Rib Ranch Bar-B-Que

"Food for thought is no substitute for the real thing."

--Walt Kelly

RIB RANCH BAR-B-QUE

 

4923 Topanga Canyon Boulevard

Woodland Hills, CA 91364

818-884-7776

11:00 AM to 9 PM Monday through Saturday

11:00 AM to 8 PM Sunday

http://www.bbqribranch.com/

 It was a dark and stormy night.  We found that our intended dining spot, a regional chain barbecue restaurant, had people waiting to get in despite the rain.  Although this should be a good sign about the que we did not feel like standing outside in the rain for forty-five minutes so we went on to find other barbecue.  This was a real safari.  We drove on through the damp night, with no computer or smart phone to search the internet for likely spots, peering into every strip mall and block of businesses they passed looking for a telltale sign of barbecue.  It was fun and we both smiled inwardly knowing that, at last, we would have a legitimate reason to write something with that first sentence.

We were headed down Topanga Boulevard when I remembered that a friend told us that she used to go to a neighborhood barbecue place a short distance below “The Boulevard” (Ventura Boulevard for those of you who don’t know the Valley.) when she lived in the area as a teenager.  The decision was made to see if it was still there.  Fortunately, we both have the directional patience born of sports car rallying experience since the short distance turned out to be the second signal below “The Boulevard” where a neighborhood business area blossoms out of a residential area.  There we found the Rib Ranch Bar-B-Que.

It is a low building that appears as though it might have been a house and a garage at some time in the distant past.  Behind the low wall that surrounds the property is a dining patio, unused on this rainy night.  A walk, between the building and the patio, leads to the front entrance.  There you find a takeout window, in front of the kitchen, with a small seating area made up of site built, tongue and groove board booths.  You could, I suppose eat here, but continuing down the walk you come to a white door that leads to an inside dining room.  The room is rather pleasant, larger than it looks and is outfitted with wooden chairs and tables and a fireplace not in use this cold and rainy night. It is done in what could be called ranch house restaurant style from the ‘60s and ‘70s with bits of cowboy memorabilia and harness tack hanging from the walls.

We entered at the front, but when the girl at the takeout window found we wanted to eat there she handed us a couple of menus and directed us to the dining room.  There were several other parties in the room and we selected a table for two (or three with one of the extra chairs available) that was in the corner of the room under the big screen TV that was, as expected, tuned to a sports channel. Sitting under a television in a restaurant gave me the odd feeling that everyone in the room was looking at me, but since we were there for the que I just sucked it up.

To get our usual sampling of the que we chose Rib Ranch Two-Step combo platters.  According to the menu Step 1 is to choose a meat from Eastern Baby Back Pork Ribs, Black Angus Beef Ribs, Chicken, Tri-Tip, or Hot Links.  Step 2 is to choose another different meat to go with your first.  Actually, it’s three steps since you still have to choose your two sides.  The menu is a bit more limited than some other barbecue places since there is no pulled pork, and the sides do not include mac and cheese or greens.  There is also a limited selection of beers and wine.  Sharon chose Eastern Baby Back Ribs and Chicken with Steak Fries and BBQ Baked Beans.  I chose Black Angus Beef Ribs and Tri-Tip with Creamy Coleslaw and Potato Salad.  I also ordered an a la carte Louisiana Hot Link.  We also decided to try some desserts.  Sharon had the Apple Cobbler and I had a slice of Pecan Pie.

Our cheerful server, with a Rib Ranch Crew T-shirt, came to take our drink and food orders.  After the orders were taken she put little basket with a couple of warm corn muffins and a couple of butter patties on the table.  The food arrived on paper plates with plastic flatware.  The quantity was generous but Sharon could not see the chicken since the ribs were piled on top of them.  On my plate, the Ribs were obscured by the Tri-Tip piled on top of them.  Sharon admits to being a bit of a tableware snob and has a tough time dealing with barbecue that is served on paper plates in an indoor dining room.  As far as the flatware is concerned, if you don’t eat it with your fingers meat deserves metal.

Corn Muffins

The corn muffins were warm and the butter patties were ice cold.  Since these were freshly made, from a mix, corn muffins that don’t have the density to stand up to butter, the combination didn’t quite work. The muffins, even though basic and from a mix (They taste like they were made from a mix I have used myself.) they were flavorful and would have made a good appetizer if the butter had been softer.

Steak Fries

How do you mess up fries?  Don’t cook them enough.   The first one Sharon bit into was practically raw.  The whole bunch was underdone.  They were not the hot and crispy fries one hopes for in a barbeque restaurant.  We pointed this out to the server later and she made one of our desserts free.

Creamy Coleslaw

For a simple cabbage and carrot slaw with a creamy dressing it was quite pleasant.  No reach here but tasty and certainly better than the slaw at most family picnics.

BBQ Baked Beans

Another solid miss, the beans were cold and mealy tasting.  This was another reason for a free dessert. They were sweet with a distinct tomato/brown sugar flavor but even if they had been properly hot they would have been a bit bland.

Potato Salad

This was a simple, competent potato salad.  It definitely seems made in house, with decent sized potato chunks, a little onion for tang, possibly some celery for crunch, a creamy dressing, and a dusting of cayenne.  This is not exceptional, but better than most.

Louisiana Hot Link

Commercial hot links can sometimes be a hit or miss proposition.  This one was not a solid miss but off the mark.  It was a Farmer John brand link that was split and cooked on a charring grill.  The link was not mealy, and definitely not a tonsil scorcher…not even an after bite, but has an odd combination of spices that Sharon found acceptable but seemed to me to have an odd soapy aftertaste.  This wasn’t a great one.

Eastern Baby Back Pork Ribs

The pork ribs were reasonably meaty and had a smoky taste but were actually a bit stringy.  This is something you don’t expect from pork ribs.  The smoke flavor was from the Mesquite charcoal that they use here.  Mesquite is not one of my favorite smoke flavors and charcoal leaves, in my opinion, a somewhat over smoked taste.  The ribs, apparently, had sauce on them when they were cooked, but did not have too much sauce on them so avoided the burned on sauce effect you sometimes find when they are cooked that way.  By the way, the sauce here is quite good.

Tri-Tip

The slices had grill marks on the side, but did have a smoky flavor.  It seems that they were smoked and then finished on a char grill.  It was a little chewy but had good flavor even if you don’t like Mesquite.  I could have had a plate of this or a Tri-Tip Sandwich and been quite satisfied.

Chicken

Probably because it was raining and the smoker is outside in the back the chicken seemed to have been baked in the kitchen oven and finished on the char grill.  It was done through but a bit dry. 

Black Angus Beef Ribs

These were done the same way as the pork ribs.  While meaty, they were a bit stringy.  The beef flavor stands up to the Mesquite smoke better than the pork and the beef ribs were more flavorful. 

Apple Cobbler

A single serving cobbler served in the aluminum baking tin it was baked in it was not too sweet.  The handmade crust was not short enough, and was not baked before it was filled, which made it a little tough on the sides and soggy on the bottom.  The crumbles on top were a bit too intensely cinnamon flavored which overwhelmed the delicate apple filling a bit.  With a little more work and this one could be outstanding.

Pecan Pie

Many years ago I had a pecan pie at Christy’s in Austin, Texas that defined pecan pie for me.  This wasn’t close, but few pecan pies are, and as pies go it wasn’t bad.  It was an in-house made filling in a commercial, machine made crust.  There’s nothing wrong with a good machine made crust.  We use them at home all the time.  The filling was not overly sweet or sticky.  It was a competent Pecan Pie.

When we write a post about a barbecue restaurant we have visited it is what it is.  We tell you what our experience was on that particular day, how the food tasted to us, how the ambiance felt, and how we were served.  Admittedly, someone can have a bad day, especially in the restaurant business.  Both of us have worked in food service and know just how than can go.  You are working with materials of variable quality from day to day.  Restaurant kitchens are literally very hot places, both in terms of the speed required, the tensions created, and the personalities involved.  You would expect a barbeque place to be more laid back, but that’s not the nature of the business.  I’ve been in restaurants where the chef quit in the middle of the dinner hour…where we waited for our check because no one in the back room told us that our server had been injured in the kitchen and been taken to the hospital… and worse.  If you think things get hectic in your family kitchen on Thanksgiving Day you’ve never worked in food service.  So if we seem a bit critical in our opinions it’s because we’ve been there. 

Knowing this we don’t want to seem to be overly negative about a place that has been a neighborhood fixture for 40 some odd years.  But, the fact is we left the Rib Ranch Bar-B-Que feeling unsatisfied.  The staff was cheerful and efficient, but the food, on that night was not what it could have been.  Based on that experience we give it a 6.5.  To their credit, our server knew we were unsatisfied and asked us to come back and give them another chance.  We probably will.