Beef Ribs at Restaurant Depot

At mine in the case near open briskets they do have packages that have 3-4 "racks" in one package. The smallest I've seen was a 2 "rack" package in the Halal section. That is normally what I get.

Ask them if they can open a case for you they usually have two price per case and per lb

I almost went crazy prior to Memorial Day looking for Beef Plate Ribs. I don't have access to RD, so I called and visited several butchers and stores - I'm also in the Garland (Rowlett) area. The ONLY place I found them was at "Ye Ole Butcher" in Plano. I bought 3 racks (about 17lbs total, $8.99lb). They smoked up FANTASTIC!!! I rubbed them with hot sauce, then coated with black pepper and salt (maybe 65/35 ratio), smoked them with Oak (~250F) for 6 hours, wrapped w/foil, then pulled them off to rest when they became "probe tender". Just awesome!

BTW, many of the other butchers around here will TELL you they have Plate Ribs, and even try to sell you Chuck in place of Plate. If you ask them which rib numbers are in the rack, you can quickly find out if they're telling the truth or just don't know. Plate Ribs should be ribs 6,7,8 if I remember correctly.

Oh sorry, I thought the original post was from Garland. Whups....

Sorry, but I gotta ask...why didn't you ask them when you were there?

Woody_Q said:

I almost went crazy prior to Memorial Day looking for Beef Plate Ribs. I don't have access to RD, so I called and visited several butchers and stores - I'm also in the Garland (Rowlett) area. The ONLY place I found them was at "Ye Ole Butcher" in Plano. I bought 3 racks (about 17lbs total, $8.99lb). They smoked up FANTASTIC!!! I rubbed them with hot sauce, then coated with black pepper and salt (maybe 65/35 ratio), smoked them with Oak (~250F) for 6 hours, wrapped w/foil, then pulled them off to rest when they became "probe tender". Just awesome!

BTW, many of the other butchers around here will TELL you they have Plate Ribs, and even try to sell you Chuck in place of Plate. If you ask them which rib numbers are in the rack, you can quickly find out if they're telling the truth or just don't know. Plate Ribs should be ribs 6,7,8 if I remember correctly.

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Not to hijack the thread, but Woody_Q - if you find yourself near Lewisville, TX check out Old Town Meat Market http://oldtownmkt.com/ for Beef Plate Ribs. If you buy the whole cry-o-vac package which contains two 3 or 4 bone plates (about ten pounds) it was $4.79 per pound a few weeks ago.

I go to Restaurant Depot in Dallas pretty often and I have never seen beef plate ribs there.

At our RD, we buy beef back ribs frequently. They will sell by the individual package or by the case, and they will order them in and call me upon arrival.

What they have never had, is beef plate ribs and they inform me this cut is unavailable.

At the RDs by me they sell them as a case OR by the unit. 1 unit is a cryovac with 4 plates - 3 bones in a plate. If there are no 'units' in the 'cooler case' (cases are on pallets on industrial racks and loose units are in a cooler style case....even though the whole room is cooled), I just grab one from a case bring it to a guy who works there who takes it, weighs it, and slaps a bar code label on it.

I usually buy a unit, cook two plates and freeze two plates for another day.

BTW, they also sell the 4 bone chuck ribs... don't let them steer you towards that. The guys who are moving product around there don't really know the difference.

I've only ever looked in the cooler/single section for plate ribs and never seen them in NOLA. I'll have to check for cases. I think I could buy a case of plate ribs and be just fine making it through those delicious dino bones!!

bergenguy said:

At the RDs by me they sell them as a case OR by the unit. 1 unit is a cryovac with 4 plates - 3 bones in a plate. If there are no 'units' in the 'cooler case' (cases are on pallets on industrial racks and loose units are in a cooler style case....even though the whole room is cooled), I just grab one from a case bring it to a guy who works there who takes it, weighs it, and slaps a bar code label on it.

I usually buy a unit, cook two plates and freeze two plates for another day.

BTW, they also sell the 4 bone chuck ribs... don't let them steer you towards that. The guys who are moving product around there don't really know the difference.

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What the difference between the 3 and 4 bone rack?I did my first ones and they had four bones and they were really good. Sorry for the hijack.

jsperk said:

What the difference between the 3 and 4 bone rack?I did my first ones and they had four bones and they were really good. Sorry for the hijack.

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I did a post a while back that had the cut numbers and some other details here http://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/showthread.php?t=229682&page=2

but for brevity's sake.... they are both delicious and cook up similar. They are next to each other on the cow. I believe the plate (the 3 bone) is supposed to be fattier than the chuck ribs. For our purposes though, the big difference is the WOW factor. The Plate ribs are bigger and when it is cooked up you get that real Dinosaur bone effect of a huge hunk of meat on a bone. The chuck ribs are shorter and when they cook up the meat looks smaller in comparison to the bone.

In the instance of our local RDs, the 3 v 4 bone is the Plate versus the chuck. (However, I'm told you can get plates that have more than 3 bones)

If you search through beef rib posts on this forum and notice that some ribs are MONSTERS while others appear like smaller masses of meat on thick bones (like if you ordered a braised short rib at a fancy restaurant).... that is the difference.

I'm no expert though, so hopefully a bretheren who is will chime in (and/or correct anything I may have mis-stated)