Dear Butcher Bar…
I wanted you to be good.
My brother seems to really like your food.
Unlimited and quick refills, Maine Root sodas – um yes please
my root beer never went half empty, our waitress was the bees’ knees.
After our long wait for a table, our tummies did growl and grumble
we needed to eat, stat! – so we ordered guacamole, yes at a BBQ place
But why did it take so long to come? We started to mumble
And then it came; the avocado was cut with distinct sour cream taste
Our food finally began to arrive: pickles and cole slaw accompany each platter
Slaw was solid – reminded us of Ben’s Best; pickles were bright and crunchy vegetable matter
I actually ordered two platters so that I could try more things
The three sides combo, here’s a side salad – not terribly interesting
Oh my gosh, the mac & cheese – shockingly amazeballs
Al dente pasta, creamy cheese, wasn’t trying too hard, I ate it all
(I love mac n cheese but you gotta be on guard:
places can’t keep the pasta the right texture, or try too hard)
Unfortunately that’s the end of all the good we had
What the FUCK is this? “potato salad” um no it’s not, this is BAD
At least the potatoes were fully cooked, but seriously yo?
These chunks are huge, like all you did was half or rough cut a huge potato
This is my platter – the corn was fine, at least not overcooked
But holy mackerel the rest of the food can be overlooked
the ribs were meh-tastically OKAYYYYY, a little dry
needed sauce to make them sing or they’d just die
And AGAIN I ASK, what the FUCK is this GARBAGE, this TRASH?
Being fed “burnt ends” – charged an extra $2, natch! –
clearly NOT slow smoked, MAKES ME ANGRY HULK SMASH
(tasted good anyway, STILL NOT BURNT ENDS, down the hatch)
Oh my stars, more fucking ludicrous rubbish: pork belly?
MORE LIKE CUT UP BACON AKA LARDONS, what the helly???
Our whole table, all our food in all its fatty glory
But it doesn’t paint the picture or tell the whole story
Our great server gave us free cake, some apple caramel cake-is-a-lie
Sweet and sticky, a nice end to a terrible meal… sigh
**I was tired of writing another bad review in straight prose
So I decided to give poetry another go
However, there’s much more to say
If you have specific questions, ask in comments
I will answer another day.**
CheeeeEEEEse says
It’s sad that the taste didn’t fare as well as the pictures. The burnt ends look tasty. 🙁
Poetic griping needs to be a thing.
Feisty Foodie says
I thought it was fun to do… I could have just laced into them but restricting myself to a rhyme scheme helped direct the anger.
SkippyMom says
Bravo! Belly rhyming with helly completely made my day. The whole pickle slices in the potato salad damn near freaked me out tho’ – I never got as far as to look for the potatoes I was so squicked out by those [and if those aren’t pickles, I really don’t want to know.]
I don’t even want to ask what you paid for this mess. But happy the waitress was great! Now I want a root beer.
Feisty Foodie says
The whole pickle spears are in the cole slaw, actually. In the potato salad, they were literally just whole potatoes that maybe were halved before being tossed with mayo.
It was expensive. I think around $90 for the two of us, including tip.
SkippyMom says
I think I just fainted. That is a bit much. bah!
jimmy says
The burnt ends Don’t look rendered down enough. Doesn’t look like much smoke on the food
Feisty Foodie says
Nope. Not double smoked, if even single smoked.
LKPNYC says
I’m working “What the Helly” into conversation at least TWICE today!!
Feisty Foodie says
I think most people seemed most impressed by ‘helly’ which made me sad because it’s NOT a real word!!! Hahaha 🙂
hungry says
I really like the poem and am impressed with your rhyming skills.
Feisty Foodie says
Thanks. I have a lot of hidden talents 😉
Kathy Castro says
Dear Feisty Foodie,
We welcome all that have sampled our fare
to openly express their opinions and rate
our ambiance, service and food,
but giggle hard when they pontificate.
More so when they try to make a career of criticizing
with a weak attempt of nursery school rhyming
all in order to stir up debate,
and get people to hate.
Oh Feisty Foodie, the only reason we saw this
was because a few other trolls, like yourself do exist
and your hate did get eventually noticed *
and it caused us to write this rebuttal with wit.
We work hard at our craft daily,
and we never claimed to be more that pure simple folk,
all with a mission to feed ourselves and our families
from the farm to our table’s fork.
So hate all you want and sleep real swell,
knowing that our business is fine
and thousands would disagree with your opinion as well.
Our food is fantastic and many will claim
its the best BBQ in the whole entire game!
Peace on to you and love as you bug,
but don’t blame us for commenting
and not wanting to give you a hug.
* We saw this a year after you wrote it and our business has never been better. People love our food and we love making it!
Feisty Foodie says
Hi Kathy! I’m in love with your response. I absolutely adore that you took the time to write me a poem, this is amazing. No, that’s not sarcasm – it’s brilliant and shows you put some thought into your response.
It is, however, inaccurate to think that I was trying to ‘stir up debate/get people to hate’ – I was actually just getting tired of writing about places in prose. Butcher Bar is currently the only place to whom I’ve written a poem on my site, an “honor” I’m not sure anyone wanted!
Regarding the rest – I apologize if you think my intention was, in the slightest, to affect your bottomline. I have enormous respect for those who work in the restaurant industry and know it is a hard business. If I thought that my negative review would put a place out of business or cause them a significant drop in profits, I would absolutely not post it (that would have to be a very tiny place for me to have that much effect on it – trust me when I say I know my reach isn’t so far). My point in writing about places is to inform of my opinion, and not everyone is going to share my opinion. I am fully aware of how well BB does (or was doing; when I visited, we had to wait a while to get a table), and felt confident that my negative review would not affect your business so much. I know plenty of people who enjoy BB and say their brisket is amazing. I personally don’t care for brisket, thus the lack of brisket on my plate.
I do appreciate you taking the time to respond, but perhaps that time could have been better taken thinking about what I wrote and either knowing for yourself that I’m in the minority or “wrong” from where you stand (I know what burnt ends and smoked pork belly should be, and neither of those were on my plate), or perhaps taking some constructive criticism. I did say some nice things about the place, which you seem to have overlooked.
I do wonder about the people who say you have the best BBQ though. I’m very curious because I’m pretty into the BBQ scene and haven’t heard that. “Excellent brisket” – yes. “Best BBQ in NYC” or “in the game”? No… unless you mean in Astoria, which might be true since John Brown Smokehouse is in LIC.
In any case, congratulations on business never being better! I hope things continue to go well for you, and that you find success in all your endeavors.
Best,
Yvo