Mighty Quinn's Barbecue

Barbecue is a cuisine I love, but all too rarely find the time to enjoy. Many of the recently acclaimed places have opened in Brooklyn or Queens, and I don’t love ’cue quite enough to head over there.

Mighty Quinn’s Barbecue is an exception, opening last December on a bright East Village street corner in the old Vandaag space. I had a mid-day appointment in the area, so I headed over at 11:30 a.m., when they open for lunch.

Good barbecue in NYC is still scarce enough that the better places can be packed at peak hours. Getting there early is a boon: I was served immediately. It’s not a huge space, and I’m sure at the dinner hour it’s packed.

The owners have put a high gloss on what is still, at root, a bare-bones operation. The space is bright, shiny, and comfortable. Nevertheless, you stand in a cafeteria line, and the food is served on metal trays.

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Blue Smoke Battery Park City

Blue Smoke, Danny Meyer’s barbecue joint, now has a second Manhattan location, sharing a building in Battery Park City around the corner from Goldman Sachs with his other new restaurant, North End Grill.

The new location feels a bit smaller than the original Blue Smoke, in the Flatiron District. (The earlier restaurant also has a club attached, Jazz Standard.) The Flatiron outpost takes reservations for parties of all sizes; here, they’re taken only for parties of 6 or more. Flatiron transferred my bar tab; this one did not.

My view of Blue Smoke hasn’t changed much from when I reviewed the Flatiron restaurant. It feels a bit corporate and inauthentic, because it serves a mash-up of multiple regional barbecue styles, not really nailing any of them. In compensation for that, you get the excellent Danny Meyer service, and a better beverage program than almost all barbecue places.

We loved the Grilled Oysters with Spinach and Toasted Breadcrumbs ($8.95; above left), though it is a bit annoying that such a readily sharable dish comes with an odd number of oysters.

There are three kinds of ribs: Kansas City spareribs, Memphis-style baby-backs, and Texas Salt-and-Pepper beef ribs. A sampler of four, four, and two respectively, is $38.95 (above right). The Texas ribs, with their meager allotment of beef on the bones, were disappointing. My girlfriend liked the smaller, more dry, Memphis ribs the best; I had trouble deciding between those and the larger, saucier K.C. ribs.

There’s an abundance of sides, and I wish we’d had the appetite for more of them. The cornbread ($3.95; below left) was just fine.

I checked in on foursquare when I arrived, as I do at many restaurants, and by mid-meal a manager type came over to say hello (sent by Danny Meyer himself). Now, many restaurants check social media, but I haven’t often been noticed while the meal was in progress; usually it’s the day after. Finding me here took some sleuthing, as I hadn’t given my name. It says a lot about Danny Meyer’s attention to detail, when they go to the trouble at a barbecue place that doesn’t take reservations.

A warm strawberry rhubarb pie (above right), for which we weren’t charged, was excellent. I’d drop in again just for that pie.

There’s an excellent list of whiskies, bourbons and ryes; more beers on tap and by the bottle than you’ll get around to trying; and even a short but reasonable wine list. I had a fine Sazerac at the bar ($9) and an inexpensive Montepulciano at the table ($40).

The neighborhood—really, any neighborhood—is better with Blue Smoke in it. The crowd is a mix of Wall Streeters and young families. The restaurant was doing a good business at 7:30 p.m. on a weeknight, but wasn’t completely full. Blue Smoke will be a hit, make no mistake about it.

Blue Smoke (255 Vesey Street near North End Avenue, Battery Park City)

Food: Corporate barbecue with some good accompaniments and great dessert
Service: Danny Meyer’s strong suit
Ambiance: What you expect a barbecue place to be

Rating: ★
Why? There’s better ’cue in the city, but I’d be here all the time if I lived nearby

Fatty ’Cue (West Village)

Note: Fatty ’Cue (West Village) closed in May 2014. Fatty ’Cue (Williamsburg) and Fatty Crab (UWS) had closed previously, after founder Zak Pelaccio left the company. The West Village Fatty Crab is the only remaining member of the brood.

*

Zak Pelaccio’s brood of of Fatty Restaurants has now hit five with the arrival of a second Fatty ’Cue in the West Village, a slightly more upscale version of the the popular Williamsburg joint.

For the record, there are Fatty Crabs in the West Village, the Upper West Side, and on St. John, Virgin Islands; and also a chain of kiosks and food trucks called Fatty Snack. The new Fatty ’Cue was formerly the pop-up Fatty Johnson’s, and before that the unsuccessful Cabrito. Pelaccio calls the whole brood Fatty Crew.

If there’s a sense of monotony and a lack of range, it’s offset by Pelaccio’s uncanny sense for tailoring his restaurants to the neighborhoods they’re in. Pelaccio and his P.R. manager told Sam Sifton that this Fatty would offer “a slightly more grown-up menu and service style. . . .” Sifton added, “the seating will be comfortable and cozy, he said, and the room ‘will be quieter.’”

That’s all true. No one would call any Pelaccio restaurant formal, but the new Fatty ’Cue is more upscale than the UWS Fatty Crab, and considerably more grown-up than the original Fatty Crab or the Williamsburg ’Cue. It takes reservations and isn’t marred by the occasionally amateurish service that plagues the other locations.

At least, that’s my sense after two visits last week to a restaurant that is not yet a fortnight old. If they can keep it up, this could be the most enjoyable of the lot.

The cuisine is the same Southeast Asia-meets-barbecue theme of the Williamsburg restaurant, but there are very few dishes in common. The menu is in five sections, lightest to heaviest, though to call anything light here would be a bit of a joke. Plates range from $9 to $48, but most are under $20 and are suitable for sharing.

On my first visit, I ordered two dishes. This was the first time in my experience that a Fatty kitchen actually seemed to understand the concept of pacing a meal. Until now, Pelaccio’s restaurants were known for sending out food at the kitchen’s convenience, not the diner’s. Have they learned a lesson, or did I just get lucky?

I loved the Heirloom Tomato Salad ($13; above left) with pepper, fresh coriander, charcoal, and olive oil, resting in a pool of kimchi water. This is a typical late summer dish, but the spices and seasoning seemed just right. Heritage Pork Ribs ($12; above right) were juicy and enormous. One might complain at paying $6 a rib, but I couldn’t have eaten much more.

On my second visit, I ordered just one item: Deep-Fried Bacon ($18; above) with sweet and spicy salsa verde. It’s hard to come up with a bacon dish I don’t like, so bear that in mind when I tell you this one is excellent. The bacon is tender, with a crunchy crust from the fryer. Non-bacon addicts might be advised to share this one with a friend, but I was happy to eat it myself.

There’s a modest beer and wine selection, but I stuck with cocktails. The Chupacabra ($12;  tequila, chili-infused domaine de canton, fresh watermelon, lime) and the Smokin’ Bone ($13; bourbon, smoked pineapple, lime, chocolate bitters, tabasco) both pair well with the food. I’m especially fond of the latter.

I sat at the bar both times. On Wednesday at about 6:30 p.m., the restaurant wasn’t at all crowded. At the same time on Friday, I got the last free bar stool, and the hostess was quoting walk-in waits of an hour or more for tables. Service was the best I’ve had at any Fatty establishment. The bartenders were knowledgeable about the food and happy to explain the odd combinations of ingredients at length.

I don’t want to over-sell Fatty ’Cue, but in the early days it is the most enjoyable Fatty restaurant I’ve been to, with both food and service a cut above its brethren.

Fatty ’Cue (50 Carmine St. between Bedford & Bleecker Sts., West Village)

Food: *½
Service: *½
Ambiance: *½
Overall: *½

Fatty ’Cue

Note: Fatty ’Cue (Williamsburg) has closed. The space will became “Fatty Lab,” a test kitchen and private events space. Fatty ’Cue (West Village) later closed, as well. In addition, Zak Pelaccio is no longer affiliated with the Fatty restaurant chain.

*

Four years ago, on the way to dinner at Dressler, we took a brief walk around South Williamsburg and suddenly found ourselves in no-man’s land. As I wrote at the time, “I’m not saying it is scary—only that it looks that way.”

The area still doesn’t look pretty, but with hipster bars and fancy salons dotting the landscape, it’s getting better all the time. In this formerly desolate area, chef Zak Pelaccio has installed the latest member of his fatty family, Fatty ’Cue. It’s the third member of the brood, after Fatty Crabs in the Meatpacking District and on the Upper West Side.

It wasn’t easy. Once announced for a Fall 2008 opening, Fatty ’Cue didn’t appear until March of this year. I don’t know the reasons, but getting the permits for a barbecue smoker is notoriously difficult, especially in an historic neighborhood full of buildings that pre-date modern construction codes.

The restaurant is a mash-up of the faux Malaysian cuisine offered at the other Fattys, and Texas barbecue supervised by former Hill Country pitmaster Robbie Richter. Sam Sifton, who awarded one star in the Times, wasn’t kidding when he said that, “No one else is cooking like this anywhere.”

The service and atmosphere very much resemble the other Fatty restaurants. Except for the barbecue smoker, so does the cuisine.

The menu is in two parts—snacks ($3–12) and specialties ($11–22)—but they all seem to be appetizers, more or less, delivered to the table as they’re ready, and designed for sharing. Most items are a mixture of proteins from the barbecue smoker and Asian-inflected condiments. For example: “Hand Pulled Lamb Shoulder, goat yogurt with Vietnamese mint, house pita.”

At plate-sharing places, it’s always difficult to gauge how much to order. I had two of the snacks and two of the specialities (again: these distinctions seem arbitrary), and it was a shade too much food for a solo diner. One fewer plate probably wouldn’t have been enough.

The server recommended a salad as a foil to the barbecue. Cucumbers ($6; above right) with smoked chili, brown rice vinegar, and toasted sesame seeds, fit the bill admirably, but they were nothing special on their own.

’Cue Coriander Bacon ($11; above left) is awkward to eat. You’re supposed to slather the steamed yellow curry custard on toast, then put the bacon on top of that. Perhaps you can guess from the photo that this didn’t quite work out. The bacon was just fine, but $11 is a lot to pay for five small pieces. An order of bacon at Peter Luger, down the street, is something like $2.95. You get more, and it is equally good.

Like the other Fatty restaurants, Fatty ’Cue serves dishes that obviously require a knife (in this case, for spreading the custard), but doesn’t supply one. I’m sure they have knives, but this isn’t exactly Le Bernardin, where you have but to flick an eyebrow, and a server appears instantly. So I used the fork as a spreader. When the server re-appeared to clear the plate, he picked up the fork and hesitated slightly before making the right decision to replace it.

Fazio Farm Red Curry Duck ($14; above left) was the dish of the evening, the best duck I have tasted this year—plump, tender, luscious, and yes, fatty. It came with a curry sauce on the side, but I quickly figured out that it was superfluous—as sauces invariably are with the best barbecue. In any case, those large pieces of duck didn’t readily fit in the dipping bowl.

Brandt Farm Beef Brisket ($18; above right) was the least successful dish, and like the others, ill-conceived. The meat lacked the deep marbling of the best brisket at Hill Country. There were a couple of moist pieces on top, but those below (not visible in the photo) were dry. You’re supposed to make sandwiches with the steamed buns, adding red onions and chili jam, but I ran out of buns before I ran out of brisket. Once again, a knife would have helped, as the remaining pieces of meat did not yield to a fork alone. Finally, I gave up.

There are some wonderful cocktails here, especially The ’Cue (Wrey & Nephew overproofed run, smoked pineapple, citrus, Tabasco, Pernod), featured in this week’s New York, and a bargain at $8. However, they were slow in coming. Every booze run to my table and others within earshot was prefaced with, “Sorry, but the bar is really backed up.”

Notwithstanding that, the servers and runners were helpful and knowledgeable about the food. Meal pacing is often a problem at small-plate restaurants, as indeed it was on our last visit to Fatty Crab. This time I lucked out, and everything came out (except the drinks) at exactly the pace I wanted. Based on other reviews I’ve seen, this will not happen to you, unless the stars are in alignment.

I wasn’t encouraged when I walked in at 6:30 p.m. on a Friday evening, to find a loud bar nearly at capacity. But the space is on three levels, and the higher you go, the more pleasant it gets. The hostess seated me a table on the quiet (relatively speaking) third level, which has only five tables. I suspect it gets much louder later on: they are open until 4:00 a.m. Thursdays through Saturdays.

While no dish at Fatty ’Cue is expensive on its own, the costs mount in a hurry. I paid almost $90, including tax and tip, for four small plates and three cocktails. That might be more than most people would want to pay in a casual restaurant that is not conveniently located, for food that is certainly interesting but is also uneven.

Fatty ’Cue (91 S. 6th St. between Berry St. & Bedford Ave., Williamsburg)

Food: *
Service: *
Ambiance: *
Overall: *

Daisy May's BBQ

Perhaps I’m better off that Daisy May’s BBQ isn’t better located. If it were easily reachable by subway, I’d be there a lot more often, and I’d be doing even worse on my diet.

Daisy May’s is at 46th Street and Eleventh Avenue. They could hardly have chosen a less accessible location in Manhattan. Not even buses go there, and the closest subway is a solid fifteen minute walk away. The neighborhood itself is ugly, much favored by auto repair joints and strip clubs. Despite that, Daisy May’s is clearly not doing badly, but in the East Village they’d be minting money.

But Daisy May’s is where it is, so I seldom go. Our last visit was three years ago, when we had the rack of lamb for two, a special that needs to be pre-ordered. Recently, I saw a couple of blog posts about the Oklahoma Beef Rib (HowFresh Eats, Cynical Cook)—a cut of meat most BBQ places don’t serve—and decided I had to have one.

Unfortunately, the cashier misheard my order, and I got the beef brisket combo instead (photo below). I should have been suspicious, as the brisket combo is only $14, while the beef rib combo is $21.50. I just shrugged, and assumed I was getting an early-bird special, or something like that. Bad assumption.

As you can see, Daisy May’s is still bare-bones, although they’ve now got a beer license, so it’s no longer strictly BYO. The brisket (lower-right in the photo) came with two sides; I chose the mac & cheese and the baked beans with burnt ends. It was all very good, but not worth the long walk from Eighth Avenue.

They clearly had the beef ribs—other diners were eating them, as I looked on with envy. It was just a misunderstanding. Perhaps it was all for the best. I wasn’t that hungry, and the beef ribs are huge. There’s always another day.

The Pork Chop at Hill Country

It’s enormous. ’Nuff said.

Blue Smoke

Note: Click here for a review of Blue Smoke Battery Park City.

*

When Blue Smoke opened in early 2002, it was an odd diversion for the restaurateur Danny Meyer, who was better known for a string of insanely popular three-star restaurants, such as Union Square Café, Gramercy Tavern, Eleven Madison Park, and Tabla. (He has since added The Modern and Shake Shack to his brood.)

As Eric Asimov noted in the Times, “if anybody was going to give New York great barbecue, the thinking went, it would be Mr. Meyer.” But Blue Smoke delivered an uneven performance, and Asimov (then writing as the paper’s main critic) awarded just one star.

The NYC barbecue landscape has changed considerably since 2002. Righteous Urban Barbecue (“RUB”) and Hill Country have come along, both run by folks to whom barbecue is a religion, not just a sidelight. With those and several other standouts now available, Blue Smoke is just one of many NYC restaurants offering what purports to be authentic barbecue.

Those other places don’t have the Danny Meyer service model; most of them don’t even take reservations. Blue Smoke did, and when I called to say I was running a bit late, the staff offered to “make a note of it for the maitre d’.” My bar tab was transferred to my table without my even asking, and the host seated me before my girlfriend had arrived. That kind of service puts many higher-end restaurants to shame, and you certainly wouldn’t find it in any other barbecue place.

But while we appreciated the fine service, the barbecue at Blue Smoke wasn’t as good as RUB, Hill Country, or even Stephen Hanson’s Wildwood Barbecue, all located nearby. On top of that, Blue Smoke was absolutely crushed on a Friday evening. While it isn’t Danny Meyer’s fault that his restaurant is insanely popular, the crowds detracted somewhat from whatever charms Blue Smoke would otherwise have.

We had the Rib Sampler for Two ($35.95), which featured two Texas-style beef ribs, four Memphis baby back ribs, and four Kansas City spareribs. It is a pity that you cannot mix and match proteins and preparation methods. The dry-rub beef ribs were the most enjoyable, but they didn’t have as much meat on them as I would have liked. The spare ribs were the meatiest, but they were slathered in a a “KC Sauce” that was over-powering. The baby backs had the saucing right, but they were too lean for our taste.

The ribs are served à la carte, so I would definitely recommend ordering a couple of sides (they range from $3.95–7.95). Roasted Cauliflower Gratin ($4.95; above left) was too dry and had no perceptible cheese content. Macaroni & Cheese ($7.95; above right), the most expensive of the sides, was just fine.

We didn’t drink much, as we were driving out to Eastern Long Island after our meal, but there is an impressive list of beers, bourbons, house cocktails and other spirits. In this respect, Blue Smoke has other barbecue places beat.

There is much more to the menu at Blue Smoke, including a long list of appetizers and salads, more than a dozen more side dishes, and standard entrées, along with several more barbecue specialities. You can probably put together a good meal here, but we left with the distinct impression that it is not worth the trouble.

Blue Smoke (116 E. 27th Street between Park & Lexington Avenues, Flatiron District)

Food: *
Service: *½
Ambiance: Satisfactory
Overall: *

Wildwood Barbecue

Note: Widwood Barbecue closed in January 2014. Shelly Fireman (owner of Redeye Grill and Trattoria Dell’Arte) will turn it into an Italian restaurant (yawn!) called Floriana.

*

The restauranteur Stephen Hanson generally sticks to tried and true formulas. So it’s no surprise that he has now opened Wildwood Barbecue, a few years after the barbecue revolution arrived in New York.

Hanson is known for commercializing cuisines without really mastering them: think Ruby Foo’s. Except for three-star Fiamma, Hanson’s eateries invariably seem flashy but mass-produced. As Grub Street wryly noted, it was telling that Hanson hired his interior designer (David Rockwell) before he’d hired a pitmaster.

Hanson quieted the skeptics when he hired Big Lou Elrose, formerly the deputy pitmaster at New York’s best barbecue restaurant, Hill Country. But Wildwood has a lot to prove, as great barbecue inNew York is no longer the rarity it once was. Hill Country, Blue Smoke, and R.U.B. are all short distances away.

 

Stephen Hanson tries to be funny: “Get Sauced”Ironically, Wildwood is located on the site of one of the few Stephen Hanson failures, Barça 18, a tapas place that even Le Bernardin’s Eric Ripert, as consulting chef, couldn’t save. With Wildwood, Hanson has reverted to the kind of corporate restaurant he does best. If Outback Steakhouse had a barbecue chain, it would probably look like this.

The barbecue here isn’t beholden to any particular region or style. Though respectable, it isn’t as good as the better places in town. Prices are modest, with appetizers $5.25–8.95, sandwiches and salads $10.95–14.95, entrées $9.95–23.95, tasting platters $21.50–28.95, and side dishes $4.95–6.95.

We got a good sample of the menu by ordering two tasting platters, which came with two side dishes apiece. This was a lot of food for two people. We brought home part of the chicken and several ribs, and the sides were left half-finished.

The Rib Sampler ($28.95) included both the longer pork ribs and Memphis-style baby back ribs. The pork ribs were meatier and more tender. The baby backs seemed a bit dried out.

The “Best of the Best” ($23.95) included a half-chicken, three slices of brisket, and a scoop of pulled pork. The chicken was the star of the meal: pink, tender, flavorful. Elrose serves it with an apricot barbecue glaze. My girlfriend thought this was superior to the chicken she’d had at Hill Country.

The brisket, on the other hand, was disappointing. It was too thin, too lean, and too dry. This was surprising from a pitmaster who’d worked at Hill Country, where the brisket is one of the best things on the menu. The pulled pork seemed merely competent.

We loved the side dishes: Crusty Cheddar Macaroni, Kettle-Cooked Burnt Ends & Bacon Baked Beans, Sweet Potato Fries, and Baked Cornbread. The first two were especially good.

The sides dishes served with the tasting platters are smaller than the sides ordered separately. A couple at the table next to us thought our cornbread looked good to share, but theirs came in a cast-iron skillet, and was about twice the size of our portion.

There are wine and cocktail lists, but the highlight is a broad selection of beers and bourbons. A pitcher of Cold Ass — not a brand we’d heard of — was $22.

Service at Wildwood is better than most barbecue restaurants. Reservations are accepted for dinner. There is a coat check girl (who refused a tip), and there was even an employee outside to flag a taxi for us on a rainy night. But the space is too cramped, with hardly an inch to spare between tables. It’s neither as comfortable nor as authentic as Hill Country.

We had no trouble getting a table when we walked in at 6:30 p.m. on a Friday night, but the place was full by the time we left. Though there’s better ’cue in the city, we suspect that Stephen Hanson will figure out a way to keep the customers pouring in. He usually does.

Wildwood Barbecue (225 Park Avenue South between 18th & 19th Streets, Flatiron District)

Food: *
Service: *½
Ambiance: *
Overall: *

Bar Q

 

Note: As of February 17, 2009, Bar Q has closed. The space is now the Chesapeake Bay-themed restaurant, Choptank.

*

Anita Lo, co-owner of the beloved (and Michelin-starred) Annisa, has lately followed the path of many a celebrity chef who was trained in French kitchens: she’s gone downmarket and pan-Asian. First came the Rickshaw Dumpling Bar in 2005, where she consults; and now, Bar Q.

Bar Q is just a few minutes’ walk from Annisa, so she won’t have trouble keeping tabs on the place. But the upscale comfort-food menu looks like it was designed for dependable replication in her absence.

There are a lot of dishes that are braised, smoked, roasted and fried, including plenty of pork. “Tea-smoked” recurs in the description of three different items. There are odd combinations, like “tuna ribs” and “pork wings.” Who knew pigs could fly? A “Trio of Tartares” makes the obligatory appearance.

The space has been beautiully done in blonde woods and white walls. One of the servers said, with a grin, “I painted all the artwork.” There is no artwork; just hard, bare walls. I am a bit concerned that the space could become oppressively loud when full, but that is mere speculation, as the restaurant was nearly empty when I visited at around 6:00 p.m. on a Monday evening. There’s a lovely outdoor garden, which is scheduled to open sometime in May.

The menu is not inexpensive, with raw bar selections at $2–7 per piece, appetizers $11–16, entrées $18–29, and side dishes at $7.

There’s also a tendency to upsell. My server said, “We recommend starting with a raw bar selection, followed by an appetizer and a main course.”

I thought to myself, “Well, yeah, of course you recommend that.”

Once I had nixed that idea, the server helped me narrow down my order to the better appetizer and entrée choices, describing each as a “signature dish.” You have to wonder how that’s possible for a place that has been open three weeks.

There are house cocktails, but when I told the server I don’t like excessive syruppy sweetness, he suggested I give them all a pass. I heeded his advice in favor of an Old Fashioned.

 
Grilled Squid Salad (left); Stuffed Spareribs (right)

I started with the Grilled Squid Salad ($10), which had a wonderful smoky flavor. I asked the server if the squid had been smoked, and he cheekily replied that this was a “secret”. The accompanying Hijiki salad (seaweed) was unmemorable.

A dish called Stuffed Spareribs ($23) might lead you astray. It’s a solid brick of pork, served off the bone: pork stuffed with pork. The sauce is described as “Lemongrass BBQ, Peanut and Thai basil.” Peanut is what stands out. Is it good? The execution was superb, so it comes down to whether you like your spareribs to taste like peanuts. Hours later, I was still a bit haunted by the porky-peanutty taste. But I’m not sure I want my spareribs like that.

Bar Q offers a little bit of fun, but it strikes me as overpriced for a neighborhood place, yet not quite enthralling enough to become a destination.

Bar Q (308–310 Bleecker Street between Grove & Barrow Streets, West Village)

Food: *
Service: *
Ambiance: *
Overall: *

Hill Country

It’s rare that a restaurant opens in this town to instantaneous, unanimous acclaim. But that’s what happened to Hill Country, which opened this summer in Chelsea. It captures New York’s barbecue moment just about perfectly. Every reviewer has been smitten. Everyone. Including me.

I’m not a great barbecue conoisseur. I can’t tell you the differences between Memphis, Kansas City, and Texas barbecue. But I know what I love, and Hill Country is it. The meats are unsauced. What comes through is pure smokey flavor that lets the food speak for itself—or perhaps I should say “sing” for itself.

Though I can’t vouch for it, the barbecue style at Hill Country is supposed to be the spitting image of what you get in Lockhart, Texas. Service is bare-bones, but no one should care. When you come in, the host hands you a “meal ticket.” You carry a cafeteria tray to ordering stations—a counter for meats, another for side dishes, another for beverages. An attendant marks down what you’ve ordered. After the meal, you present your meal ticket to the cashier, who rings up the bill.

Meats come piled on a sheet of wax paper; side dishes come in cardboard cups. But if the service is nothing fancy, the servers clearly love what they’re doing. Their advice is both enthusiastic and reliable. At the bar, for instance, the bartender wisely steered us towards the moist brisket—the restaurant’s signature dish. At the meat counter the server dished out just the right amount of food for two people, when we were really unsure just how much we needed.

 

It’s hard to see from the photo, but this is really a lot of food. The moist brisket is hidden underneath two enormous beef ribs and a couple of jalapeno sausage. To the side is macaroni and cheese (upper right) and corn pudding (lower right). It was more than two hungry people could finish.

The brisket comes in two varieties: moist and lean, the former being a euphemism for fat. We love fatty meats, so we tried the moist brisket ($17.50/lb.), which was extraordinary. Beef ribs ($9/lb.) were wonderful too; more barbecue places should serve them. We were less impressed with the jalapeno sausage ($5.50 ea.), which seemed too dry when compared to the other things we tried.

There are several other meats available, incluidng spare ribs, pork chops, game hen, chicken, beef shoulder, and prime rib. We were full, so they’ll have to wait for another time. And rest assured, there will be another time.  The two side dishes we tried—mac & cheese and corn pudding ($4.50 ea.)—were terrific. I especially recommend the corn pudding, as it’s an unusual dish that few other barbecue places offer.

The food is the star at Hill Country, but the bar shouldn’t pass unnoticed. There’s a terrific selection of tequilas, and I even noticed a vodka from Iceland. The specialty drinks are wonderful, and reasonably priced (around $10 ea.).

One of them features a remarkably smooth vodka from Austin, TX. When I asked about it, the bartender gave me a bit of it on the side—yet another example of how the servers at Hill Country are truly enthusiastic about what they serve.

The space is large, with tables on two levels, and there is live music several nights a week. It’s not too far off the path of my commute home, and I could well imagine that it will be one of my regular haunts when I have a barbecue craving. In this town, you can’t do much better than Hill Country.

Hill Country (30 W. 26th Street between Sixth Avenue and Broadway, Chelsea)

Food: **½
Service: *
Ambiance: *½
Overall: **