Good Eatin’ From Stubb’s

Recently, Stubb’s, the “legendary” smoked BBQ place in Austin, TX, sent me a chopped beef brisket and some of their bar-b-q sauce to try out.

The 3lb brisket was listed as feeding 16 folks, each with a 3oz portion. Instead, I fed five people using portion sized based on what normal people would actually eat, and had a little left over for lunch today. I’d tell you the caloric intake on that and all that other jazz, but I couldn’t bring myself to read it knowing that we each ate about 3 servings. We all tried out the two sauces they sent and the chopped brisket and were pretty unanimous about how we felt about all of it.

To be honest — and without honesty what is the point of a review? — we weren’t too pleased with the brisket. It had a nice deep smoky taste (and the press release we got definitely noted that this was smoked bbq) and the sauce was good, but it just wasn’t great.

None of us was particularly blown away by it. In fairness we have relatively high expectations, as we all live in New York City and have access to a variety of great restaurants (and there is no shortage of great bbq places and really good bbq places). We were prepared to be blown away by Stubb’s. Instead, it was more like food from a restaurant we probably would pass on eating at again.

I am sure if we were seated at a table in Austin, getting fresh food straight from the kitchen we might have been blown away by it, but we weren’t and we are talking about their internet order service here. One person noted that if he was hungry and knew that he could get this delivered to his door to satiate that hunger he might order from them again, but to order an entire brisket and wait a day or two for it wasn’t going to be in his future plans.

All orders also get a free CD of music to set the atmosphere, and Stubb’s throws in some Bar-B-Q Sauce. The CD was only six tracks long and none of us could really get into the first song. The other five tracks started to just blend into the background and made fine background music for the start of our meal. The Bar-B-Q Sauce on the other hand was by far the best part of the meal. If this is the stuff that Stubb’s in Austin is slathering on all their food, it’s got to be good.

We tried both the mesquite and the original sweet varieties and they were both fantastic sauces with great, unique tastes, these are what would make ordering from Stubb’s all worth while. They were really great Bar-B-Q Sauces. Drowning the meat probably would have made it taste a bit better.

In their press materials (which consisted of a single page, front and back) Stubb’s talked about their founder’s desire to bring good BBQ to everyone and how they were still working on it. Well, I’ve got to say, a bit of work is still needed. However, if you are living someplace where there is no good BBQ around (I don’t know, let’s say Vermont Minnesota. They don’t have a ton of BBQ places, right?), well, this is a totally viable option. On the other hand, if you are living anyplace that has a decent BBQ joint, well, you might want to pass on Stubb’s meats and just hit them up for that BBQ sauce.