Ok, I wasn't really headed down an Atlanta highway and there was no faded sign but I did head West from downtown OKC to Reno and Council to the Rib Shack for lunch with the wife.
Rib Shack bills itself as a BBQ & GRILL. Usually I steer clear of Q-Raunts that don't specialize in BBQ only but being a BBQ junky on a BBQ junky mission to eat at as many Q-Raunts as I can.... Well sometimes you stray off the tried and true path.
From the outside the Rib Shack looks pretty promising and when you walk in you feel like you've walked into a BBQ restaurant, and they do have BBQ on the menu. So I chose the Sampler which unlike most places is a 3 or 4 meat meal. This one is a whopping 5 meats with two sides and.... wait for it.... ONE SIDED TOAST!
The 5 meats as listed are ribs, brisket, ham, polish sausage and hot link. Not many places I know of offer ham so I was looking forward to giving it a try. For my two sides I chose okra and potato salad.
Let's start with the best thing on the plate, the ham. It was four pieces the size you see there on the fork. It had been given a little color and extra added flavor on a grill before being served. It was good but I don't know that it was anything other than your ordinary breakfast ham cooked up on the grill.
The pork spareribs had also spent a little time on the same grill as the ham. So they had pretty much the same flavor but less salty because... well... it wasn't ham. They were kind of tough and you had to do a bit of work to get the meat off the bone. They would definitely never be described as that awful fall off the bone texture but a little to tough for my liking.
The polish and hot link were just your typical food service type sausages. They were good but nothing to get excited about. The hot link made a good sammich.
I apologize for the poor quality of the brisket picture. It was dark inside and I'm surprised any of my pics taken on my free cell phone came out.
The brisket actually turned out to be chopped and sauced. If you've read my other blogs you know my thoughts on sauced meat. If you haven't.... Well you should go read them but the reason I don't like sauced meat is because I feel it's a way of covering up flavorless meat. On this occasion not even the sauce helped. I've chewed water with better flavor.
The sides, like the sausages, were also your typical pre-made food service products. I know if I've said it once I've said it a thousand times, that I don't go to Q-Raunts for the sides but come on. At least put some effort into them and make them from scratch.
I will give Rib Shack kudos for their twist on one sided toast. Instead of buttering the toasted side. They butter the un-toasted side. Ok, I use the word butter lightly. They smeared some sort of imitation butter type substance on the un-toasted side. It's definitely the first time I've seen this approach to one sided toast.
The service at Rib Shack wasn't to bad but everyone I saw working there didn't seem to be to enthused to be there. On the other hand I'm not to enthused to go back. So it all evens out in the end.
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