Big Apple Barbecue Block Party 2008 (BABBP)

As promised, reporting bak from the Big Apple BBQ.  Friends who shall remain nameless managed to score two FastPasses the morning of the BABBP, and then, realizing that $200 is way too much BBQ for two – even four – even six people to eat, managed to scalp the remainders at a nice markup, effectively paying for what they’d already eaten.  Nice.  I guess it’s true- NYers will pay for convenience no matter what – the heat, the lines, the humidity… the hunger…

As it turned out, we didn’t finish our ‘cue pass, either, but passed it off to a few friends.  I’m still waiting to hear back how he fared attempting to eat $42 worth of BBQ…

This guy looked so hot… it was only about an hour into the festivities on Saturday, too!

But you don’t care.  You just want to see pictures of what I ate, and my opinion.  Right?  Right!

My first stop was Dinosaur, and I was a bit disappointed by this.  Previously, Dinosaur BBQ had been noted to be my all-time favorite BBQ restaurant.  Well, yet again, I am made painfully aware of just how little I know about my favorite foods.  I’ve only had pulled pork a handful of times, and *shrug* this was just mediocre (I had this same item at last year’s Big Apple BBQ, though I didn’t post about it).  It wasn’t as juicy and succulent (read: fatty) as I remembered; the meat was tighter and not quite as mouth meltingly soft.  There wasn’t enough sauce and it was just, well, mehhh. 

The beans, however, were delicious.  I especially love the hunks of meat strewn throughout… so much flavor.  Smokey, delicious, and yum!

Despite having FastPasses, much to our surprise, the line for Salt Lick BBQ was about 40 minutes.  HB’s bf was kind enough to wait for all of us and picked up enough for the 8 of us (each couple shared a portion).  I’d heard a lot about Salt Lick BBQ, so I was eager to try it… and B loves BBQ brisket, so we were both excited.

As you can see, however, this was very… lean.  Dry, even… and hardly any sauce.  I much preferred it solo (sans bun), as did B (we split everything), and found it very lacking.  The flavor profile was fine, as my friends pointed out, just that it wasn’t fatty enough to be called delicious.  Or worth waiting 40 minutes in the sweltering heat. 

The cole slaw was mehhh.

The highlight of that plate was the sausage link (which you can’t even see in the pictures, haha) – though they weren’t oustanding like mind blowingly good sausage, they were smokey and juicy, a good combination.  Hah.

The cole slaw from the next place wasn’t much better.  My guess is that because of the heat and the nature of the event, no place would or could use mayo in the slaws, and it altered the flavor profile.  It was wilty and bland… and one of them had an abundance of sesame seeds, which I don’t mind normally, except sesame essence is warming (in my mind… not sure how other people see it), so it wasn’t pleasant on a day like so.  (Plus… sesame oil goes rancid very quickly, even faster in the heat…)

The brisket from Wilson’s Pit was fatty, moist, juicy… but fell flat in the flavor arena.  Even with the excess sauce we squirted on ourselves (this came served with two slices of potato bread, but at this point in the game, we were all feeling a bit full and opted to eat without it), it just didn’t have quite the depth of smokiness you’d want or expect from great BBQ.  Oh well.

By far the most disappointing item was when I went over to Blue Smoke desserts for a root beer float.  I waited on a 15 minute long line, and when I got to the cashier and cheerily announced, “4 root beer floats, please~!” she looked at me as though I were insane (hey, I had friends with me), and then told me – in a tone that implied she was afraid I would start shooting at her, which I just might have! had I had a water gun! – “Um, we’re out of root beer floats,” and then she began screaming loudly down the line “NO MORE ROOT BEER FLOATS!  NO MORE!  WE’RE OUT OF ROOT BEER FLOATS!!!” and just about the entire line scattered away, disappointed.  It was incredibly disappointing, as we all wanted a nice tall cold drink… with ice cream in it.  Sigh.  I’d even gotten on the even-longer line earlier, but then decided to eat before I got an ice cream float, so I kicked myself for that.  I’ll have to make myself one sometime soon…

In any case, the end result was a bunch of sticky, hot, slightly grumpy, sweaty, antsy friends who’d hoped for some good food, some decent weather in which to sit outside, but instead got a huge disappointment.  The food was hugely mediocre, and the venue was way too small for the crowd. 

As B put it, “I won’t be going back to this again next year.  It’s not worth it.  I can just go to each restaurant individually to try them.”

Sorry, BBQ fans…

PASS!