pat's barbecue

For my birthday, I wanted to go out for barbeque. H and I love barbeque - I even have the notes I compiled years ago for a barbeque-centric vacation to the Carolinas where we were going to fly into Charlotte and then hit as many barbeque joints as we possibly could within a 150 mile-radius circle.  We were lucky in Maine because believe it or not, there are several good barbeque places: Norm's in Portland; Buck's Naked BBQ in Freeport; Beale Street BBQ in South Portland and Bath. 

Out here in SLC, the pickings are a little slimmer.  We've been a couple of times to Sugarhouse BBQ, which serves Memphis-style (my favorite, if I can't get North Carolina style pulled pork), but I've never been crazy about it for some reason.  We'd heard that Pat's BBQ was another good option and it has been on our list of places to try since this past summer, when we tried to go on July 24th - and it was closed for the Pioneer Day holiday, despite it being a Saturday.

Pat's Barbecue is located in a fairly sketchy neighborhood at 155 W. Commonwealth Avenue in SLC, in what must have been an old garage. It’s much bigger inside than we expected: a take-out counter with seating, a main dining room where live music plays most every night, and numerous other large dining rooms, furnished with picnic tables. We were seated right away when we said we were there for dinner, not necessarily the band. They put us in one of the large peripheral dining rooms which was pretty empty for a while, but which had nearly filled up with all sorts of people by the time we left: older couples, groups of young people, families with kids and babies.

The menu is pretty basic: pork ribs, sliced beef brisket, pulled pork and BBQ chicken, but you can get any of that in nearly any combination imaginable. Everything comes with corn bread and there are a good number of sides, from cole slaw to mustard greens to Creole beans and rice to “meaty gravy and rice” (which I wish one of us had tried), and more. I had the 3-meat combo ($13.75): two pork ribs, two slices of beef brisket and 4 oz. of pulled pork with a side of mustard greens; H had the brisket and pulled pork combo with red beans and rice ($13.75), but since I gave him one of my ribs, we essentially had the same dinner. Beer was Uinta Cutthroat Pale Ale.

Mmmm - greasy!

I really wish I could say that the food was good, but we really didn’t think it was. Nothing had a very strongly smoked flavor (which I feel is important in barbeque), the ribs were very fatty and the other meats were very, very greasy. The sides were good – my greens were quite tasty and had big chunks of pork stewed in there – and the three house-made (?) sauces were flavorful. Everything is served on disposable wares too – paper plates and plastic cups and utensils, which I find soooo very wasteful.

So the hunt for fabulous barbeque in Utah continues, and based on our experiences thus far, Sugarhouse BBQ has moved into the lead as I don’t think we’ll go back to Pat’s. On the plus side, we’re starting a new tradition of mediocre meals on my birthday: 2 for 2, so far!