Let me just cut to the chase.  Jim ‘N Nick’s was everything, and I do mean everything, I want in a restaurant.  Great atmosphere, great service and most importantly outstanding food.  And what is most astounding is that this is a chain restaurant.  The meal we ate last night more than made up for the nightmare of a meal we had the previous evening.

The meal came with with baskets of these cheese biscuits/rolls. Eating one of these was impossible so we inhaled a couple baskets of them. Eating one of these biscuits made the meal better than the previous nights whole meal.

Barry ordered a BLT that had some kind of cheese, pimento spread working. The bacon used on Jim 'N Nick's is amazing. Not oversmoked, thick cut and cooked to perfection.

Celeste ordered the biggest, juiciest Southern Fried Chicken Tenders that ever graced a plate. There was so much food on her plate that she could only eat one of the chicken tenders.

I ordered some of the best catfish I've ever eaten. Two huge filets that with the mound of fries filled a huge plate.

The collard greens were cooked to perfection.

We ordered some rib bones because we had to try some actual BBQ. They were smoked and lightly glazed with sauce. Just about as good as you can do in a restaurant.

And finished up with some of the most amazing pie I've ever had. It would have made my grandmother happy. We tried the coconut cream, lemon icebox and chocolate cream pies. All flavors were first rate.

I cannot even big to express my satisfaction.  This was one fine meal and a restaurant I would recommend.   Everything in the restaurant is made from scratch right on the premises.  From the salad dressings to the desserts.  The food is fresh, vibrant and tastes so good.  You’ve got to eat there is you get a chance.

On a final note.  We ate in the Memphis restaurant and Jerald was our server.  He was knowledgable about everything on the menu and was able to explain everything to us.  His personality was great and he obviously has a great deal of pride for his place of employment. 

PS:  I don’t know what Jerald is making at Jim ‘N Nick’s but he should get a raise.

© 2010, The BBQ Grail. All rights reserved. On republishing this post you must provide link to original post.

I ate lunch this week at Phat Matt’s BBQ in Oakland, California and there is no way I can get around the fact that this review is going to sound like an advertisement.  I’ve been thinking about writing this review for a couple of days and I have no idea how to get around the ad problem.  But I can’t

So let’s get the hyperbole out of the way.  Phat Matt’s BBQ is the second best BBQ restaurant I’ve ever eaten at.  I’ve eaten a lot of really bad restaurant BBQ,  I’ve eaten  a lot of mediocre restaurant BBQ.  But only twice have I eaten great restaurant BBQ.   Up until this week the only other place I have eaten great restaurant BBQ was Dinosaur BBQ in Rochester, New York.  Dinosaur may remain my all time favorite BBQ restaurant but Phat Matt’s is a close second.

There are a couple of things that make a BBQ restaurant great.  Certainly the food is critical, and we’ll get to that in a minute, but atmosphere is important.  I’ve eaten at a lot of BBQ restaurants and most of the them are decorated as you would expect a regional cuisine type restaurant to be decorated.  But the staff and cooks are all pretty sterile.  Phat Matt’s has a rather sterile decor but it’s more than made up by the friendliness of the staff.

Charlotte and Matt Gonzales, the owners, are the perfect BBQ hosts.  They took the time to explain everything to my lunch companion (The famous LandarcBBQ of Twitter fame) and basically made us feel at home.  A BBQ restaurant can have great food, but if it doesn’t have that backyard, family type atmosphere then it just can’t be considered great.  And Charlotte and Matt have insured that atmosphere with their friendly, outgoing nature.

But what about the food…

I rarely eat a a BBQ restaurant more than once.  For this reason I like to try a couple of different meats.  At Phat Matt’s they have have single meat plates, 2 ways, 3 ways and a 4 way.  LandarcBBQ and I each ordered the 3 way with brisket, pulled pork and pork spare ribs.  Our two sides were collard greens and beans.  Toss in some plain sliced bread and we had a complete meal.

As you can see from the picture above this was a serious plate of meat.  Normally in restaurants when you order a combination plate you get smaller portions of each of the meat, but not at Phat Matt’s.  When you order a combo plate you get a full order of each meat.  We got three large, thick slices of brisket, four rib bones and a huge portion of pulled pork.  It was unbelievable how much meat we got.

Okay the atmosphere was great and the portions were extreme but best of all the food was outstanding.  Because of some dietary restrictions of one of the owners they use no salt in their cooking.  I know this sounds really stupid.  Salt in BBQ rubs is thought by most everybody to be essential to getting the best flavor out of the meat, especially brisket.  But without a doubt you couldn’t tell there was no salt.

The pulled pork was seasoned with a light vinegar sauce that enhanced the flavor to a point where you just wanted to gobble down a whole plate full.  The pork spare ribs were done the right way.  No “fall off the bone” meat at Phat Matt’s.  The meat came off the bone with just a light tug of the teeth.  The ribs were just a tab undercooked for my preference.  Don’t get me wrong they weren’t raw, I just like them a little “doner.”  Lightly sauced the ribs had a flavor that was again superb.

The brisket!  Look at the bark on this brisket.  Not only do they not trim all the fat (flavor) of their brisket but they also rub it with a secret rub (we make a token effort to find out what it was) that gives the brisket the most outstanding bark I’ve ever seen in restaurant brisket.  Next time I’m at Phat Matt’s I’m eating a plate of brisket.  It was that good.

We also had a taste of the deserts.  It wouldn’t be BBQ without some peach cobbler.  The peach cobbler was good enough that you might just want to go there just for the desert.  We also split a slice of the best pecan pie I’ve ever eaten.  I’m not a pecan pie expert but I do know I liked this one.  It’s make with no corn syrup.  It had a nice sweet flavor that didn’t overpower the pecans on the top.  All the deserts are made at Phat Matt’s by Charlotte.  No store bought, already made stuff at Phat Matt’s.

Phat Matt’s is open six days a week (closed on Monday) and is located at 3415 Telegraph Ave, Oakland, California (510) 879-7294.  You can follow them on Twitter.

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I recently had the opportunity to visit Rochester, New York on a business trip.  I have to admit the training was good, but having a chance to visit Dinosaur BBQ was what really made the trip something I wanted to do.

Anticipation is not something I normally experience when trying out a new BBQ restaurant.  Usually I’m only eating there because someone else wants to or because I just want to see what kind of mess I can get served.  However, I knew I was in for a treat with Dinosaur BBQ.  I had been flying their colors with my Dinosaur BBQ hat and using their rubs for almost two years.

Just walking up to the place made me feel at home.  You immediately can see they take their low and slow serious with numerous pits right out front for the world to see.

You could smell the smoke.  My biggest disappointment with most BBQ restaurants is that they are void of any resemblence of a smoke smell.  Smelling the smoke is part of the atmosphere.  If you don’t smell the smoke, chances are you aren’t going taste it either.

Upon entering the place you just knew you were in a “honky tonk rib joint.”  I loved the place immediately.  I was greeted by Johnny and showed my table.  I explained that I had flown in from Sacramento, California pretty much just to eat there.  The wait staff is fantastic, friendly and stopped by just to chat a couple of times.

I ordered the wing appetizer.

When the wings arrived I tasted them.  The sauce was hot, real hot, yet it didn’t mask the smoke flavor of the wings.  The wings are smoked and then grilled.  That combination gives them a great texture and provides for a nice “bite through” skin.

When I started taking pictures of my plate Johnny wanted to know what I was doing and I explained about my blog.  I asked if I could see the pits and while I was waiting for my main course he ushered me outside where I got a tour of the pit area.

What a treat.  Lot’s of apple wood along with hickory.

I ordered the combination plate so I could taste everything.

It was all so amazing.  The brisket may have been the best I have ever eaten.  The pulled pork was divine.  The ribs were pretty much like I can get anywhere.  But after the brisket and pork anything would have been a little less tasty. The cole slaw and beans were first rate too.

I finished my meal off with a slice of Sweet Potato Pecan Pie.  I can’t believe I forgot to take a picture.  I guess it was that good.

Is Dinosaur BBQ the best restaurant BBQ there is?  I don’t know, but I would defy anyone to produce anything better.  I can’t wait for another chance to head to Rochester “on business.”

© 2008 – 2009, The BBQ Grail. All rights reserved. On republishing this post you must provide link to original post.

Was in Oakland the other day on business and when I stepped out of the office building I was in and saw the Everett & Jones BBQ Restaurant I knew where lunch was going to be. I’ve heard about Everett & Jones for years, but never made the trek out to try them. So I was pleased to see that I was right there.

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.

© 2008 – 2010, The BBQ Grail. All rights reserved. On republishing this post you must provide link to original post.

© 2008 – 2009, The BBQ Grail. All rights reserved. On republishing this post you must provide link to original post.

Lee Roy Selmon, defensive lineman for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, may have been inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame but his restaurant in Tampa, Florida won’t ever be confused with hall of fame bbq. As far as bbq is concerned tonight’s dinner was strictly Pop Warner.

The BBQ was as ordinary as ordinary commercial bbq can get. The pork ribs were your normal fall of the bone mush one comes to expect from a chain restaurant. The pulled pork had a little bark but lacked any real rub or smoke flavor. The chicken was just dry old banquet quality chicken. The sauces was served already coating everything and lacked any originality. Might as well have been off the shelf, grocery story bottled sauce.

The wait staff lacked any personality that might have made the evening at least somewhat interesting. When one of the waitresses spilled a drink on our table they made some token effort to clean it up. When we tried to mop up the mess with our cloth napkins a bus boy was nice enough to drop off a stack of terry cloth towels with the advice that “these should work better for you.”

Since Lee Roy Selmon’s bills itself as a sort of sports bar it should have been a clue that it wasn’t going to be all that good when the place was half empty on the night of the BCS Championship game.

All and all this was not an All-American effort.

© 2008 – 2009, The BBQ Grail. All rights reserved. On republishing this post you must provide link to original post.

Got a chance to eat at the famous Sonny Bryan’s Smokehouse this past Monday. What a treat! I had been told by several that the place wasn’t as good as it once was. Well, if it’s gone down hill then it must have been pretty amazing, but I really enjoyed the meal.Of course, there is something to be said for the atmosphere. It’s quite the experience. The old school desks to sit at inside and pigeons crawling around outside made this an interesting dining experience.

I had the sliced brisket sandwich with beans and onion rings. It was very good. The sauce was tasty and complimented the meat. It tasted pretty good on the onion rings also.

All and all it was worth the drive from Grapevine.

© 2007 – 2009, The BBQ Grail. All rights reserved. On republishing this post you must provide link to original post.

I enjoy eating great BBQ and rarely do I find great BBQ in restaurants. One of the exceptions would be Yunece 61 BBQ on Folsom Bvld. in Sacramento. I had the chance to eat a late lunch there yesterday and it was well worth the drive from Rocklin.

The food was fantastic. You could tell the owners actually had a smoker they used when you walked into the place. The J&R “Oyler” pit was right down front. The owner without hesitation let me take a walk around the pit.

I ordered the “Smoked Meat Plate” which came with tri-trip, brisket and pork collar and two sides. The meat was great. The brisket was tender and moist and done to perfection. It almost melted in your mouth. The pork collar (a different cut of meat I need to check out) was sliced and again was just amazing. The tri-tip was, well tri-tip. Nothing great compared to the other two meats.

For the sides I had beans and cole slaw. The beans had a unique flavor profile. They were good, but trying to guess the spices was challenging. The owner would only confirm that cinnamon was in them when I guessed right. The cole slaw again was unique and very tasty. The vinegar based sauce had a good heat kick at the end, but was not overpowering. My wife had the Memphis style pulled pork sandwich and again it was very good. We ended up sharing both plates.

The most amazing thing was that everything from the side salad to the cole slaw and beans were all from scratch. No bagged lettuce, cabbage or canned beans here, all scratch.

There are not many BBQ restaurants I will go back to more than once. But Yunece 61 will be a regular stop on our evenings out. Check out their website, lots of specials. Including “All You Can Eat” nights during the week.

© 2007 – 2009, The BBQ Grail. All rights reserved. On republishing this post you must provide link to original post.