Rodney's Ribs

“There is no sincerer love than the love of food”

--- George Bernard Shaw

RODNEY’S RIBS

(No fixed address, this is a trailer, it moves.)

626.818.RIBS   (626.818.7427)

(Website domain name expired and waiting renewal)

rodneysribs.com

@RODNEYSRIBS     (Twitter account works)

Sharon and I had a good laugh the first time we saw the Rodney’s Ribs trailer.  It was parked on Lake Street in Pasadena...In front of a weight loss clinic!  We though it hilariously funny, cruel, but funny.

The Los Angeles area is the home of the taco trailer and the barbeque food truck.  Rodney’s bucks the trend being a barbeque trailer.  The trailers tend to be at a certain location on given days while the trucks go all over, to the extent that you have to follow them on Twitter to find out where they are on any given day.  The trucks are usually at one location for lunch and another for dinner.  Rodney’s moves around too, and has a Twitter account, but they seem to stay longer at a location than the trucks.  We have consistently found Rodney’s Ribs on weekends at the northwest corner of Lake and Mountain, just to the west on Mountain, in front of the O’Reilly Auto Parts store.  Since Rodney’s is strictly take-out, the O’Reilly store has been cooperative about Rodney’s Ribs customers parking in their lot.

We always say that you should get barbeque from someone that specializes in barbeque.  Rodney’s Ribs is about as specialized as they can get.  The only meats they do are Pork Spare Ribs, Rib Tips and Beef Brisket.  There are five meals on the post card sized menu, Rodney’s Dinner, 4 to 5 ribs (depending on cut), two sides and bread, Rodney’s Special, 2 to 3 ribs, one side and bread, Bobby’s Brisket, a brisket sandwich, Bobby’s Brisket Plate, about a pound of brisket, one side and bread, and Tuttie’s Tips, about a pound of rib tips, one side and bread.  You can also order a full rack of ribs to go.  Pricing seems to be about the going rate for decent barbeque at most places.

There are only three side dishes, Baked Beans, Green Beans, and Potato Salad.  The sides can also be ordered separately.  The choice of beverages is six soft drinks and water.  At Rodney’s they certainly know how to keep it simple.

Sharon and I didn’t have to work too hard to get a good sampling of the que.  We ordered a Rodney’s Special and a Bobby’s Brisket Plate.  The sides were Baked Beans and Potato Salad. Our orders were ready in what seemed to be no time at all.  The food was in typical fast food foam, compartmented containers (only black, not white) and came with a packet of plastic utensils, and napkins.  We found that the servings were traditional Southern style with a big slice of white bread.

Beef Brisket

I’ll bet that when they took this brisket out of the smoker and put it on the cutting board it quivered.  The meat was fork tender, had a good smoky flavor and was about as good a brisket gets.  This serving had just a bit more fat than I would have considered perfect but that didn’t hurt.  My only complaint was that it came with the sauce on it already.  To be fair, I didn’t ask for sauce on the side, and this sauce is also about as good as barbeque sauce gets, not too sweet, and not too hot.  You might say it’s the Goldilocks of barbeque sauces.

Pork Spare Ribs

Since the ribs are their namesake they better be good.  They do not disappoint, they are great!  The ribs are meaty and pork flavor comes through the smoke and stands up to the sauce.  Prepared by Rodney they are fall-off-the-bone tender (Seriously, I was able to shake the meat off one bone!) They may have had a slight bit more fat than I would have liked, but again, this didn’t hurt at all.  They have the right to use these ribs as their namesake.

Baked Beans

They are what I would call main dish baked beans but they are a good sided dish, not too sweet and with a barely detectable bite to the sauce.  There are noticeable slices of green onion in the beans, which was a problem for Sharon since she is allergic to onions.

Potato Salad

While it was overly creamy, to my taste, this potato salad has potential.  It has all the right things, potatoes, pickles, celery, peppers, onions, and apparently, hint of mustard in the mayo, however, it comes out tasting bland.  Although I found it bland and not chunky enough, a couple of shakes of Slap Ya Mama Cajun Seasoning and it was more than acceptable.  In my humble opinion, if it were drier and had a bit more ‘pop’ it would be very good.

OK, so it’s a food trailer.  You have to walk up to the window to order and take your food somewhere else to eat it, so it does not get high marks for ambiance.  We would say the que is a nine plus.  The sides are average and since it is not a restaurant destination, we would give it an overall rating of eight plus.  To review them we made a round trip drive of 34 miles to get the food and take it home.  It was worth it.

Red's Barbecue & Grillery

“If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.”

--- Abraham Lincoln

 

 

RED’S BARBECUE & GRILLERY

3090 Cochran Street

Simi Valley, CA  93065

(805) 581-9076

11:00 AM to 9:00 PM                      Sunday through Thursday

11:00 AM to 10:00 PM                    Friday and Saturday

http://www.redsbarbecue.net/

 

It’s been a long time since our last post.  Well, as they say, “Life happens.”  Unfortunately, barbeque doesn’t always happen.  Between personal and business issues we just haven’t had the time, or the energy to search out good que. 

Our six-year-old grandson was having an afternoon baseball game and, of course we went.  Afterwards, we were trying to decide where we would all have dinner and his father suggested Red’s Barbecue & Grillery.  We agreed immediately since it would give us a chance to have some que and get material for a new post.

Red’s is located in the approximate center of the Simi Valley in a shopping center.  It’s a bit larger than most barbeque places.  The décor is high end coffee shop with nice touches such as real cloth napkins, and barbecue sauce on the tables in large syrup dispensers.  We were there at the beginning of the dinner hour but were seated promptly.  The servers were most attentive and very quick.  A plate of Rolls was put on the table as our drink order was taken. 

The dinner menu occupies both sides of a plastic laminated sheet.  The menu has more than just barbecue, with appetizers, salads, soups, sandwiches, giant baked potatoes, and three pasta dishes.  The meat available is Baby Back Ribs, Beef Ribs, Half Barbecued Chicken, and Boneless Barbecued Chicken Breast.  They also have Tri-tip, Rib-eye Steak, Salmon, and Sword Fish.  Interestingly enough, they have a Barbecued Pork Sandwich in their sandwich menu, but do not offer the pork on the barbecue menu.  Two, three, and four meat combinations are available including soup or a salad and a choice of two sides or a giant baked potato.  Sharon and I decided to get a sampling by ordering two combos, hers with Baby Back Ribs and Boneless Chicken Breast, and mine with Tri-tip and Beef Ribs.  Her sides were Mac and Chees and Baked Beans.  Mine were Coleslaw and Sweet Potato Fries.  She had a Green Salad with blue cheese dressing and I had the Chicken Tortilla Soup.

Rolls

The first plate of these must have come from the bottom of the bag since they were decidedly squashed.  The server promptly brought us another plate without being asked.  These were not squashed, and were brushed with garlic butter and dusted with grated Parmesan cheese and parsley.  Although slightly doughy and chewy were quite pleasant.  I said that the first ones came from the bottom of the bag since we believe these to be commercially made rolls that we have had at other places.

Green Salad

Everything in the salad was fresh and crisp.  It consisted of lettuce, chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, shaved carrots, and had croutons and grated Parmesan cheese on it.  The dressing was only suggested.  Sharon asked for some more dressing and it was supplied immediately, however it was a bit watery, not the thick, creamy blue cheese dressing we are used to and seemed a bit bitter.

Chicken Tortilla Soup

Now this is an odd thing to order in a barbeque place, and I normally would not have even mentioned it, but tortilla soup is one of the ways I judge Mexican restaurants, and I wanted to see how they did it here.  It was certainly edible, if not up to the standards of a good Mexican restaurant.  It was somewhat thickened and had some small chunks of chicken in it, a few vegetables, tortilla strips and a sizable chunk of avocado.  The puzzling thing was that it seemed to be a mix of two commercial soups with the vegetables, tortilla strips and avocado added and not a made from scratch tortilla soup.  This is workable, but the kind of thing that is typically done by coffee shops.  It didn’t bother me at the time since this isn’t a Mexican restaurant.

Baby Back Ribs

They came with covered with a sauce that did not seem to be the sauce on the table.  Sharon found it to be a bit too peppery, giving her a little mouth burn.  What bothered me was that they had grill marks on them which indicated a certain style of preparation.  They had no visible smoke ring, were not particularly meaty, seemed a bit dry, and were not all that flavorful.

Beef Ribs

These had grill marks on them too.  Again, they were large, but not especially meaty and while not dry, and relatively tender for beef ribs, were not that flavorful and had not a hint of smoke.   

Tri-tip

The tri-tip was tender and not sliced too thinly.  It had no smoke ring but had grill marks which definitely told me how it was prepared.  It, like all the other ‘barbeque’ we were served, had been slow cooked, overnight, in an Alto-Shaam oven and when ordered warmed up again on a mesquite fired grill.  In the case of the tri-tip, it produced a tender and pleasantly flavorful piece of meat, but it was not barbeque.

Boneless Barbecued Chicken Breast

The chicken was the same as the tri-tip.  It was tender and quite pleasant, but not barbecue.  Much to Sharon’s relief the sauce on the chicken was not as peppery as the one on the back ribs.

Coleslaw

This was a conventional two cabbage and carrot coleslaw with a creamy dressing.  Well, it wasn’t that creamy being a bit on the watery side and it was just a bit bitter.  The slaw was not too wet, however my opinion of it was that it was a somewhat substandard coffee shop coleslaw.

Baked Beans

The beans were a very conventional preparation, not too sweet, but better than the usual canned beans.  They were not unpleasant, but not particularly remarkable.

Mac and Cheese

Sharon called this an abomination.  The pasta was not al dente but barely cooked.  There was no suggestion of creaminess to the sauce and in fact it was so dry that the sauce didn’t even stick the pasta together.  At least there was some cheese used in its preparation.  Probably the worst mac and cheese we have experienced since starting this blog.

Sweet Potato Fries

Now here is something exceptional.  The sweet potato fries were probably the best thing on the plate.  They were thoroughly cooked, but still retained their sweetness and were not too oily as is often the case with sweet potato fries.  We really liked these.

Anyone who approaches commercial barbeque from the restaurant management tradition rather than the barbeque tradition would call me a barbeque snob.  I’ve had a restaurant owner tell me that having a smoker for the meat is just a waste of time and effort because when meat is slow cooked in an Alto-Shaam overnight, then finished off on a wood fired grill and covered with barbecue sauce people can’t tell the difference. Want to bet?  Done that way the meat can be very tender and flavorful, like the tri-tip and chicken here, but without the long, slow wood smoking it just isn’t barbeque.  Red’s has been here since 1992, so obviously people like it as is, but I would say that the Grillery part of the name is far more accurate than Barbecue.  As a high end coffee shop with a barbeque oriented menu it scores well, but as a barbeque place we would rate it about a 4.