Blue Smoke

[baruch]

so does the hype match the pork?????????????????

[Ruby]

Sorry to say but this place should be called "Blue Smoke & Mirrors." I went there the first week it opened; I believe the third day. I had half a rack of ribs and got exactly three ribs which came with a tiny saucer of cole slaw. I also ordered a couple of side dishes that, in other restaurants, usually come with a ribs dinner-here they're extra and they got the collard greens all wrong. How does one make collards so salty and watery at the same time? Don't know what kind of ham hocks they're using but I drank cold water all night to douse my thirst. When I left, I was still hungry and had fruit cup at home.

The restaurant was packed before 6 p.m. and the night I was there, it felt more like a fraternity/singles place than a serious ribs/brisket kind of place.

Maybe I'll go back after the crowds settle down and the place is debugged, de-smoked and de-hyped.

[tommy]

i glanced quickly through the first bit of the article in the NYT this morning...am i crazy or did i read that this is a danny meyer restaurant??

[NewYorkTexan]

In case anyone missed this from the NYTimes, Blue Smoke by Asimov

I am personally fascinated by a restaurant that has smoked baloney and foie gras on the same menu.

Ruby--did you look at the wine list?  Meyer made a big deal of trying to put together a bbq friendly wine list.  Was he successful?

[Ruby]

In case anyone missed this from the NYTimes, Blue Smoke by Asimov

Ruby--did you look at the wine list?  Meyer made a big deal of trying to put together a bbq friendly wine list.  Was he successful?

Hi New York Texas, no I didn't even look at the wine list. The host insisted on seating my friend and I at the bar and I had a draft beer (they have their own called Blue Smoke but I didn't like it.) We all drank either a Bass or Sam Adams. Somehow ribs seem to go so well with cold beer.

[tommy]

which begs the question, was *is* a BBQ friendly wine list.

is this BBQ the dry rubbed kind or the saucy kind.  pairing wine with that sweet spicy saucy stuff would prove interesting.  i gotta go with beer on this one.  at least that's my initial thought.  i know how my face and fingers look after chowing on some ribs, so i can imagine what i'd do to a wine glass!

[Ron Johnson]

I read that article also.  Interesting for me to see that Danny Meyer wanted to bring the barbeque from his childhood in St. Louis to NYC.  Well, that may explain why the barbeque sucks. I lived in St. Louis for 4 years and Memphis, TN for 6.  There is no such thing as St. Louis barbeque anymore than there is Columbus, Ohio barbeque.  Memphis is a barbeque town.

It seems to me like he is trying to emulate Memphis style from the consultant that he hired.  The guy is from Illinois, but apparently won the Memphis in May Barbeque Contest twice.  I have cooked in that contest for a team that finished a very respectable 7th, and to win is quite an accomplishment.  He must know what he is doing, but he should have told Danny to leave the St. Louis aspect out of it.

Danny is no dummy thought, barbeque is a  cash cow.  You buy the cheapest cuts of meat and cook them in mass quantities.  I know a restaurant in Memphis that makes a 1200% profit on a slab of ribs.  Of course he buys them by the truckload from a huge farm in Arkansas.

[baruch]

kudos, as usual, to the ever-insightful Ruby. thx for your "preview" review. saddened to hear that blue smoke "may be" more mirrors than smoke. hopefully will try soon & report in.

also, thx to Ron who obviously knows his bbq. couldn't agree more with your critique. st.louis bbq?? spent many summers in memphis where bbq IS BBQ. it is very true that pork shoulders, boston butts, & spareribs are relatively inexpensive. u would think a smart restauranteur, such as Meyer, would reflect that in his prices as well as hire some1 from SC, NC, GA (?), or TN, but ILL?? regardless of the memphis awards. seems to me the way u operate a successful BBQ "PLACE" in manhattan is to serve great bbq done by a pro, & make your $'s on the bar & 'other' dishes on the menu, i.e., smoked turkeys, chicken, fish, etc, as well as more involved dishes; therefore, appealing to a broader mass & making it more of a destination  rather than an occassional bbq "fix". but alas, that would require quite a bit of sophisticated thinking & as importantly, would require 2 chefs: 1 for the bbq + smoking, etc, & another chef with a certain degree of "je ne sais quoi", providing dishes that more emulate a higher end restaurant, a la USC or GT. is this too much to ask??

[SobaAddict70]

Wasn't there a "pit" bbq place in Queens at one point?  I remember a place in LIC or Jackson Heights -- but can't remember the name.  Maybe Fat Guy knows whereof I speak.  They had to move because of the smoke problem at one point, and the new place trucks certain components in from a separate location...

[tommy]

quite a story behind this restaurant.  apparently, it took a team of engineers and lots of thought and money to pull the whole thing off.  

one of the most important aspects of the design was the need to get the smoke away from neighboring buildings.  they apparently solved this engineering feat with a highly complex solution that even those of us with engineering degrees probably wouldn't understand:  really tall chimneys.

[Wilfrid]

Real tall chimneys?  Dumb idea.  It's the chimneys that are letting the smoke out in the first place.  Get rid of 'em!  

[robert brown]

Do you mean "Stick to Your Ribs"? It was by the Con Ed plant in LIC. The bloke who owned it was English. He started out in Stratford CT. He was to move to Amsterdam Ave. (Maybe he did for a brief while) with backing from Marshall Cogan who owned the 21 Club for several years. Where is the British guy now?

[Fat Guy]

My opinion based on two early visits: Blue Smoke serves the best barbecue I've had in New York City (including Pearson's, which is the place in Queens alluded to above, which for a short time had a Manhattan outpost), and better than most of what you'll find in the barbecue belt.

The restaurant emphatically does not use cheap meat. All of the pork, for example, is Niman Ranch.

The financial burden of cooking barbecue in New York City -- especially the special equipment costs related to environmental codes and fire safety -- makes Blue Smoke's admittedly high-by-Southern-standards prices a New York bargain. Danny Meyer will not make any money at all unless he sells a fabulously huge amount of ribs at this place.

Good ribs are never cheap, even in the South. They're cheaper than at Blue Smoke, but never cheap compared to the whole hog and pork shoulder forms of barbecue. A rack of ribs is about thirty bucks at Blue Smoke, fifteen for a half rack. Three ribs in a half order indicates to me that we're talking about the beef ribs not the pork ribs in this instance. Those are pretty big, or at least they should be.

Obviously it's a new place so there will be screwups. The high prices mean we have a right to be less forgiving about those screwups. But overall Blue Smoke is a great addition to the New York dining scene. I look forward to going back in a couple of months to track the maturation process.

[robert brown]

Steven, I believe "Stick to Your Ribs" was the name before he tried in Manhattan. The guy's name is Pearson. I'm talking 1989 about, which was when you were still eating dormitory food. Do you know what happned to him after his failed Manhattan venture? Is he still purveying (and he could purvey!!!).

[Fat Guy]

The rough outlines as I understand them are: The original Queens restaurant was called STYR, then he opened in Manhattan (the barbecue was made in the Queens location and driven in), then the Manhattan places went kaput, then they changed the name of the Queens place to Pearson's Texas Barbecue -- this may have had something to do with the sale of the old trademark to some business partners -- then they had to abandon the LIC location for environmental/fire-safety/nuisance reasons, now they're in Jackson Heights. Pearson sold the business way back when to Ellen Goldberg who runs it now. He's no longer involved in the restaurant business as far as I know.

[lullyloo]

Sorry, Baruch.  I just have to testify to bbq in lllinois.  Most people don't realize that the southern tip of the state is two hours south of St. louis, 2-3 hourse north of Tennessee, 3.5 hours from Memphis.  There's bbq all over southern illinois, little roadside shacks and even drive-thrus.  Murphysboro, IL, the town where I was born, just so happens to be the home of 17th Street Bar and Grill, World BBQ Champions for several years in a row.  I've eaten my fair share of bbq from Kansas City to Memphis to Texas to near-perfect homemade in a smoker in the backyard, and on a good day, 17th Street makes some of the best dry rub pork ribs I've ever tasted.  Ribs plump with tender, moist pink meat with just the right flavor balance between seasoning, fat, pork and smoke.  mmmmmm.  So don't knock Illinois.   ;)

[baruch]

sorry, lullylou, stand corrected. do u prefer beef-to-pork? & dry rub-to- wet?  :D

[Fat Guy]

Nice Web site BTW:

http://www.bluesmoke.com

[Steve Klc]

Baruch--I'm not sure what irks me most about your post, but practically everything about it does.  Lullyloo took care of the St. Louis thing and presented the possibility of another view.

And I don't want this to appear to be piling on, but, when you write that:

"it is very true that pork shoulders, boston butts, & spareribs are relatively inexpensive. u would think a smart restauranteur, such as Meyer, would reflect that in his prices as well as hire some1 from SC, NC, GA (?), or TN, but ILL??"

As Steve Shaw posted well, surely you are aware that the price of something on a restaurant menu is determined by a whole host of factors that have nothing to do with the cost of ingredients, right?  Also, why does it matter where Meyer hires someone from?  Either someone has knowledge and skill and talent or they don't.  The proof is on the plate ultimately not one's Driver's License.

You continue: "seems to me the way u operate a successful BBQ "PLACE" in manhattan is to serve great bbq done by a pro, & make your $'s on the bar & 'other' dishes on the menu, i.e., smoked turkeys, chicken, fish, etc, as well as more involved dishes; therefore, appealing to a broader mass & making it more of a destination  rather than an occassional bbq "fix".

Well, I bet Meyer has enough savvy and the track record to have written a solid business model and probably has rejected or integrated all of these issues--but let's first recognize that it's tough to open a restaurant--any restaurant--and there's nothing to be gained by over-reaching and stepping beyond your "core" specialty too soon except bad reviews, accumulating debt and frustrated staff.  Plus, it's not like there are alot of reliable barbecue "places" in Manhattan now, are there?  What's to be gained by chiding a place for not offerring "more involved dishes" right off the bat?

You saved your most sneering, most irksome turns of phrase for last:

"but alas, that would require quite a bit of sophisticated thinking & as importantly, would require 2 chefs: 1 for the bbq + smoking, etc, & another chef with a certain degree of "je ne sais quoi", providing dishes that more emulate a higher end restaurant, a la USC or GT. is this too much to ask??"

Well, frankly, yes.  Why criticize a restaurant or business venture, and the intelligence behind it, not for what it is aiming to be but rather for what you want it to be--and all of this before the restaurant even has its legs under it? Ruby had a bad first impression, I'm grateful for her post.  I do hope you visit and report back.  But at this point, I find too much of your speculation patently unfair and misguided.

[Christopher]

Has anyone else noticed that threads about, for lack of a better term, common man foods i.e.: Burgers, Pizza, BBQ! Raise the greatest heat? Meyer knew way before Blue Smoke opened that he would take an enormous amount of flack from those who feel strongly about this very regional food. I myself wanted to know if he was going to serve NC BBQ, as I remember that with great fondness. But, to jump on an authenticity band wagon is silly. Shall we be authentic and deny cappucino service in the evening because that is just not done in Florence? Or should I write Firenze? ;)

We are talking about an infant restaurant and some are looking at it and demanding that it walk and talk like it's older siblings just because it has famous parents. A word of caution, if you don't like flumoxed hostesses, lost orders, slow service and general chaos, stay clear of brand new restaurants.

[Ruby]

Has anyone else noticed that threads about, for lack of a better term, common man foods i.e.: Burgers, Pizza, BBQ! Raise the greatest heat? Meyer knew way before Blue Smoke opened that he would take an enormous amount of flack from those who feel strongly about this very regional food.

We are talking about an infant restaurant and some are looking at it and demanding that it walk and talk like it's older siblings just because it has famous parents. A word of caution, if you don't like flumoxed hostesses, lost orders, slow service and general chaos, stay clear of brand new restaurants.

Christopher, I usually feel neutral about your posts which is an okay reaction but this time I disagree.

Blue Smoke may be an 'infant' restaurant but IMO it wouldn't have gotten so much attention if it hadn't been a Danny Meyer venture to begin with. I live in the Murray Hill area and previously never went to this location to hear jazz but did go to have ribs. The ribs disappointed, the lack of side dishes that are usually included anywhere else, the prices, and the frat boys crowd that was there that night. Yeck.

My friend and I were squired to the bar by your 'flumoxed host' and the bar is not conducive to dining - even on ribs and smoked baloney (?). I know NUTHIN from ribs in North Carolina, Texas, Chicago, whatever. I'm a native New Yorker and have had ribs in Harlem, downtown, uptown, East/West Side-you name it and they've been better and at 1/2 the price. Okay, this is an 'infant' restaurant but Mr. Meyer must have known that side dishes such as collard greens, corn, cornbread, potato salad are natural side dishes that go with ribs. All we got was a piddly saucer of cole slaw with 3 itty bitty ribs. And for that we should get up and do a dance?  Whoopy doo! No way.

As to your 'word of caution' about brand new restaurants: this may hold true for some mom and pop storefront restaurants but, here again, we're talking about a Danny Meyer restaurant and the expectations are much higher.

[Fat Guy]

Ruby, setting aside issues of price, ambience, portion-size, etc., would you mind saying a bit more about the ribs? I'd be interested to hear your analysis of them standing alone. For one thing, I'd like to know what you ordered. I'm assuming the beef ribs, since you got three and that's consistent with beef ribs -- I'd think a half rack of baby back or St. Louis style pork ribs would have 7 or so ribs, though I haven't looked it up in a meat book (I will check tomorrow; also I should point out for Baruch's benefit since I know he is interested in butchering terms that I'm pretty sure St. Louis style is a standard butchering term used throughout the US to refer to a specific style of ribs, though I'll have to look it up in order to explain it). For another thing, I'd be interested to hear more about where you're coming from in terms of the places you've enjoyed ribs and what kinds of ribs those have been. I guess what I'm trying to determine is how our perceptions can be so divergent. There are a few possibilities. One is that the ribs were good when I had them and bad when you had them. Another is that you and I are using different standards to judge ribs. And I'm sure there are other explanations too. Let's figure it out.

I do think, ultimately, all this talk of authenticity and such is a distraction. It's interesting, no doubt, but the primary question in my mind is, with regard to the barbecue: Good or not good?

[Christopher]

The ribs disappointed, the lack of side dishes that are usually included anywhere else, the prices, and the frat boys crowd that was there that night. Yeck.

And for that we should get up and do a dance?  Whoopy doo! No way.

As to your 'word of caution' about brand new restaurants: this may hold true for some mom and pop storefront restaurants but, here again, we're talking about a Danny Meyer restaurant and the expectations are much higher.

Of course Blue Smoke is getting a lot of attention because it's run by Meyer. All that means is that it's a famous infant, but an infant none the less. Nowhere in my post did I say that one should like or even accept ill-portions, misguided service, etc. Just that it's to be expected in a new restaurant. Your comment about the frat-boys reminds me of the crowd we had at GT when we first opened. Our bar was, for months filled with 'professional ladies of the evening' We were known to be the place to do business. It was even published in a well known magazine that "If you couldn't get (insert euphamism for the sex act here) at GT, it wasn't going to happen for you."

So, the crowd will change and move on to the next hot spot. The food and service will stabilize and an style will emerge. Then you should go back and see what's what.

[Ruby]

Ruby, setting aside issues of price, ambience, portion-size, etc., would you mind saying a bit more about the ribs? I'd be interested to hear your analysis of them standing alone. For one thing, I'd like to know what you ordered. I'm assuming the beef ribs, since you got three and that's consistent with beef ribs -- I'd think a half rack of baby back or St. Louis style pork ribs would have 7 or so ribs, to explain it). For another thing, I'd be interested to hear more about where you're coming from in terms of the places you've enjoyed ribs and what kinds of ribs those have been. I guess what I'm trying to determine is how our perceptions can be so divergent. There are a few possibilities. One is that the ribs were good when I had them and bad when you had them. Another is that you and I are using different standards to judge ribs. And I'm sure there are other explanations too. Let's figure it out.

Steven, I remember ordering the St. Louis ribs because the bartender said they were 'meatier' than the baby backs although she stated the baby backs were considered the 'filet mignon of ribs.' So I ordered the St. Louis ribs and got three ribs. They weren't bad but were a measly portion.

Ribs are something I definitely have to be in the mood to have. My younger half-sister's father was black. He was a very cool guy and we all used to go to Harlem in the mid-50s to have chicken & ribs. I don't recall the names of the restaurants. I know Mama went to the Palm Cafe but I think that was more of a nightclub. I never thought about ribs or analyzed the cut, the sauce, etc. They're good or they're not.

When I've had ribs over the years, they weren't at upscale places like Blue Smoke. Brothers BBQ, Dallas BBQ, Sylvia's, Pink Teacup, and the ribs were always 'lip smackin' good' and satisfying. Maybe the meat isn't Niman cut but you don't leave hungry or spend lots of money. I've also had ribs in Florida, Louisiana, Illinois...and they've been good too. Once in awhile, I'll get a tough tasting rib but the ratio is about the same as getting a tough hanger steak.

Hope this answers your questions, Steve.

[Fat Guy]

Based on what you're saying, one possible explanation would be that somebody messed up your order. As I understand it there is no way a half-rack of St. Louis ribs could be three ribs. There are three rib choices at Blue Smoke: St. Louis, baby back, and beef. We ordered a half rack of each type for a table of three rib eaters and one non-rib eater. There were three big beef ribs, and enough of the other kinds for each of us rib eaters to have a couple. I've also toured the kitchen and seen the smokers with all the racks of ribs laid out and if they gave you three St. Louis ribs they gave you something like a quarter of an order -- somebody would have had to take a half rack and cut it in half. If that's what happened, you'd have every right to be outraged. That sort of idiotic mistake does happen at new restaurants, but it would still very surprising to me if it was the case at Blue Smoke.

In terms of the style of the ribs, Blue Smoke is making something completely different from what you'd get at Dallas BBQ or the typical Harlem soul food place where the ribs are not barbecued at all (if it says BBQ on the menu it's a figure of speech and not a reference to actual wood smoking); at that species of restaurant they are typically oven baked in a sweet sauce. Many people, when experiencing the less moist, minimal-sauce, wood-smoked barbecue styles find them dry and unappealing by comparison to the sweet, sticky, falling-off-the-bone baked ribs they're used to. However, I think if one takes the time to acquire the taste and look for depth of flavor as opposed to the one-dimensional fat-sugar punch of baked ribs, the payoff is great.

I'm wondering if anybody has current menu prices on half and whole racks of ribs at various restaurants in and out of New York and with or without real wood smoking.