That's me, plus Anna (who is fat on the inside).
We began the tour at a restaurant recommended by a good friend of ours, Mitch. It is his favorite BBQ joint in NYC.
Rub BBQ is in Chelsea. 208 W. 23rd Street, NY NY, just west of 7th Avenue. It stands for "Righteous Urban BBQ". This makes me think of an Ani DiFranco parody song that has yet to be written.
Rub BBQ has a pub ambiance. Conversely, Rub BBQ does not have pub prices. Their Fried Green Tomatoes are legendary. However, they did not have any available for our BBQ Tour night (much to Zoe's disdain).
Two integral members of the Fat Femme Foodie crew, Tara and Zoe.
We all began our meals with the chicken wings (BBQ flavor). Very tasty. Everyone ate their share of 5 wings apiece** with gusto. I give the wings an 8 on the FFF scale***.
Anna got their Hushpuppies, the one I sampled was a 4. They needed butter and weren't very tasty.
I must note at this juncture, that the service at Rub BBQ was horrendous. It took several flamboyant attempts to flag our waiter down for anything, and when he did arrive (summoned by another member of the wait staff who saw our pleas for attention) he appeared to be under the influence. Further, he messed up two out of three of the segments of my dinner meal and wasn't even a little gracious about fixing it. Many of our group used to be in retail or food service. We know the pains. We also don't like our BBQ served with a side of spite. Just saying. The service was a 3.
Since I wasn't very excited to try their sides (and I have before when we've had takeout from there), I decided to go with two types of sausage (hot and BBQ). The sausages are made at Rub BBQ fresh and with their own spices. Both were quite delicious and I give them both an 8.5.
I forgot to have Tara take a photo of my meal, so you get a photo of hers instead. She had the porky greens and three types of meat.
The crowning element of my meal was the Elvis Crusher sandwich. I'm not going to lie, the name is really the part that sold me. It is made with peanut butter, banana and their house cured bacon. On grilled buttered white bread. It is a remarkable idea and I was intrigued by the concept of integrating my favorite pork product with a sandwich I otherwise enjoy infrequently.
Tara was so delighted by my Fat Femme Foodie adventurousness, she took the following video.
As I state in the video, it is salty. But pretty good. Definitely not worth $10.50 and I certainly didn't notice anything special about their bacon. It gets an 8, but I will totally make this at home if I ever get a craving for it again. Truthfully, I could not finish it (or the sausage) so I took that all home. I had nightmares that night and am unsure whether those were caused by my Crushed Elvis experience.
Overall, Rub BBQ in Chelsea gets the following Fat Femme Foodie ratings:
Food: 7.5
Service: 3
Ambiance: 6
Value for the money: 4
Self Righteous Vegetarian Scale: 4
The greens were made with pork, but they do have killer Fried Green Tomatoes (or so we hear) and several vegetarian sides. And they have a "pulled portabello sandwich" which Zoe had in the past and said was a total rip off. So if your picky vegetarian is not cool with eating sides and appetizers for dinner and doesn't mind poor value for the money, bring 'em along!
Tara made a preliminary BBQ Tour Post here, which is a six point list and involves a bacon icon.
The next stop on our BBQ tour is most likely Dinosaur BBQ in Harlem. 'Til then, stay fat everyone! (Or at least fat on the inside.)
*This tour is directly spawned from the Pizza Tour begun by Anna, Tara and Zoe during the latter part of 2007.
**Truthfully, Anna took a couple home for her GF.
***Fat Femme Foodie scale, which is a scale of 1-10, 1 being "It beats eating a napkin, barely." 10 being "I will have fantasies of this food for the rest of my days."
