1. Coconut & Lime: Smoked Pepper-Cocoa Spare Ribs
2. Quick and Dirty In The Kitchen: Spicy Ranch Baked Chicken and Cornbread
3. Cookerati: Garlic Shrimp Fettuccine with Asparagus
4. Las Vegas Food Adventures: Korean Spicy Crab
5. 101 Cooking For Two: Simple Everyday Roast Chicken with Gravy
6. Whisk: Cilantro Salad
7. A Simple Home Cook: Pork Tenderloin with Broccoli and Noodles
8. Living The Gourmet: Fresh Salmon Steaks with Warm Mango Salsa
9. What’s Cookin, Chicago?: Smoked Salmon Fritatta
10. Family, Friends and Food: Roasted Pancetta & Herb Butter Crostini

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Larry Gaian

• The Manhattan [food] Project: Meditations on smoked pork.
• Color Me Pink: Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato Salad with Sriracha Dressing
• Southern Bite: Loaded Bacon Popcorn
• Chewing The Fat: Milky Way Tart
• Home Sweet and Savory: Grilled Fish with Smoked Paprika
• Grilling 24 X 7: Homemade Spicy Cornbread Muffins
• Teczape – an escape to food: Noodles with Jalapeno, Fried Shallots, Green Onions
• Amateur Gourmet:  Chicken Fat Fried Potatoes
• Adora’s Box: Chargrilled Pork On Rice Noodle Soup
• Kitchen Confidante:  Filipino Beef Nilaga

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Larry Gaian

If you’ve read this blog for very long you know that good reviews of BBQ restaurants are few and far between.  As an official “BBQ Snob” I just don’t come across restaurants that warrant praise very often.  This weekend I’m in Des Moines, Iowa for the 14th Annual Niman Ranch Hog Farmer Appreciation Dinner and tonight I had the good fortune to eat at a wonderful BBQ restaurant.  Smokey D’s…

Smokey D’s has everything a good BBQ restaurant should have.  You can smell the wonderful sweet aroma of good BBQ from a block away and you can smell the wood smoke in the parking lot AND the restaurant smells like BBQ.  Everyone that knows good BBQ knows you can tell you’re going to have at least a decent dining experience before you’ve left the parking lot.

Smokey D’s has everything a good BBQ establishment should have.  Great food, a good vibe and fantastic  customer service.  It’s Thursday night and the restaurant was very, very busy.  Darren Warth, one of the owners, said it was a little slow.  This is a good sign…a packed restaurant and it’s a slow night.

I ordered the two meat dinner combo with brisket, chopped pork, mac & cheese and beans.  By the time I filled my drink cup and sat down our food was making its way to the table.  Super fast service is not always a plus in my book.  This often times means the food is sitting under heat lamps or drowning in sauce in warming pans.  It was obvious when the food arrived this was not the case.  Sauce on the side and everything freshly cut and plated.  BBQ perfection so far…

 The Food…

First and most importantly the meat was served with sauce on the side.  This is always a good sign.  When a restaurant serves it’s meats without sauce I’m always happier.  In my mind this means they aren’t trying to hide something.

The chopped pork was flavorful with little pieces of bark mixed in.  It wasn’t soggy or over cooked.  It was very good.  The brisket was good.  Nice beautiful smoke ring with just a hint of smoke (more on that later).  I prefer my brisket a little “juicier” than it’s served at Smokey D’s.  I don’t mean the brisket was dry, it wasn’t, I just like to get some of the fat cap on my brisket.  Smokey D’s serves it with almost all the fat trimmed off.  It’s not bad this way, in fact, most people probably prefer it without the fat, I just like the fat.

You can tell a lot about a BBQ restaurant by the sides they serve.  I ordered the beans and mac & cheese.  Both were excellent.  The beans weren’t cooked to mush and had great flavor.  The mac & cheese was awesome.  I loved it.  There was a little spice to it.  Not really a “heat” spice, but it did tickle the tongue on the way down.  Darren shared with me the pepper that’s in it and I can’t wait to give it a try at home.  (Since I didn’t ask if it was a “secret” I won’t share it just in case it is)

Now for some BBQ Restaurant Review hyperbole!

The cornbread is like crack.  I could sit down at Smokey D’s and eat just this stuff.  It is without a doubt the best cornbread I have ever eaten.  It’s just cornbread.  No peppers, no pieces of corn…just cornbread.   The cornbread does have a little sweet crunch on the top, but that’s just sugar sprinkled on the batter before baking.  Darren said they have their own pastry chef in-house.  Whoever this person is  should win the Nobel Cornbread Award!

And I ate a whole peach pie!  Well not really.  They don’t have peach pie at Smokey D’s, but they do have these amazing Peach Sliders.  And they tasted great too.

The restaurant is full of BBQ Championship trophys.  The gang at Smokey D’s don’t just run a first class BBQ restaurant they are amazing competition BBQ cooks.  And winning the Grand Prize on the 2nd Season of BBQ Pitmasters is proof enough these folks know their BBQ.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Larry Gaian

• Plain Chicken: Waffle Crusted Chicken Tenders
• Freestyle Cookery: Cherry Glazed Pork Fillet
• Je Mange la Ville: Chile Grilled Shrimp with Corn, Avocado Quinoa Salad
• eCurry: Chile Garlic Paste
• A Recipe A Day: Sweet Potato Muffins
• Mooshu Jeene: V&J’s Philly Cheese Steak
• MzTasty’s Kitchen: Mango Chicken Lettuce Wraps
• Mamaloli: Spicy Korean Barbecue Chicken
• Savoring Today: Grilled Peach & Vanilla Bean Crisp
• Elly Says Opa!: Yeasted Cornbread Loaf

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Larry Gaian

Lots of hype. And the experience lived up to the hype.

I ordered the Brisket Plate with corn bread and greens. And all of it was fantastic. I made sure I ordered the sauce on the side so that I could check out the meat before I ate it. Nice smoke aroma, awesome bark and fantastic smoke ring. The brisket was moist, tender and not to fatty. It may have been the best restaurant brisket I’ve ever had.

The greens were fantastic. Not all mushy like a lot of restaurant greens are. They were firm and had a great flavor.

And corn bread:

I’ll be going back every time I visit my client. Awesome job all the way around. Great food, great service and great atmosphere.

One of my favorite restaurants is Bandera in Sacramento. They make the most amazing cornbread. It isn’t often that I’ll go to a restaurant because of a side dish, but in the case of Bandera’s cornbread I am willing to make an exception.

I’ve been searching for a cornbread recipe that is close to Bandera’s for quite some time. I’ve tried many “scratch” recipes that just don’t cut it. I was amazed when I came across a recipe on the BBQ Brethren’s website that came closer than most. And it uses plain old, ordinary Jiffy corn muffin mix.

All I had to do was mix two boxes of Jiffy corn muffin mix with a large can of creamed corn. Toss in a little sugar, a can of diced chilies and mix it all up.

Heat a cast iron skillet in the oven until hot. Add a couple tablespoons of butter and heat it until it just starts to smoke. Dump in the cornbread mix and bake it until a knife, inserted in the middle, comes out clean.

It doesn’t get much easier than that. Does it?

I cranked up the new UDS and had lots of problems getting the temperature regulated. Not really sure if I got it under control, but I have a good basis for the next time it’s used. Plan to try again this coming weekend.

The MOFO Brisket Chili came out fantastic.

I’ve been trying to find a recipe for cornbread that was close to Bandera restaurant and I think I may have come pretty close.

And the pastrami came out pretty darn good also.

All and all a great day.

Happy New Year Everyone!