Super dry ribs at Blue Smoke Bar-B-Que

This place was suggested by a friend, V – actually it was the first time we met but we have spoken quite a fair bit via twitter, email and msn. She organized a get together with the girls, R, J (ok J is not a girl! But he is like one of the girls… sorry J!) and I at this new Blue smoke Bar-B-Que. I didn’t know much about this place, except that they have ribs – I was a little skeptical about eating ribs in Hong Kong – I have not found a great place and was dying for some good ribs. Sadly to say, those cravings were not satisfied and Hurricanes in Sydney is still the best place for ribs! (read review here).

R, J and I got there a little early and we were famished, well I certainly was! Both R and J, stopped by Mark and Spencer to get a pre-dinner snack – DONUTS! I was saving room for what I thought was going to be a delicious, mouth watering meal of tender and juicy ribs! Little did I know how disappointed I was going to be!

We arrived at the venue, and you can see an open kitchen where the traditional ‘slow and low’ smokehouse cuisine is made. The menu is extensive ranging from Australian lamb ribs, Memphis-style ribs to whole suckling pigs. In addition to that, they have turkeys, smoked chicken, fish and burgers. There are also a range of side dishes including coleslaw, corn bread, mac ‘n’ cheese, chicken wings, fries and many more. If you are a vegetarian, I would not recommend this place as the choices are very limited.

Whilst we were waiting for V, we ordered the fries with cheese and bacon. Within minutes, and I mean no more than 2 mins, the fries with cheese and bacon arrived. We were all a little surprised – was this pre-made? I was again a little skeptical, however, to my surprise, the fries were hot and crunchy! The cheese and bacon were a great compliment, it was absolutely sinful and artery clogging but delicious!

Once V arrived, we proceeded in ordering our meal and various side dishes! The chicken wings came first, it wasn’t deep fried but barbequed and had a smokey flavour. It was rather ordinary I thought, nothing special.

Then came the creamy mash potatoes. Again this was ordinary, it’s not hard to make creamy mash potatoes. I think it would have been better if it had truffle oil infused, alas, no.

Corn bread – now this was dry and tasteless. Even the butter could not save the corn bread.

Crispy mac ‘n’ Cheese – V is in search for the best mac ‘n’ cheese in Hong Kong. This was not what I expected. The mac ‘n’ cheese turned out to be these croquettes like filled with macaroni and cheese and then baked. I thought it was dry and really unappetizing. It was such a disappointment!

Finally the ribs – the signature dish – full rack bar-b-que USA baby pork ribs.  According to the menu, they use Hickory wood derived coal to smoke, slow cook and roast the meet all at once for hours until tender. Um… tender? It was quite the opposite actually. J, being the gentleman that he is, thought he would cut the ribs into pieces so that we could eat it. To cut the ribs was a process in itself! We all looked at J thinking maybe he didn’t have enough energy, maybe he wasn’t strong enough, maybe the knife wasn’t sharp enough. However, he wasn’t cutting a log or a tree, it was RIBS! ‘Tender’ ribs they claimed… far from it. When J finally cut the rib into pieces, I had ago at it, it was TOUGH! The pork meat itself was not tender, it was dry, chewy and jerky like. There were more bones than meat! It wasn’t what I expected and it definitely wasn’t great! It was such a disappointment.

R indicated to the waiter how hard the ribs were, and his response was ‘it’s supposed to be dry’ – does dry mean chewy and jerky like? I was a little unimpressed with the response and the ribs itself.

The Australian Lamb ribs were also hard to cut. However, surprisingly it was slightly more tender than the pork ribs. I am not a huge fan of lamb, so only had 1 rib and that wasn’t great.

We were so disappointed with the meal that we didn’t even bother to order dessert. I did like the décor, the wooden ceilings, the open kitchen, the concrete floor and rusted metal sheets and that’s about it!

Considering how we all have a sweet tooth, we wanted something sweet. Not from the restaurant though, so we thought we would give Simplicity Crepe ago. This little, cozy place can be found on Wyndham Street, overlooking Lan Kwai Fong.

Simplicity crepe serves both savory and sweet crepes. I wasn’t in the mood for anything savory, although the char siu crepe sounded interesting! I ordered one of the simple crepes, dark chocolate crepe with ice cream. The crepe was thin and served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and dark chocolate sauce – it was sinful but absolutely delicious!

R ordered the ultimate heaven, which consisted of raspberry, berry compote, cookies, ice cream, and chocolate sauce. R truly didn’t enjoy this. She said it was absolutely horrible – the combinations of it all were just awful and unsatisfying. She did say that the ice cream was nice!

J ordered the heaven crepe, which was a lot better than the ‘ultimate heaven’ – it was a lot simpler. I didn’t have any of this as I was struggling to finish my crepe. He thoroughly enjoyed this, so I guess ‘ultimate’ is not always better.

Simplicity crepes open till midnight on most nights, and till 4 am on both Friday and Saturday night.  Alternatively, if you want crepes for breakfast, then this is also the place to go, they open at 8.30 am weekdays, 10.30am on Saturday and 11.00 am on Sunday.

It was good to have finally met V, and always good to catch up with both J and R. Even though dinner was terrible, the company made it all bearable!

GA’s ratings Blue Smoke Bar-B-Que: 2.5 / 10

3/F, Grand Progress Building,

15-16 Lan Kwai Fong, Central, Hong Kong

Ph: +852 2816 9018

GA’s ratings Simplicity Crepe: 6.5 / 10

41 Wyndham Street

Central, Hong Kong

Ph: +852 2576 9886