Restaurant Review: Buckstop

BUCKSTOP

833 Denman Street ~ buckstop.ca Twitter: @BuckstopDenman ~ Instagram: @buckstopdenman Co-Diner: Tim Golem

Knowing about good BBQ is important (we all know this) and there's a little place in the West End that is doing a half decent job of it. I saw them on season 5 of You Gotta Eat Here! and wanted to give them a try ever since! We stopped in early on a Saturday evening before it got too busy and the place was completely empty so we had our pick at sitting wherever we wanted. The servers were very friendly and kind, more than willing to accommodate the fact that we switched tables about three times! Once we were settled in, I noticed how tiny the restaurant is. It's a very cute little place and you can nestle yourself away in the dimly lit space so that no one else has to witness the food crimes that you're about to commit. The feeling is rustic and wilderness-like (wood, rust coloured walls, antlers all over the place), which is exactly what you want for your BBQ experience! They have a lot of really fun and thematic mixed drinks and I definitely wanted one. I was tossed up between several different ones and our server assured me that the Brown Butter Bourbon Old Fashioned ($11.00) would be the most delicious.

Brown butter infused makers mark, sugar cube, angosturas, orange peel.

Maybe my beverage preferences are too immature, but this was far too much of an adult drink for my taste. It mostly just tasted like a splash of alcohol and wasn't very delicious at all. I'm not sure that the brown butter flavour was apparent enough either. I should have tried The Buckstop's Here instead, most likely. Or just the Saloon Caesar. When it comes to the food menu, I noticed that some things seemed different about the selection compared to what I saw on the TV show. There was no Sheppard's Pie and most sadly of all, there was no Devil's Dream Melt, which is the thing that I was planning to order and wanted to eat the most. This forced us to re-think our food strategy entirely. I liked the sounds of the Buffalo Cauliflower a lot but there was no time for that. We decided to go all-in with the Half Stop Barbecue ($65.00) because this is really what makes the most sense in a BBQ restaurant. You've gotta try all of the things! The server cautioned us that it's really big (it's meant to serve 2-3 people) but we were confident that we're seasoned enough eaters to take on the challenge. The first part of our feast to arrive were the Hush Puppies & Corn Bread.

Served with honey butter.

These arrived fairly quickly and were served fresh and warm. The hush puppies were fried to a golden perfection with a nice bright inside. I liked these a lot but found that they were missing a little something-something. They could've been served with a nice aioli. The corn bread was good, not to cakey and not too crumbly. The honey butter was delicious, the honey flavour really stood out! I loved this butter spread on the corn bread a lot. Not too long later the big show arrived! I always love when a heaping impressive pile of stuff shows up!

Beef back ribs, pork back ribs, brisket, smoked chicken and pulled pork. Includes navy beans with smoked bacon, coleslaw & kennebec fries.

We dug straight in and were excited to get the meat party started! We were delivered bottles of housemade ketchup and BBQ sauce and made good use of both. One of my favourite elements were the beef back ribs, which you don't often see on these types of platters. The meat on these massive Flintstone-esque bones was ultra tender, robust, flavourful and delicious. The preparation was great and the meat melted in my mouth. The pork back ribs were similar (but much smaller) and the meat also fell off the bone, however I found them a bit more dry. They required more BBQ sauce to help them out. Another item that I enjoyed quite a lot was the brisket. I liked the thin slabs of perfectly smoked meat, the flavour coming through quite beautifully. The smoked chicken was decent, I had a drumstick and the meat was very moist. As far as chicken goes, it was a bit more on the average side. The pulled pork was fine. I tend to find a pile of pulled pork just sitting there a bit weird and prefer it in a sandwich. I found the beans a bit boring and lackluster, a little bit too "bare." The coleslaw was creamy and decent. And the kennebec fries were very good! Excellent, even! They were cooked perfectly and salted nicely. The housemade ketchup was wonderful with them. Overall, this feast was a bit hit and miss. It wasn't the best BBQ that I've ever had but it wasn't the worst either. I did think that the quantities of everything served was very good and that the value was pretty decent. In the end, we ate everything except for some of the pulled pork and a couple of pork ribs! We took them home.

We asked to see the dessert menu and were told that there was no dessert. Alright then! If I were to return to Buckstop I would likely just get the Buckstop BBQ Assortment where you pick three meats (beef ribs, smoked brisket, smoked chicken). Or maybe they'll make it possible for me to eat the Devil's Dream Melt, which would be very exciting.