- Joined
- Oct 19, 2009
- Name or Nickame
- Bill
G'Day Bruces':becky:
Yesterday when looking for a place to take my family out to dinner to celebrate my daughters 14th Birthday, I came across Melbournes first "proper" BBQ Restaurant: BIG BOY BBQ
At first I was sceptical, but I read the menu and a restaurant reviews and thought... well, it's at least worth a try. If somone has opened a BBQ restaurant in Melbourne... who better than me to test it out!:thumb:
Anyway, I'm glad I did. The restaurant is located in a shopping strip that has a lot of restaurants of many kinds, in the heart of the Jewish sector of Melbourne. Still.. it looks like Pulled Pork is still OK here!
The interior is modern Australian, uncluttered, with simple small frames showing logo's of famous US BBQ Restaurant's etc.
Meet the Owner Lance, in front of house..
Lance is actually South African. He briefly told me his BBQ story.
Growing up in South Africa, everyone cooks Braai with charcoal and coal using discus' and shovels...anything basically you can throw on a fire. But Lance, like me also discovered US Low and Slow BBQ and spent some time in the US working in BBQ restaurants, taking classes (like Johnny Triggs etc...) and learning everything he could, including competition BBQ. He knew all about KCBS, and knew about the BBQ-Brethren too.
Maybe some competition guys out there might recognise him... I dunno, but anyway Lance was very happy to show me around once I told him why I was at his restaurant and that I'm a self taught backyarder.
More about Lance and the Restaurant later... now to the food!
First we sat down and tasted all the sauces:thumb::
You'll note the big bottle is a KC style, and then there is a pretty good Carolina vinegar sauce (my favourite), a hot sauce (quite hot) and finally a South African Braai sauce which was very nice and tasted stongly of Worcestershire as a base.
We ordered 2 serves of Chicken wings which came out fast and were, honestly, delicious and most importantly.... SMOKEY!
They were also bloody stickey! :thumb: So no photo's of eating that!..
Next up we ordered the BIG BOY PLatter $99.00 of BBQ Meat which also includes 3 large sides..
The interesting thing about the BBQ PLatter is the inclusion of Lamb Ribs and also a pulled lamb shoulder, I suppose because both Aussies and South Africans love lamb.
There was more of the chicken wings, pulled pork, pulled brisket, a 1/2 rack of untrimmed ribs, lamb ribs, pastrami made on premises.
I found everything tasty and smokey. The lamb though might hit a bit of a wall in the US.. perhaps too stong in flavour for some tastes, but here, it works really well.
My main problem was that there was no sliced brisket on the platter, but this was made all clear later on....
Closeup, lamb rib:
Yes.... White Bread! Just like in Texas!!!!:thumb::thumb::thumb:
My plate, with some sides:
The fries, onlion rings and slaw, were all excellent. The slaw had a nice glossy vinegar dressing... nothing like the mayo clogged crap we call coleslaw here!
Lamb Rib:
Pork Ribs:
Second son Paul in a Meat Coma!
Our booth:
Lance invited me into the kitchen, where he has 3 Cookshack FEC's
These are the first Cookshack's I'd ever seen in the steel... quote a moment for me! :-D
This one cooking rib tips:
And this one with brisket:
You will note these briskies are very small. I'd asked Lance where he gets his briskets, because I'd like to get some too... Well, so he told me his problems sourcing good brisket.
All the decent grain fed beef gets exported to Japan and similar places because the abattoirs get a far better price for it in Asia. Local butchers do not get access to good 100-150day grain fed beef because of this and this means briskets in particular are very lean and poorly marbelled.
That means, obtaing goods size brisket is hard, and slow cooked BBQ brisket is a hard thing to manage with a low fat content. The result is a cut that dries out immediately when sliced, and THAT's why it was not served on my platter as slices... but rather as a pulled and sauced brisket.
You gotta hand it to Lance, I understood his problem immediately. He wants to stay as true as possible to BBQ, but at some stage you've got to bend to local availablity or good produce.
Finally... the rubs:
Lance has a different rub with different profiles for each meat. He said that in the US, many restaurants have their single "signature" rub, which they use on everything. He notes that this causes some people to claim that all BBQ tastes the same.. So, he's ensuring that each rub is sufficiently different that people will remember the different tastes of each element in the platter, and I think this works well.
The kitchen was clean and staff were really friendly. I just wish you guys could come dowm and check this out.
To be honest, whether Lances BBQ is as good as Mom and Pop Backblock BBQ, I can't say. What I can say is that its bloody good and we were all stuffed full and very happy!
It's not as good as MY Ribs, right out of the WSM however... but hey, I'm not running a restaurant that's gotta serve up all day and have it ready... fast!
Well done Lance, and the best of luck!:thumb::thumb::thumb:
Cheers!
Bill
Yesterday when looking for a place to take my family out to dinner to celebrate my daughters 14th Birthday, I came across Melbournes first "proper" BBQ Restaurant: BIG BOY BBQ
At first I was sceptical, but I read the menu and a restaurant reviews and thought... well, it's at least worth a try. If somone has opened a BBQ restaurant in Melbourne... who better than me to test it out!:thumb:
Anyway, I'm glad I did. The restaurant is located in a shopping strip that has a lot of restaurants of many kinds, in the heart of the Jewish sector of Melbourne. Still.. it looks like Pulled Pork is still OK here!
The interior is modern Australian, uncluttered, with simple small frames showing logo's of famous US BBQ Restaurant's etc.
Meet the Owner Lance, in front of house..
Lance is actually South African. He briefly told me his BBQ story.
Growing up in South Africa, everyone cooks Braai with charcoal and coal using discus' and shovels...anything basically you can throw on a fire. But Lance, like me also discovered US Low and Slow BBQ and spent some time in the US working in BBQ restaurants, taking classes (like Johnny Triggs etc...) and learning everything he could, including competition BBQ. He knew all about KCBS, and knew about the BBQ-Brethren too.
Maybe some competition guys out there might recognise him... I dunno, but anyway Lance was very happy to show me around once I told him why I was at his restaurant and that I'm a self taught backyarder.
More about Lance and the Restaurant later... now to the food!
First we sat down and tasted all the sauces:thumb::
You'll note the big bottle is a KC style, and then there is a pretty good Carolina vinegar sauce (my favourite), a hot sauce (quite hot) and finally a South African Braai sauce which was very nice and tasted stongly of Worcestershire as a base.
We ordered 2 serves of Chicken wings which came out fast and were, honestly, delicious and most importantly.... SMOKEY!
They were also bloody stickey! :thumb: So no photo's of eating that!..
Next up we ordered the BIG BOY PLatter $99.00 of BBQ Meat which also includes 3 large sides..
The interesting thing about the BBQ PLatter is the inclusion of Lamb Ribs and also a pulled lamb shoulder, I suppose because both Aussies and South Africans love lamb.
There was more of the chicken wings, pulled pork, pulled brisket, a 1/2 rack of untrimmed ribs, lamb ribs, pastrami made on premises.
I found everything tasty and smokey. The lamb though might hit a bit of a wall in the US.. perhaps too stong in flavour for some tastes, but here, it works really well.
My main problem was that there was no sliced brisket on the platter, but this was made all clear later on....
Closeup, lamb rib:
Yes.... White Bread! Just like in Texas!!!!:thumb::thumb::thumb:
My plate, with some sides:
The fries, onlion rings and slaw, were all excellent. The slaw had a nice glossy vinegar dressing... nothing like the mayo clogged crap we call coleslaw here!
Lamb Rib:
Pork Ribs:
Second son Paul in a Meat Coma!
Our booth:
Lance invited me into the kitchen, where he has 3 Cookshack FEC's
These are the first Cookshack's I'd ever seen in the steel... quote a moment for me! :-D
This one cooking rib tips:
And this one with brisket:
You will note these briskies are very small. I'd asked Lance where he gets his briskets, because I'd like to get some too... Well, so he told me his problems sourcing good brisket.
All the decent grain fed beef gets exported to Japan and similar places because the abattoirs get a far better price for it in Asia. Local butchers do not get access to good 100-150day grain fed beef because of this and this means briskets in particular are very lean and poorly marbelled.
That means, obtaing goods size brisket is hard, and slow cooked BBQ brisket is a hard thing to manage with a low fat content. The result is a cut that dries out immediately when sliced, and THAT's why it was not served on my platter as slices... but rather as a pulled and sauced brisket.
You gotta hand it to Lance, I understood his problem immediately. He wants to stay as true as possible to BBQ, but at some stage you've got to bend to local availablity or good produce.
Finally... the rubs:
Lance has a different rub with different profiles for each meat. He said that in the US, many restaurants have their single "signature" rub, which they use on everything. He notes that this causes some people to claim that all BBQ tastes the same.. So, he's ensuring that each rub is sufficiently different that people will remember the different tastes of each element in the platter, and I think this works well.
The kitchen was clean and staff were really friendly. I just wish you guys could come dowm and check this out.
To be honest, whether Lances BBQ is as good as Mom and Pop Backblock BBQ, I can't say. What I can say is that its bloody good and we were all stuffed full and very happy!
It's not as good as MY Ribs, right out of the WSM however... but hey, I'm not running a restaurant that's gotta serve up all day and have it ready... fast!
Well done Lance, and the best of luck!:thumb::thumb::thumb:
Cheers!
Bill
