Decent ribs and wings, but everything else let us down a bit…read more
I decided I was hungry for BBQ this past Saturday and noticed that this Bodean's had opened up and gotten good reviews. It was busy when we got there around 7pm, the food smelled great, and the decor was your basic kitschy faux Americana, but not over the top. (Although what's up with the bizarre word salad in the entryway?) Pretty good whiskey and beer selection.
There was an hour wait for a table, but one freed up quickly in the bar area, so we decided to just eat there, which the hostess helpfully facilitated. I went to get drinks, and saw they had a wide array of whiskey cocktails (my favorite!) at reasonable prices, mostly £7-9. So I ordered a Brown Derby... to which the bartender replied, "what?" Somewhat hesitantly, I pointed to it in the menu. She said, abruptly, "I don't know what that is." Soooo... a beer it is. Not a great experience there, although at least she let me try the Crazy Mountain brew they had on tap. (Terrible, by the way.)
We ordered hot wings and a burnt ends/ribs combo with fries and cornbread muffins.
- Wings: 4 stars. Didn't taste like buffalo wings, much smokier, but they were big, well-cooked, and decently spicy.
- Ribs: 4 stars. Good sauce, good flavor. Not quite as good as Duke's, but I'd guess they were cooked pretty low and pretty slow.
- Burnt Ends: 3 stars. Not terrible, but not cooked long enough, as the fat hadn't rendered, and served kind of lukewarm.
- Fries: 3 stars. The seasoning was weird.
- Coleslaw: wait, what? We didn't order coleslaw, but it showed up anyway, contaminating everything around it with goopy mayo. Yuck.
- Cornbread muffins: 2 stars. Didn't show up originally, had to be re-requested, and not worth the wait at all. Spongey, dense, and flavorless. Tasted like they had just been surfaced from the back of the freezer and nuked.
So overall, we weren't completely disappointed, but not totally satisfied either. A fairly "meh" 3 stars on balance. Lots of other BBQ places to try, so we probably won't be back any time soon, but if we were, we'd get the ribs.