BILLY SIMS BOOMER Q AND A SHOULDER RUB

So a Billy Sims franchise opened up in the location that Smoke Shack failed in recently.

Now it wasn't that I was happy that Smoke Shack failed in the location. I tried them and they made decent Q, but I thought it was kind of bold to move in directly across the street from Dale's BBQ House.

Oklahoma City is one of the largest cities in square acres in the nation. So there has to be a vacant corner somewhere in the city that's not directly across the street from another established Q-raunt.


So when I saw activity there a few months ago I was hoping maybe we would be getting something new and interesting in the location... Nope... Another Q-raunt but not just any Q-raunt. A franchised Q-raunt. Billy Sims BBQ... excuse me... BOOMER Q!

So this evening my wife asked if there were any Q-raunts on this side of town that I wanted to do some research on. Research being the word I use as an excuse to eat Q before writing my witty commentary about eating BBQ. I mentioned a couple places that I like but she doesn't really like either of them. So I'll be doing research on them at a later date by myself and we ended up at Billy Sims.

Now I have eaten at and actually positively blogged about another Billy Sims location on my old Myspace page. So I'd like to think I'm remaining objective despite the fact I think they could have found another location..

I chose The Option which is a 3 meat with two Supersides and Okie Toast. I chose pulled pork, chopped brisket, bologna, and there was an option to get one rib as a Superside. So I went with that and beans.

I liked that the pulled pork was actually pulled pork and had some bark and fat in it. What I didn't like was whatever they sprinkled on it before they put it on my plate. It was very salty and covered up the taste of the meat. It also caused me to make 3 trips to refill my water cup.

I think the chopped brisket may have come from the point. It was more like shredded brisket than chopped. It had decent flavor and was served nekkid but was just a touch dry. I used it to sample the two sauces available, sweet and hot.

I really couldn't tell the difference between the two sauces. There was definitely no heat in the hot version. I couldn't even detect any black pepper in it. Not saying it wasn't in there. I just couldn't detect it.

The rib was the texture of a poorly cooked pork chop and had almost no flavor. I really had to tear at it to get the meat off the bone. It definitely wasn't worth the $1.99 they would charge to add a rib as an al a carte Superside and there was nothing "Super" about it.

I did like the bologna. See that dark color on it in the picture. That was some tasty bologna. If I ever just had a craving for a smoked bologna sammich. Then I'd drive the couple of blocks down the street and get me some of this bologna.

The beans had some shredded brisket in them but other than that they tasted pretty much like they came straight from a can.

The Okie toast really can't even be described as toast. Mine was just Texas toast with a little butter painted on it. There wasn't really any thing toasty about it. I slapped some bologna on it and made a sammich. Did I mention the bologna was good?

My wife chose chicken and sliced brisket with smoked corn on the cob. The brisket looked dry but I tried a bite and it was actually moist enough that I didn't need help swallowing it. I didn't think it had much flavor though. I ate the second bite with some of the extra mild hot sauce. She offered me some chicken but since she had hardly touched it. I declined.

I did try some of her smoked corn. It had more smoke flavor than anything I had put in my mouth to that point. Only problem was the hickory flavor was overbearing and the corn had taken on a black, almost creosote, looking color. Not really appealing looking or tasting at all.

The place was crowded tonight but it is new to the South side of OKC and for some reason people that don't really understand what good Q is tend to flock to safe looking chain type Q-raunts. That's the only reason that places like Earl's Rib Palace win Best of OKC every year.

I'll be sticking with Dale's BBQ House for my local go to joint unless I need a bologna fix. Dale's doesn't do bologna.

So I hope this didn't all come across to negative. I guess I was about due for some negativity though after all the glowing commentary I've handed out in my other posts.

Oh, and the shoulder rub I mentioned in the title wasn't the salty stuff they sprinkled on my pulled pork. It was their mascot of Billy Sims with a big afro coming up behind me while I was eating and rubbing my shoulders. I think he noticed the KU basketball championship t-shirt I was wearing and decided to go out and play in traffic. After all we did beat the Sooner basketball team for the 1988 National Championship.