For Lon’s mom’s birthday, we went to Smokey Bones Smokey Bones, a chain scattered throughout the Eastern United States. I had never heard of this large barbeque joint (that looks like an over-sized sports bar) and they have probably never seen an Asian before. Yet, they were filled causing a wait at 5:25 pm on a Saturday. Oddly, we saw many empty tables when we were seated.

We immediately ordered some appetizers and luckily these came pretty quickly. Unfortunately, this was the worst plate of nachos I’ve ever had. I’ve always thought nachos were a safe bet, hard to mess up, but I stand corrected. These chips were stale, the meat (mix of pork and chicken) was cold, the cheese was cold and hardened already, and the salsa was sweetened with sugar.

nachos

The sampler platter did come hot: decent onion rings, decent tater skins, pretty good chicken fingers. Two problems though. One, we asked for bacon on the side so Kasi could eat the skins. You can see the bacon there, but our nice waiter did bring us 4 news ones without bacon, although it did take more than 20 minutes. Two, the seasoning was so inconsistent that certain pieces were fine while others almost killed me. Just imagine eating pure salt in a teaspoon. Unfortunately, this problem went on all night with fries, onion rings, etc. After the appetizers, there was an absurdly long gap of time before the entrees came.

sampler


I ordered Baby Back Ribs which fell off the bone nicely and provided the only real satisfaction in this meal for me. Like I mentioned, the onion rings were eat at your own risk, and after two or three, I felt I had lost the battle. The broccoli was also inconsistent, some pieces being really bitter, and the Texas Toast was just sad.
Baby Back Ribs, onion rings, and broccoli

Lon’s plate fared better. The St.Louis Ribs were nice and smokey. His brisket was also moist and flavorful. The corn side was buttery, but also carried that nice fire grilled flavor. The apple was basically pie filling but went nicely as well.
St. Louis Ribs, Brisket, corn, apple compote

The biggest problem was the inconsistent way salt saturated certain items. I really couldn’t stand to eat at all towards the end. Lon also mentioned that the portions had shrunk since about 3 years ago. Our waiter was nice but the service was still painfully slow and although the prices made sense for this kind of food, I’m not likely to go back. I just want better and more consistent food.

posted by jessica at 07:45 PM Filed under American and New American, Restaurants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.