WITH A NAME LIKE BAD BRAD'S IT HAS TO BE _ _ _ _

My wife suggested we go try Bad Brad's for dinner...

I've never been there...

She rarely suggests we go eat BBQ without the word 
Swadley's coming out of her mouth...

I need some material to blog about... So we hopped in the car and headed for Yukon.

Bad Brad's falls  somewhere in between my "The Good" and my "The Bad" categories. Well lit, overly decorated, technically a chain. At least I think two locations makes it a chain.

The full parking lot and the smell of smoke that hit my nostrils as we walked up gave me hope that some of the negative reviews I had seen about Bad Brad's might be wrong.

We were greeted promptly at the door, seated quickly, given menus and served our drinks. In fact before I get all negative, as I'm apt to do. I'd just like to say that other than it took a little bit to get a pickle my wife requested. The young woman that waited on us did an excellent job.

I chose the Cowboy Deluxe. It is a 3 meat with white bread, onions, pickle, and cheddar cheese. It's served on butcher paper. I was hoping the "served on butcher paper" part would bring back fond memories of my Texas BBQ road trip.... And it did but probably for all the wrong reasons. I did like the presentation. See, I'm not all negative, but it made me really miss Texas brisket.

I chose sliced brisket, pulled pork, bologna, and added one rib so I could sample as many meats as possible.

The brisket had a nice smoke ring but you'll probably notice from that picture above that any fat or moisture that was ever contained in this piece of brisket were gone. I glanced over to make sure my water glass was full before I took the first bite hoping for the best. Nice smoke flavor but it ended there as I scrambled to get anything with any kind of moisture in my mouth to help get that bite down.

It was at this point that I coined a new BBQ term.... Okie Brisket. Unlike  the brisket I ate in Texas that was moist and full of flavor. Okie Brisket is dry, hard to swallow, roast beef, with every last piece of fat and bark scraped off and discarded before being served that seems to be the norm in Oklahoma Q-raunts and the only way I was going to be able to get any more of it down my throat was to take the drastic measures  you see in the pic below. Bury it in some sauce!

Fortunately the sauce was tasty. Unfortunately it still needed help from the cheese, onions, and pickle to choke the Okie Brisket down.

I didn't take a pic of the pulled pork. It was pulled and I appreciated that. It also had a decent flavor but it too had almost no moisture left in it and I was having to sauce it and cram bites of pickles and onions in my mouth to choke it down.

The rib wasn't too bad. It was big and meaty. Had a nice looking smoke ring but was a little hammy. I think there was a lot of salt in the rub.

The first bite I took was from the end and it was a little tough but the rest of the rib was pretty good. Made me wish I had just gone with ribs and bologna. The bologna was pretty darn good. Unfortunately, even being the smoked blogna junkie I am, I don't go to Q-Raunts for the bologna. That's kind of like going to a prime steakhouse for the fish in my opinion.

I can't say that I'll be going back to Bad Brad's. It's just not my kind of Q. Apparently from the packed parking lot and the line of people waiting to get in. It does appeal to a lot of others and I'm good with that.