Dinosaur BBQ (NYC)

[titicaca]

I could not find the menu or websites  for Mitchell's in Wilson NC- but they have excellent variety of meats, as does Louie Mueller's in Lockhart. 

louie mueller's bbq is not in lockhart. it's in taylor, about 45 minutes ne of austin. fyi

[verysleepy]

hi titicaca... yes.. meant Taylor- we went there and to Mikeska's

[ghostrider]

What bugs me about Kim Severson's piece is that the real subtext seems to be that New York will never be a great BBQ town, but Syracuse already is (at least to some extent), thanks to the same people about whom she's writing.  That raises a host of issues that she doesn't address.

←

Here's one: One first-rate barbecue joint does not a great barbecue town make--unless the town in question is small and the joint so good that people will drive from a couple of states away to eat there.

I could see where you could infer from Severson's review exactly what you say above, ghostrider, but I would say that the inference is stretching it a bit. The most I'd be willing to assert on the basis of the review is that Syracuse has a damn fine 'cue joint.

←

Yep, your point is well made, I did overstate the case a bit. The influence of Severson's & Sietsema's styles is simply insidious.

[jgould]

someone please explain why a syracuse bbq joint that serves middle-of-the-road food(?) has >13,000 views & 252 replies

i mean IF this was anywhere near a "BBQ MECCA" then i would understand, but dino is no mecca, & serves mediocre bbq, @ best!!!!!!!!

[Fat Guy]

I could not find the menu or websites  for Mitchell's in Wilson NC- but they have excellent variety of meats, as does Louie Mueller's in Lockhart. 

←

Relevant to the multiple-meats point: the name of the place is actually "Mitchell's Ribs, Chicken & BBQ." The web site is www.mitchellsbbq.com. They smoke with Kingsford charcoal plus some wood.

Not only Mitchell's but also many of the top barbecue places have mobile rigs that they use for parties, competitions and other events. These rigs can drive a couple of miles, or they can drive to Canada. The barbecue tastes the same in any event.

[zimonsays]

Competition bbq is the true holy grail. some of those guys are way beyond anything you could ever get in any bbq palace.

Edited January 15, 2005 by zimonsays (log)

[slkinsey]

Relevant to the multiple-meats point: the name of the place is actually "Mitchell's Ribs, Chicken & BBQ." The web site is www.mitchellsbbq.com. They smoke with Kingsford charcoal plus some wood.

Interestingly, there is no mention of chicken on their online menu. What we see is pork, turkey, sauce, pork, pork, pork, collard greens (most likely cooked with pork), pork and Brunswick stew (including pork?). This is, of course, not their full menu -- but it is, I think, a good indication of what they think they do best and what made their reputation.

Interesting quote from the "articles" section of the site:

[Lolis Eric Elie of The Times-Picayune in New Orleans and author of Smokestack Lightning], who comes from a tertiary barbecue capital himself, suggested that New York would never be ''part of barbecue country'' because it had no indigenous regional tradition, just techniques imported from somewhere else.

This feeds into my thought that the way to go is to pick one style/technique, stick with it and refine it if you want to make truly exceptional barbecue. It also adds an interesting point to the question raised upthread about whether NYC can ever be a "great barbecue town." Can there be a "great barbecue town/region" that doesn't have it's own style?

[woodburner]

Smokestack Lightning is an excellent book by the way, I would encourage anyone who admires bbq, to track a copy down.

woodburner

[jhlurie]

I just see SO little supporting evidence for most of the claims in this thread. The Southern Culture forum people are probably chuckling reading some of this.

Claim: A BBQ joint must only serve one kind of meat to be great.

--Well, as several people have shown, there are too many counter-examples to credit this. And in fact, it makes very little sense on it's own. True BBQ is smoked meat. Smoking techniques are not wildly different for different meats. Ergo, it's not enormously difficult for a BBQ place to serve multiple meats at approximately the same quality. Supply of quality ingredients is about the largest factor, if one must exist. My guess is that, if for example, most of the state of North Carolina only serves one kind of 'cue, it's mostly because they only WANT to eat one kind of 'cue. No more, no less.

Claim: A BBQ joint must have some kind of "authentic" decor (whatever that is) to be great.

--I ask... what does this have to do with the food? Perhaps there IS a mental component to taste which may be affected by decor, but I've yet to see it proved.

Claim: BBQ is inherently regional in nature.

--People's preferences are regional. Talent at running a smoker, properly trimming a cut of meat, or making a particular sauce is regional. But all those arguments prove is that those resources must be relocated--thus making it more difficult but not impossible.

Claim: The absence of visible smoke in a restaurant premises is a sign of a lack of authenticity.

--...Or even what seems to be refered to as some kind of aura of smoke... and yet NYC has laws which don't apply to any other part of the country. People sniffing the air for the scent of wood smoke will be doomed to eternal dissapointment not because its used in some inferior manner, but because the ventilation is controlled in a manner not required anywhere else. The fact that this is done doesn't prove a thing about the cooking being done. Here's a suggestion! Wood smoke scented air freshener!

I give far more credence to claims that the brisket is too dry, that the sauce is too sweet, the pork stingy in quantity... those seem like substantial and relevent objections to me. Honestly, in my opinion, the rest just seem like expectations, not rules, nor even necessary guidelines.

[Fat Guy]

New York has an "indigenous" style of barbecue, called pastrami. The whole notion of "indigenous" anything, however, is as nonsensical as the notion of "immigrants." Everybody is an immigrant -- whether they came on a boat or schlepped across the Bering Straits -- and no food is truly indigenous. Even under a forced "first figured out here" definition of indigenous, it would be a stretch to say barbecue is indigenous to anyplace but the first place where it was recorded. Everywhere else, it migrated. It migrated from North Carolina to South Carolina, or vice versa. And now it is in an early stage of migration to New York City, just as sushi was several decades ago. As for the objection to mixing styles, I don't see the validity of that either as a normative/descriptive or theoretical claim. Although barbecue is not easy, it is something that can be measured by science: you have meat, heat, smoke and various equations to get you to a finished product. If you go to Ed Mitchell's place, for example, you will see temperature probes and heat graphs all over the place -- this is how they intend to make franchises work without loss of quality.

[jogoode]

I just see SO little supporting evidence for most of the claims in this thread.  The Southern Culture forum people are probably chuckling reading some of this.

...

Claim: A BBQ joint must have some kind of "authentic" decor (whatever that is) to be great.

--I ask... what does this have to do with the food?  Perhaps there IS a mental component to taste which may be affected by decor, but I've yet to see it proved.

I agree with most of what you said, but think it deserves noting that aside from this mental component decor often signals the intentions of the restaurant owners. People's criticism of the theme-park decor is a way of their asking, "Who are the owners catering to? And do the people they're catering to want real barbecue or would they be happy with mediocre barbecue?" What's so great about a barbecue shack in the South is that it is essentially saying, "Don't come here for anything but the food." There are, however, plenty of holes in the wall serving bad food and plenty of places with flamboyant decor serving good food, though right now I can't think of any.

Claim: The absence of visible smoke in a restaurant premises is a sign of a lack of authenticity.

--...Or even what seems to be refered to as some kind of aura of smoke... and yet NYC has laws which don't apply to any other part of the country.  People sniffing the air for the scent of wood smoke will be doomed to eternal dissapointment not because its used in some inferior manner, but because the ventilation is controlled in a manner not required anywhere else.  The fact that this is done doesn't prove a thing about the cooking being done.  Here's a suggestion!  Wood smoke scented air freshener!

Am I alone in this, or did anyone else smell a ton of wood smoke inside Dinosaur?

[joiei]

I don't think members of biker gangs read the NYT food section.

←

A little profiling? I know a lot of people who ride on weekends and mid week are the suits. And they read the NYT even here. And this does not include the women who ride.

BBQ is a regional thing, what is considered the best in one area may not cut the mustard in another area. I would guess that it has to do with the meats that were available when the area was developing. Pork in the east and Beef in the southwest. And most areas have at least one type of local sausage. WE all have preferences, I do.

[Fat Guy]

JJ, when standing in the vestibule waiting to be seated, I was almost blinded by it. Eventually I had to go outside. Unfortunately, for 100 feet in every direction there were people smoking (cigarettes, not meat), so that strategy didn't work out very well.

[zimonsays]

By the way, New york does have its own bbq tradition, its called Cornell chicken. It was developed at Cornel university.Its a vinager marinated enriched with eggs and cooked in long cinder block pits directly over charcoal and wood. You can find it at many road side stands all over the Finger Lakes. Heres a link to a pdf by the guy who invented it.

http://cce.cornell.edu/store/pdf/bbq.pdf

so i guess New York does have its own bbq tradition....

Edited January 16, 2005 by zimonsays (log)

[bbq chef]

decor often signals the intentions of the restaurant owners. People's criticism of the theme-park decor is a way of their asking, "Who are the owners catering to? And do the people they're catering to want real barbecue or would they be happy with mediocre barbecue?" What's so great about a barbecue shack in the South is that it is essentially saying, "Don't come here for anything but the food." There are, however, plenty of holes in the wall serving bad food and plenty of places with flamboyant decor serving good food,

But in NY you would be run out of town operating a hole in the wall joint. New Yorkers have such different expectations of what a restauraunt should be that it would be next to impossible or so prohiitively expensive (i.e. Masa, who can do whatever they want because they charge so much) that nobody would want to do it.

I have seen in this thread that a few people believe that a true Q restaurant closes when they run out of food, but I know from personal experience that even 60 miles North of Manhattan that customers flip out when you run out of food. Doing this is absolutely out of the question in NY.

I also believe that a lot of people in NY think that they know what makes real good barbeque, but actually only have a half a clue about it. By nature bbq changes from smoking to smoking and will never be 100% consistent. We operators hope that by enabling modern technology, i.e. electric assist smokers, to limit the variables that you the consumer will experience.

I also believe that each reviewer is entitled to there own opinion about the Dinosaur. I do hope that the reviewers who were not to fond of the place give it a little time to mature and reach there own stride.

[Todd36]

  But in NY you would be run out of town operating a hole in the wall joint.  New Yorkers have such different expectations of what a restauraunt should be that it would be next to impossible or so prohiitively expensive (i.e. Masa, who can do whatever they want because they charge so much) that nobody would want to do it. 

←

It trys to look like a hole in the wall joint, and looks fake. That's part of the problem. Along with the food. I have a distrust for any BBQ place that serves sauce in pre-packed bottles from a factory. One of the people I had lunch with has eaten at their Syracuse branch many times. She says its much smaller than the Manhattan version, with a much different crowd, its a "dangerous" place and that is part of the appeal. She's also not sure how great the food is in Syracuse. Most of their customers have had several drinks by the time the food comes, its as much of a drinking as an eating place. It's become part of the popular culture in Syracuse, as the place to drink and eat BBQ. That is the key: as she pointed out, every male college grad in the area wants to have his graduation party catered by them. I'd be curious to hear from people who've actually eaten at both the upstate and Manhattan locations. If they say the food is the same, then I think Dino is a cultural and not a food place.

[Fat Guy]

Many of the top barbecue restaurants in the South sell factory-made prepackaged sauces. It is very much a part of the business these days. Must we really make another list to debunk yet another one of these romantic, nostalgic and wrong assertions about barbecue?

[jogoode]

decor often signals the intentions of the restaurant owners. People's criticism of the theme-park decor is a way of their asking, "Who are the owners catering to? And do the people they're catering to want real barbecue or would they be happy with mediocre barbecue?" What's so great about a barbecue shack in the South is that it is essentially saying, "Don't come here for anything but the food." There are, however, plenty of holes in the wall serving bad food and plenty of places with flamboyant decor serving good food,

But in NY you would be run out of town operating a hole in the wall joint. New Yorkers have such different expectations of what a restauraunt should be that it would be next to impossible or so prohiitively expensive (i.e. Masa, who can do whatever they want because they charge so much) that nobody would want to do it.

←

Thanks, bbq chef. Your perspective is very valuable here. I can imagine that one of the hardest parts about running a profitable food business is knowing when to cater to your customers and when to stick to your guns.

[Todd36]

Many of the top barbecue restaurants in the South sell factory-made prepackaged sauces. It is very much a part of the business these days. Must we really make another list to debunk yet another one of these romantic, nostalgic and wrong assertions about barbecue?

←

It's not selling it that I see as a problem, its the use of it at the table. Would you be saying the same thing if you had dinner at Jean Georges and were handed one of their bottled dressings for your dinner?

[jgould]

interesting observation: # of replies:

per se ------659

smok'g ban 433

dino bbq ----268

what does this imply? egulleteers/ny'ers are passionate about a cult chef that many consider to be in the ranks of the top 5 chefs in the world!

smoking opinions outrank many other food topics???

there are an amazing # of passionate fanatics who both appreciate bbq & have very diverse opinions about what that means. every opinion somewhat rings true. what does "authenticity" really mean? some say, its the smoking? some say its the sauce? some say its the ambiance? some argue its the location? etc, etc, blah, blah, yada yada...

what makes all this interesting &, sometimes amusing, is the sincererity of the posts which have inspired so many to express their opinion. quite naturally, i have an opinion, but that is not the subject of THIS post.

i just wanted to inject my appreciation to ALL those who have taken the time to express their thoughts about BBQ, which continues to aim the spotlight on one of the best foods mankind has yet to come up with.

ummmmm, foie gras - or - a boston butt hickory smoked on chicken wire supported by concrete blocks in a open air space, being tended & basted with a homemade sauce not sold in the town's groc store, by someone who has had yrs of experience, behind a shed with a banging screen door up a little road 20 mi or so from the center of the closest city, served on paper plates with a side of hash & rice, or brunswick stew, pork rinds, sweet pickles, "white" bread, & sweetened ice tea??? nuff said...

how's that for a proustian sentence?

Edited January 16, 2005 by jgould (log)

[woodburner]

Many of the top barbecue restaurants in the South sell factory-made prepackaged sauces. It is very much a part of the business these days. Must we really make another list to debunk yet another one of these romantic, nostalgic and wrong assertions about barbecue?

←

It's not selling it that I see as a problem, its the use of it at the table. Would you be saying the same thing if you had dinner at Jean Georges and were handed one of their bottled dressings for your dinner?

←

That's exactly the point of bbq. To each bbq establishement is much ado concerning "signature" whether it be the brisket, pork or sauce.

Dino markets their own sauce and marinades. What could be the issue of keeping various sauces on the table, for the patrons to try at thier own leisure. How can a comparison be made between Jean Georges and a bbq joint?

woodburner

[Todd36]

Many of the top barbecue restaurants in the South sell factory-made prepackaged sauces. It is very much a part of the business these days. Must we really make another list to debunk yet another one of these romantic, nostalgic and wrong assertions about barbecue?

←

It's not selling it that I see as a problem, its the use of it at the table. Would you be saying the same thing if you had dinner at Jean Georges and were handed one of their bottled dressings for your dinner?

←

That's exactly the point of bbq. To each bbq establishement is much ado concerning "signature" whether it be the brisket, pork or sauce.

Dino markets their own sauce and marinades. What could be the issue of keeping various sauces on the table, for the patrons to try at thier own leisure. How can a comparison be made between Jean Georges and a bbq joint?

woodburner

←

Jean Georges (the man) sells bottled salad dressing. Would you be happy if he served it to you in his namesake restaurant? I would have thought that you would have expected something made in the restaurant. Ditto with Dinosauer. Sure, they can sell what they want in bottles. But in their restaurant, I would hope they use a fresh sauce they make in the restaurant. But, they offer bottled stuff at the table that tastes a little like Kraft. And what they pour on your meat in the kitchen seems to be the same pre-bottled stuff. That is what I object to. And if this is their signature product, it needs lots of work. We can argue this back and forth all we want, but as far as I am concerned, Dinosauer is an OK BBQ place with a obvious chain atmosphere. The ribs in particular were a mess, covered in a thick crust of a salty rub. None of us wanted to finish them.

Note, some of the "famous" places people have pointed to in places like Texas turn out to be 25 unit chains that appear to have outlets in Macy's Department Stores. I have my doubts that such places are that good. If we're going to talk about chains, Sonny's Real Pit BBQ has 150+ units in a just above fast food price point, and I think their BBQ is fairly good, might be better than Dinosaur in some respects.

Anyone been to Redbone's in Sommerville?

[Fat Guy]

Many of the top barbecue restaurants in the South sell factory-made prepackaged sauces.

←

It's not selling it that I see as a problem, its the use of it at the table. . . .

←

That too is standard procedure at many places: the sauce on the table is the same sauce you can buy at the counter or by mail.

Again and again, we are seeing Dinosaur held to unreasonable standards that do not even exist in barbecue country:

- The same smokers used in plenty of "legitimate" barbecue places: not okay

- The same level of variety of menu offerings seen all over barbecue country: not okay

- Impersonal, chainlike decor that isn't nearly as impersonal or chainlike as what is common in barbecue country: not okay

- The same procedure of providing and selling bottled sauces that is in play all over barbecue country: not okay

It would be as if one were to say:

- Pierre's French restaurant is inauthentic because it doesn't serve pizza, lasagna or even minestrone soup;

- Pierre's French restaurant is a fraud because the waiters are from France and speak with French accents and no French restaurant has waiters from France with French accents;

- Pierre's French restaurant couldn't possibly be a real French restaurant; after all, it is open on Thursdays; and

- French food can never be good outside of France -- this is axiomatic.

All my criticisms of Pierre's French restaurant are based solely on my opinions of the food.

[Daniel]

All i know is, I went to Dinosaur BBQ yesterday and had a fine meal.. This time i didnt go with the ribs.. I got the chili which was really good.. Served with chips, a huge topping of baked melted cheese with some pickled jalepenos and sour cream on top.. Sweet, spicy, and plenty of meat.. Then tried the wango tango wings which were smokey and spicy.. The frech fries were great too.. Skin on, had a great potato taste, and were cooked crispy but not over fried. The staff was so so nice.. We were with a four year old and they were more then accomadating.. They made her a grilled cheese sandwich, which was excellent by the way, gave her some stuff to color with, and got her a cup with a lid.. I dont know if this place is the best rib place in the world, but its certainly nothing not to really like. In terms of the sauces, i enjoyed the wango tango, and the bbq sauce, and was impressed that they were not afraid to put more spicey kick into it then most bottled sauces do. Looking foward to the burger.

Edited January 17, 2005 by Daniel (log)

[MarketStEl]

Many of the top barbecue restaurants in the South sell factory-made prepackaged sauces. It is very much a part of the business these days. Must we really make another list to debunk yet another one of these romantic, nostalgic and wrong assertions about barbecue?

←

It's not selling it that I see as a problem, its the use of it at the table.

←

So order takeout! Chances are they will give you the sauce in a little plastic tub rather than hand you an entire bottle.

Your neighborhood diner probably has bottles of ketchup and mustard at every table--and if it has dispensers rather than bottles with labels, it's probably because the ketchup and mustard they use is from a foodservice company and they don't want patrons squawking because "it's not Heinz!" (And even if the bottle says Heinz, it still may not be. You're not supposed to refill those bottles, but it happens all the time.) Most barbecue restaurants I've been to are closer in spirit to the neighborhood diner than to Jean-Georges' restaurants, even those with table service. (Most of the 'cue joints I've been to in KC and in Philly have counter service, not table service--and a few of them don't even have many tables; the bulk of their trade is carryout.)

One more reason for providing bottles of sauce at the table: Patrons' tastes vary. Some may want no sauce with their 'cue, others a little, still others lots. Sauce is usually added after the meat is served, anyway, so why go to the trouble of saucing the meat before serving it to the diner if you can't be sure how much he wants beforehand, if any?

If those labels on the bottles trouble you, maybe you could suggest the establishment take a cue from Arthur Bryant's and serve its sauce in unlabeled bottles.