Restaurant Review - Jake's Bar B Que Restaurant
Jake's Bar B Que Restaurant
189 Columbia Street
Brooklyn, NY 11231
Last night I was driving home from Manhattan and traffic was at a stand still on the Gowanus, so I took the side streets. And what to my wandering eyes should appear? Jake's Bar B Que Restaurant.
Jake's is a typical store front Brooklyn restaurant, but they had a KCBS member sticker on the door. Fantastic I thought - another real barbecue restaurant in Brooklyn. The other one is the Waterfront Ale House.
Boy was I wrong. Jakes is not a barbecue restaurant. Whatever it is that they are serving is not barbeque. I ordered the pulled roast pork sandwich ($8.95 includes one side)to go. The sandwich arrived on a nice roll with a small salad, pickles and a side of coleslaw. The pork tasted like oven roasted pork that was seared on a stove top grill. It was OK, but it wasn't barbeque by any stretch of the imagination. The BBQ sauce, served on the side and only be request tasted like either Kraft or Cattleman's, I couldn't tell.
While I was waiting for the sandwich I looked around the restaurant. I asked the girl at the counter where the smoker was. She said that you can't smoke in a restaurant. So I asked, "Where do you prepare the BBQ?" She then pointed out the rotiserary where the chickens were cooked. This was a standard electric rotiserary, no wood, no charcoal. I asked about the pork and was told that the meat was cooked in the oven and shredded. Damn. Talk about your false advertising.
I was the only customer in the restaurant, but they seemed to be preparing a lot of take out and delivery orders. Two delivery guys slept at one table, while the counter girl crochet. A Chinese woman was sitting at a table covered in liquor bottles and talked with another employee about photography. Another guy was drinking coffee out of a paper cup and paced back and forth outside the restaurant. Very strange.
I watched from the counter as meals were being prepared. Ribs, chicken and my pulled pork - everything came out of the refrigerator and put in the microwave. Man, this place sucks.
posted by WhiteTrashBBQ @ 8:31 AM
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3 Comments:
What a shame to get your hopes up and then have them dashed like that. It's a bit of a drive, but I heard that there's a good BBQ place in Somerville, NJ ... might make a nice daytrip now that the weather's warm. :)
I have questions. What about a gas BBQ with the gas burners on the bottom and lava stones above the gass burners? The meat fat drips down on the stones and smokes. The smoke rises up over the meat.
2nd question:
Can you put a full-sized turkey on the spit, taking the meat grates off the BBQ, and cook it that way? Wouldn't it be better than just cooking it in the oven? What internal temperature does the meat need to be and about how long will it take. I have an instant read meat thermoneter.
djw46@att.net
THANKS!
Those two guys are still sleeping at the table. Same exact experience three years later. The place still sucks. We had "Jakes Brunch". The onion rings tasted like fried won tons. The "Pulled" pork and chicken was really just "chopped". The only good things were the biscuits (tasted like Pillsbury) and the iced tea. Othrwise this was a Chinese joint.
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