43536 Sun Feb 12 09:30:22 -0800 2006 14 1 San Francisco Bay Area 0 213145 Review link below. I really want T-rex to work it out. Michael Bauer's review seems to dislike almost all the food but seems to also leave room to hope they will get it together. I was perplexed by his comments about the BBQ being all smoke, since posts here (including my own) complained about so little smoke flavor. Has anyone been recently? Has the pendulum swung in the other direction? It just seems crazy that he had such different impression of the meat over his 3 visits. Link: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/02/12/CMGODFQ01K1.DTL&feed=rss.food Sun Feb 12 09:30:22 -0800 2006 0 A Amore 1 213147 Hi. If you or anyone else here would like to discuss Michael Bauer's review of T-Rex, (or any of his other reviews) please do so on our Not About Food board, (see link below to take you there). What this local board is for is having hounds talk about what "they" think of T-Rex. Thanks for everyone's cooperation. Link: http://www.chowhound.com/boards/notfood/notfood.html Sun Feb 12 09:48:20 -0800 2006 213145 2 The Chowhound Team 1 213157 No, the pendulum has not started to swing in the other direcection. It continues to spin in circles. Thanks for bringing up the review, I always did want an explanation for the name. I never would have associated a restaurant like T-Rex with the concept of large anything, let alone dinasaur-sized. Except for one item, there has never been a review that I've agreed with every sentence more than that review. And with that one item ... I thought the rabbit rillette salad was a poor idea ... given the fact that every time you walk into T-Rex everything has changed ... I would guess that what Bauer had was different from what I had. I've long stopped reporting on T-Rex, good, bad or mediocre for that reason. What I have on my visit is going to be different when someone else walks in the door. So it is easy for me to see how Bauer could come to different conclusions over three different visits. Looking on other tables at dishes I've previously ordered, they are different from what I tried. That Mac and cheese is ever changing. And I still hold out hope too. Although there is not one thing that has yet risen to super delicious and memorable, here and there a dish shows promise. But this is where my mind is cancelling out my better taste and sense. With everything they put into that restaurant, the fancy equipment and all, I keep expecting they will get it together. Because I like all their other restaurants with the exception of Jimmy Bean, I keep thinking it will rise to those other levels. Not yet. My last visit was little over a week ago. It is not that you will often get a really bad dish at T-Rex, it's just that the food is so underwhelming. Edible, yes. Usually, inoffensive, yes. What you should get at a restaurant of that class. No. Bauer is so on spot with those salads. I keep getting sucked in because ... well, I'm trying to cut the calories ... and they have the same descriptions as the Sea Salt salads. The Sea Salt salad will be soooo good. The same ingrediants in the T-Rex salad, blah ... I do mean BLAH. I usually do go with the beers. All the Lalime's restaurants charge too much for wine. The cocktail list is over-priced, uninteresting and poorly executed. This should be their bread and butter. Charge me a gazillion bucks for a fancy drink, but at least make it good. The two I've had there were as awful as Bauer says. I've had almost every one of Fonda's pricy cocktails and was only disappointed once. Why can't T-Rex do the same? I agree that the desserts are skipable. Again, Sea Salt, great. T-Rex ... little better than TGIF. The one good dessert they had, the ONLY thing I ordered a second time ... the brownie sundae ... they changed from a memorable dessert to something that tastes ugly. The one thing Bauer doesn't mention that bugs me is the lack of bar snacks. I have yet to be there when they had the smoked nuts. There's nothing you can nibble with your beer at the bar. I'd pay to get a dish of those chips. I'm certainly not going to pay big bucks for those underwhelming and stingy wings. If they had a few more snacks, it would bring me in for a beer more often. So T-Rex is calling it "Berkeley BBQ". An insult to the fine city of Berkeley, a city that is anything but bland. BBQ me some produce. Sun Feb 12 12:26:07 -0800 2006 213145 0 rworange 2 213170 Yup. T-Rex is certainly nothing to get excited about. I felt awful after paying $17 for pulled pork that was dry and boring and beans that had absolutely no flavor at all. It's even worse knowing I can go to Chef Edwards and get a delicious Piggly Wiggly for 6 bucks. I care less and less for fancy interiors these days, expecially when the price is reflected more towards ambience than food. A friend was considering throwing a party there and was met with so many stop signs and attidute that they just gave up. It made me angry just listening to it. Fonda on the other hand has really got it down; the food is terrific and so are the drinks, like rworange said. Maybe someday T-Rex will figure it out, but I probably won't be going back to find out. Sun Feb 12 15:03:08 -0800 2006 213157 0 tedm 1 213168 I got some OK ribs to go from T-Rex but as I've said before Perry's Food for the Soul in San Leandro is worth the drive from Berkeley. Sun Feb 12 14:47:05 -0800 2006 213145 0 Robert Lauriston 1 213179 I went to T-Rex a few weeks ago and then followed it up with a visit down the road to Everett & Jones on San Pablo Ave & Univ but procrastinated in writing up my opinions until now. T-Rex. How I really wanted to hate this place even before it opened. Filled with young professionals and natural fiber wearing hill dwellers. This is the only BBQ place I've been to where I did not spot a single Afr-Am patron or worker. But on to the food. It was completely full on a Friday evening so we put our names on the list and headed for the bar. It was a bit smoky because the open kitchen was nearby but not unbearably so. I wasn't too impressed with the draught beer selection but I got a Boont which I would not have ordered with BBQ because its flavor would compete with and mask the flavor of smoked meats. With a couple inches of beer left, a table was ready upstairs. As we were seated, a waiter immediately came up and asked us if we wanted our next round of drinks - observant and good timing. I'll say that the drink service here is good and people can leisurely eat and drink which is usually not the case at most BBQ joints. The air was not smoky upstairs. We ended up ordering a couple orders of ribs, the brisket, and pulled pork. Now onto the main event. The ribs showed a slight smoke ring and had a uniform and unburnt rub crust. Both orders of ribs were very uniform in terms of length and size of ribs. Has Niman Ranch found a supplier of perfectly rectangular hogs? The flap had been trimmed as had the ends and quite possibly part of the rib tip. The meat was of quite good quality without excessive fat in the tips but was cooked til only tender, not melting and lusciously so like the best ribs. The smoke aroma was strong so I believe that any additional cooking would have made the flavor too pungent. My advice is to tone down the smoke on that high-tech cooker and to cook the ribs longer. The other thing I should mention is that there is just a small pool of sauce on the place and the ribs are stacked on top. The brisket was a disappointment. A smoke ring barely under the surface and the meat was not cooked long enough. Still a little tough and chewy. The pulled pork was okay but the sauce was tomato based and not quite right. The sides were generous but not exciting. Collards weren't cooked to mush, which is okay for me, not good for others, and I didn't detect much of a meaty or spicy accent, which again is okay for me because I can enjoy simple vegetables, but others will find it plain. Potato salad was bland, but serves as a foil to the meat and that whisper of sauce. A week later I stopped by Everett & Jones for some ribs with T-Rex still in mind. There were maybe five people ahead in line and in E&J time that usually means a half an hour wait. I got my food to go in only 15 minutes but still smelled like smoke. Prices are cheaper than T-Rex (<$10/$25 for a rib dinner/ full rack vs $16/$32) but the only side at E&J is their usual sad mashed potato salad and slices of supermarket bread. And the meat? Simply awful. Dried out and leathery at the ends and on the flap, lots of fat in the tips. My guess is that they but cheap bulk frozen ribs. And when I think back to the other times I've been here, it's been about the same, sometimes a little better. It depends on the time of day and how much business they've had. Heavy smoke flavor and the dousing sauce is needed to moisten much of the meat. So score one for T-Rex. In the future, if I'm willing to travel for BBQ, then I'll skip both. But for something close to home, I might not veto T-Rex. Doug's has never impressed me and Chef Edwards is moving. Has anyone been to KC's recently? I've heard that Bobby's Backdoor has had some problems. So I guess next on the list to check out is Perry's. Sun Feb 12 17:54:16 -0800 2006 213145 0 tongzhi 2 213185 Hello,comrade, thank you for confirming my impressions of both places, I concur 100%. KC and Perry's are both "next to try" for me too, so please let us know if you go, as taste in Q varies to an extreme. What do you think of Memphis Minnie's? cheers Sun Feb 12 19:04:39 -0800 2006 213179 0 moto 3 213274 I'm sure this all has been discussed and hashed over in other posts, but add Bo's BBQ in Lafayette (mentioned in Bauer's review) to your list if you haven't tried it. GREAT stuff. Mon Feb 13 11:54:14 -0800 2006 213185 0 NW 3 213353 Memphis Minnie's is good but rarely worth the trek over from Berkeley and the ensuing battle for parking unless I'm meeting friends who live nearby. The wait at Bo's can be a bear and there's something about the other side of the tunnel that doesn't go over well with me. Mon Feb 13 17:44:47 -0800 2006 213185 0 tongzhi 2 213327 When we did our BBQ tasting a few years back we had BBQ from both the E&J branch in Jack London Square and the one on San Pablo at University. There was a noticable difference in quality between the two, with the San Pablo Q being inferior. I think that branch just isn't very good. That said, I'm not a big E&J fan. I'm still in mourning for the passing of Flint's. When it reopens, I'll probably make Chef Edwards -- which is great if you stick to a few items -- my regular BBQ stop. Mon Feb 13 15:42:53 -0800 2006 213179 0 Ruth Lafler 2 213345 Bobby's Backdoor disappeared a few years ago, didn't they? I was never a huge fan of their ribs, though their gumbo and jambalaya were good. You've got to try Perry's Food for the Soul. Mon Feb 13 17:04:27 -0800 2006 213179 0 Robert Lauriston 3 213347 yep. All that is left of Bobby's is the signs. Mon Feb 13 17:07:23 -0800 2006 213345 0 rworange 3 213351 I went to Bobby's when it was in the back of a bar in Richmond and never made it to their Hilltop location. But I recall hearing a year or two ago that they had moved again but changed their name and that the new owners of the Hilltop spot kept the Bobby's name. Confusing but I'm not sure if it's true. Mon Feb 13 17:38:58 -0800 2006 213345 0 tongzhi 2 1772780 I didn't start going to T Rex until recently, so I really have no idea what it was like until the last couple of months. Maybe some of the not so hot comments helped keep me away, but I finally went in and have come back several times since. The first time I went in I wondered if my experience was benefitting from low expectations,- as I really enjoyed the ribs in spite of the reviews I'd read. But I enjoyed them just as much the second time when I had high expectations, the quality of the meat is superb and unlike some comments here suggested, they were smoky enough for me without being too smoky which evidently they were for Michael Bauer. The comments here and Bauer's review were a long time ago, so I've concluded that T-Rex since then has balanced out and become consistent with the ribs in a way that works great for me. I really like being at the restaurant- I always choose to eat upstairs, I like the openness of it, and I almost always have drinks which I certainly find to be much better than Bauer's review suggested. Again, I've been going much more recently than when he wrote the review. I've been with a variety of different friends, and each person I've been there with has had a good time- the ribs have been the consensus favorite of the dishes with a slight preference going for the Baby Back. If my wife would come sometime I might have a more complete review, as every other restaurant I go to has the main context being our meals out together, but BBQ isn't her thing and so T-Rex has become for me a place to meet up with friends on nights we're apart. And for that it is perfect, because I get to indulge in a food I like a lot but rarely get to go to a restaurant that specializes in, and T-Rex is a very nice place to hang out, have a few drinks, and catch up with a friend in. As for price, I realize everyone has their own metrics and comparisons, and mine are not how much T-Rex costs relative to other BBQ places, but rather how much it costs to dine at T-Rex versus the other restaurants I go to on similar occasions. I find I actually spend less when I meet a friend here than when we end up somewhere else we are likely to choose, and we have a great time- so by my own highly personal standards given the settings, the bar, and the food, it always seems like a good deal. Fri Jul 28 07:45:53 -0700 2006 213179 22010 Alan Campbell 1 1773033 Here are some more recent topics on T-Rex: http://www.chowhound.com/topics/show/46071 http://www.chowhound.com/topics/show/46231 http://www.chowhound.com/topics/show/46358 Perry's has closed. Fri Jul 28 14:08:18 -0700 2006 213145 11369 Robert Lauriston