Smoke Dallas

Saturday was a fine day of Christmas shopping for Joy and I. Fighting the sea of Dallas holiday traffic and huddled masses of shoppers really embiggens the holiday spirit in me. Or anger, one of the two. Just so you know driving on NW Hwy at 3pm on a Saturday 2 weeks before Christmas sucks.

I had decided that I wanted BBQ for dinner Saturday night early in the day. I figured we'd go give Smoke a shot <www.smokerestaurant.com> as I had heard good things. We'd have gone for lunch, but it's pretty well out of the way from anything we were going to be doing that afternoon. So, we had Great Outdoors (#12 hot please). Note that the Great Outdoors is next to Backcountry BBQ on Park @ Greenville. We almost had a double bbq day. Or maybe we should have just had Backcountry for lunch, and skipped Smoke for dinner.

We arrived at Smoke about 8pm, were seated at a table too close to the next couple, and enjoyed a couple of complementary cornbread sticks with jalapeno jam. Good, but not great. We ordered strictly bbq and bbq related sides. Smoke has quite the extensive menu, most of which looked delicious, but I was here for BBQ. Brisket sandwich, Pulled Pork sandwich, 1/2 rack of ribs. For sides we enjoyed fries and the hominy casserole.

First, let’s talk about sauces. They bring a four pack to the table. House sauce is a tomato/molasses sauce which isn't overly sweet, but isn't overly flavorful either. There is a vinegar/red pepper SC sauce, a mustardy sweet NC sauce and a "Tex Mex" chipotle/tomatillo sauce. None of them are very good, but the SC sauce has a nice punch of heat.

Brisket Sandwich:
Unless specified, I want sliced beef. This came out chopped, and topped with two 3/8" thick slices of sour pickle. I didn't ask for chopped, nor did the menu indicate that I was ordering a chopped beef sandwich. Either way, the bun was fantastic and the meat just so/so. A little dry and no real smoke flavor to speak of.

Pulled Pork:
This sandwich, on the same fantastic bun as above, was good, but not really bbq. The tender shreds of pork were sauced lightly with the vinegar/red pepper sauce and topped with cabbage slaw. Traditional style, which I can respect. Unfortunately there were not chunks of bark in the pulled pork, and NO smoke flavor. If I didn't know any better, I'd assume it came out of a slow-cooker/Crockpot.

Ribs:
1/2 Rack of St. Louis cut spare ribs. Here's where all of the smoke flavor in the restaurant went. Wow. There is no lack of smoke flavor in these. There is also no lack of rub, or sticky sweet glaze. I really, really wanted to like these ribs but there are just too many flaws to approve. The first bite was pretty outstanding, but after you polish off a rib or two it's just too much. Too much rub -- caked on uncooked powder in your mouth. Too much or the sweet glaze that's masking the flavor of the pork. Too much smoke. I'm guessing there's smoked paprika/smoked salt in the rub which is causing part of the problem. The ribs did come with pickled carrots which were pretty awesome.

Sides:
The fries have a smoky sweet dusting of salt -- like a Wing Stop fry with attitude. At first, you love this. After a while the smoke becomes slightly overpowering and you wish they were just good fries.
The hominy casserole, on the other hand, is awesome. Bacon, jalapenos, grits, hominy and cheddar. I'm going to be making this for Christmas dinner, assuming I can find a recipe.

There's a chance I'll give this restaurant another shot -- cause I really want to like it. I've heard nothing but good things about their house made sausages, so I'll likely be back to try those. We'll see.