even Pescado agreed, "I can't believe I'm saying 'too much' and 'frosting' in the same sentence, but I think you're right."
I wanted strawberry cobbler, but they were out of it, which I found supremely irritating, as it was still early in the evening. I was also annoyed with the general level of service, which was rather inattentive.

I will not be going back, but I did enjoy catching up with my dear former co-workers. Thanks! It was great seeing you guys!

12 comments:

  1. next time you're in my hood for some random reason, i'll have to take you to the bbq shack we tried monday. us bbq-non-lovers loved it. :)

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  2. Sorry it tasted shetty, but it sure does look good!

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  3. drooling at the cake picture.

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  4. bad bbq is sad! at least the cake was decent . . .

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  5. that cake!!!!!!

    nothing worse than food that should be better. wasted calories and such...

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  6. damn gus's barbecue for giving that name a bad rap!!!

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  7. your title says it all. sadness... have you ever tried johnny rebs'? it's one of my fave spots for tasty bbq. johnnyrebs dot com ;-)

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  8. If you haven't tried it yet, I'd recommend Baby Blues BBQ on Lincoln in Venice. The place is always PACKED because it was featured on the Food Network recently, but it's well worth the wait.

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  9. sad for bad bbq.

    actually, i'm not a bbq fan anyway, so i'd have just gone for cake. ;)

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  10. I think your title says it all. I am very sad. The pics look great though. And the company was good. Silver lining. ;)

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  11. I am so grateful for your post! Hubby keeps wanting to try Gus's and I keep saying I heard it is AWFUL! But he doesn't believe me because it looks like it has been around so long. Now I know what to order if he makes me go--onion straws and Red Velvet cake. Yum! There is no such thing as too much cream cheese frosting in my universe.

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