Tuesdays with TT: RUB BBQ

Over the past couple of months I have become quite the food blogger. I or (CT) bring a camera to every restaurant we go to. Since Yvo has been busy with school, I am stepping up and will now have a weekly column, Tuesdays with TT. Bon Appetit!

Last summer, CT & I took a cooking class at the Institute for Culinary Education.  They have a huge program of recreational classes for all skill levels.  I definitely recommended it.  We hit it off with a couple people from that class, so we all try to get together every couple months for some good food and drinks.  This time around we ended up at RUB BBQ.  I had never been before, but heard a lot of good things.

We started off with a couple of appetizers. I really wanted to try the BBQ Bacon Chunks, but unfortunately they were all out.

Fried Green Tomatoes with Cajun-style remoulade sauce. They were nicely fried, but a little bland.

Frito Pie. Basically a bag of Fritos cut open and covered with cheese, brisket chunks, jalapenos, and onion. It was my first Frito pie experience and probably my last. It was good, how could it not be, but not worth getting again.

Since it was a Monday, it was Burger Night at RUB. The only day of the week that they offer burgers. They also offer a different special burger each week. This weeks was a burger topped with hollandaise. How could we not get that? Unfortunately, my stomach got the best of me and we digged in before I could get a picture. Here is the best I could do. Since we learned to make hollandaise in class, we know how labor intensive it could be. They did a very good job with it here. A nice, new flavor profile for a burger.

We also got an order of the BBQ Pastrami & Pulled Pork. Almost all of the positive reviews of RUB mention their pastrami.

The pastrami was very good. It had great smoke flavor, but still reminded me of what you get from an old school Jewish deli. You really don’t see pastrami bbq often, so definitely try it if you get a chance.

The Pulled Pork was pretty dry and needed a lot of sauce. It was the weakest of all the meats we got. Now that I know how to make pulled pork in my crock pot and see how cheap and easy it is to make, I probably will never order pulled pork from a restaurant again.

The two meat platter comes with 2 sides so we got the Onion Strings and BBQ Baked Beans. See above for the Onion Strings.

The beans were very good, but almost had too much smoke in them.

We also got a rack of the St. Louis Style Pork Spare Ribs.

These ribs had great smoke and bark, but were pretty dry. Some sauce helped and I still ate way too many of them, but I am not sure if I would get them again.

All in all, I have to say that RUB is definitely towards the top in best BBQ places in NYC. Once again we ate so much meat, that we didn’t have room for any deep friend oreos for dessert. I am sorry I haven’t gotten there sooner. I can’t wait to return.