Rockin Weekend, Knockin BBQ

Well friends, we had a ROCKIN weekend thanks to the hospitality of my brother and sister in law down in hotter than h*ll St. George, Utah. The median temperature was 100 degrees with the highs around 115, so when I say that we were a hot mess, I'm not kidding. We ventured down to St. George just to get away from it all, but we had also heard some promising rumors about a barbecue place called Troy's. I checked out the menu online and got pretty stoked to go check it out.

It seemed promising--about as drive-by dive as you can get--and smelled amazing. Our food looked fantastic....
...but it kind of went downhill from there. I got the pulled pork, with baked beans and salad. My salad was buried under an enormous pile of bacon and cheese, but i did manage to wrangle a few little green pieces after some excavation.

The sauces were standard: Liquid Gold (Carolina Mustard), Sweet n Tangy, Spicy Vinegar and House. It's hard to mess up BBQ sauce, so those all got a pass, but the meat was not to my liking at all. You can see that it looks pretty decent....
...but up close, it was very fatty and greasy.
I ended up eating less than half after picking through it. My dining companions tried the ribs and beef brisket, and had similar complaints. They also thought most of the sides they tried were fairly bland, especially the potato salad. My baked beans weren't too bad, but definitely benefited from an extra generous squirt of some sassy sauce. I think the one part everyone agreed was worthwhile taste-wise were the corn muffins. They were sweet and moist, if a tad oily for my palette. But heck, I was so hungry after my sad little nibbles of pork that I ate it anyway. I know, I know, what can you expect when you dine at a greasy-spoon besides GREASE? ;) So, sorry Troy, not quite my style.

Even though the 'que was a little blah, the rest of the weekend was awesome, so here are some picks to cheer you up after the disappointing meal. We went hiking through Zion National Park--so pretty! Here's my hot mess self and my hubby.

What are we doing in the river, you ask? Well, there's actually a killer hike called The Narrows where you typically walk through a little drizzly stream for a few miles. Evidently the run-off is a tad high this year. We actually waded knee-deep before realizing that we were about to go swimming if we trecked any farther, so we turned around and hiked this instead.

The Emerald Pools
Don't worry, I didn't try to eat THAT...(hmmm...maybe roasted, with some ketchup??)

Sugar House BBQ

As I've mentioned before, there is nothing my husband and I love to eat more than barbecue. Since yesterday was the 4th of July, it seemed like no better occasion to dine on true American cuisine. My parents were in town for a few hours and to celebrate, we headed to our FAVORITE BBQ joint of all time, Sugar House BBQ. Of all the places we've tried, this one is still the no-contest, hands-down winner.

One thing I love about Sugar House BBQ is that all of their meat comes sans sauce so you can add as much or as little or as many combos as you want. Obviously, I make my own mess of sauce, but they have several to choose from: Original (so good!), Southern Vinegar, Louisiana Hot, and Carolina Mustard (the best!).
I have never had a bad meal there, but my top pick is their pulled pork. I got a platter with that, some steamed veggies, and a new menu item: Buffalo Chicken.
The pulled pork was phenom as always, and I really liked the Buffalo Chicken, too, even though it was slightly more oily and a tad greasier than I usually prefer to eat things. I thought it had just the right kick of cayenne, but my mom's eyes popped out of her head a little when she tried it, so beware if your taste buds are particularly sensitive (also beware that they only serve the Buffalo Chicken on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so don't get your hopes up if you come another day).

Hubs got the ribs as usual which are oh so delicious and not at all fatty which is quite an anomaly. Another great thing about this restaurant is that they have tons of sides to choose from. I always get the steamed veggies, and you can see on Dustin's plate, he got mashed potatoes and stuffing, but they also have roasted potatoes, cucumber salad, coleslaw, baked beans, collard greens, potato salad and each entree comes with cornbread too. I'm not a fan of cornbread in general, but my sister loves it and always leaves with a stack of little bread from me and D.

I definitely recommend this place in the event that you ever decide to embark on you own 'Que Adventures. It was the perfect way to celebrate the US of A, and even better that I have some perfectly patriotic leftovers for lata. :)

Rib City Grill

As previously mentioned, the one of the three things preventing me from becoming a hard-core raw food vegan is that I LOOOOOOOVE barbeque (the other two things are that I am a cheapskate and I'm afraid of large doses of fat, even if it's healthy--I mean those peeps live off of avocados and nuts for Pete's sake!).

I think when my husband and I retire, we would like to go on a barbeque tour of the U.S. How rad would that be? We could start in Texas somewhere and then head through Memphis and Kansas City and everywhere else in the country with a hole-in-the wall BBQ joint. We could totally die happy then!

Anyway, we've decided to start our 'Que Adventures now, and we grub at new BBQ places every chance we get. A few weekends ago, we headed to the Rib City Grill to try it out. We ordered the sampler which was enormous. It came with pork, beef brisket, a rack of ribs, half a chicken, two potato choices, baked beans, garlic toast and I got a side salad ( I have to pretend like it's healthy!).

The meat was all very moist, which is good for most people--I like mine a little drier. Hubs liked the ribs enough to polish off the whole rack. I tried a bite, but they were too fatty for me. The Pork and beef were both just ok, but the chicken was way good. I actually thought the baked beans were the best part. Good blend of sweet, tangy and salty. I think I ate all of mine and a spoon of Dustin's ( I wanted more but I was just too stuffed.) The garlic toast was rockin', too. It was nothing out of the ordinary, but it was made from nice thick slices of Texas toast and slathered with just the right amount of butter. I usually stay away from bread at restaurants in anticipation of better things to come, but the crust on this was just calling my name.

They had 3 BBQ sauces: Signature, Mustard and Sweet. They busted out the Secret Extra Hot from the back in the kitchen for us,too. That one was the best, and I loved it mixed with the Sweet (yeah, I like to make my own--that's Experimentarian style, baby).

We were totally ravenous when we sat down to eat, so I forgot to take pics until we'd already started, so I promise I'll do better next time. Overall, the food was about average on the BBQ scale, defintitley better than some we've tried, but not as good as our most favorite Sugarhouse BBQ. Seriously, we ahve not yet had anything champion that place. We had a ton of food leftover, and I was way stoked for leftovers, but we left our box at the restaurant. Boo! Oh well--I guess another trip to somewhere BBQ will have to be in the near future!