RAWWWWWR! (Dinosaur sound).
I have come to the conclusion that the Dinosaur Bar B Que’s food is really, really, really … good.
Really.
Really.
Really really.
Really.
Reeeeeeally.
Really really really.
Really.
Good.
The editorial staff of The Dolphin had chosen The Dinosaur for our end-of-the-year dinner. (Ooh, alliteration)! We chose Dinosaur because I’m a brat and insisted upon it. Sometimes being a food columnist has its perks. Actually, that’s an inaccurate statement. There are nothing but perks in being a food writer. I love what I do.
So anyway, we’d agreed to meet at 7:30. It was wall-to-wall packed. The Dino doesn’t typically take reservations, but because we were such a big group, they were awful nice and saved a table for us. (By the time we left at about 9:30, a band was setting up and the crowd had died down.)
It smelled so good in that restaurant.
The servers are sassy, as are the hostesses – it’s no secret that they lead you to your table by announcing the directions over a loudspeaker. In fact, whenever I mentioned the fact that I was going to dine there, my friends all offered up that fun fact.
Our server was a little grumpy over the fact that one member of our party was late, and warned us that he couldn’t “hold the table all night, you know!” Luckily, our missing guy arrived a few minutes later and, after engaging in a little sports-talk, all was well.
It smelled so goddamn good in that restaurant.
To drink, I ordered an ape hanger ale from Middle Ages Brewery. It was nice and creamy, with great apricot flavor. I don’t know as if I’d drink this without food, but it went great with my meal. And, far as I know, it’s only available at Dinosaur. Hey, did anyone else NOT know that an “ape hanger” was a type of bike? I pictured, like, a thousand monkeys in an airport. I was wrong.
The menu is a lot bigger than I thought it’d be. Not only do they have ribs and pulled pork, but they also offer tons of sides, like macaroni and cheese, black beans and rice, tomato-cucumber salad, chili, fries and fruit salad. Has anyone ever actually ordered fruit salad at the Dinosaur? I hope not. There’s also chicken in the quarter and half, catfish (!!), beef brisket, peel-and-eat shrimp and about a grillion sammies.
(And now I’m hungry again.)
I ordered the Big Ass Pork Plate. I did this for a few reasons:
2. A lot.
3. No less than five people had urged me to.
4. I wanted to say “big ass” when ordering.
5. Pork!
I figured I had to get some cole slaw. (When in Rome …). Now, I wasn’t too impressed by the slaw. It needed a little something more – an extra hit of pepper, perhaps. But just today, I was told by a friend that the Dinosaur’s cabbage salad is the “only decent cole slaw in Syracuse,” so perhaps I’ll need to have another go at it.
I also ordered the soup of the day, which was a velvety chicken mushroom thinger. It was very thick, with huge chunks of mushroom and moist, shredded chicken. I could have eaten an entire vat of it. And if they let me into the kitchen, I probably would have.
As for my pulled pork? Oh, baby, you know it was good. Just the right amount of pinkish hue, tender as all hell, smothered in the Dino’s own slathering sauce. It was like eating cotton balls – or rather, would have been, if cotton balls were a lot moister and didn’t taste so bad. Maybe that was a bad analogy. What I am trying to say is that I want to eat pulled pork every day for the rest of my life.
Two of my girlfriends let me taste their dinners, and so I had an extra hit of chicken with a cherry glaze, as well as a smoked rib.
The chicken was, quite honestly, the juiciest, wettest, bestest bird I’d ever tasted. The cherry flavor wasn’t strong or too sweet, though I would probably order the chicken without it. It seemed a bit unnecessary on that glorious meat.
And the ribs made me want to cry. They were charred and messy and sauced. There is something so sensuous and satisfying about eating straight off the bone. I wanted to put the entire thing in my mouth and suck every last bit of meat from it. (I didn’t. I was in public.) And if you don’t think this is funny, you obviously haven’t read this post.
We all passed on dessert, because after a meal like that, the only thing that could have made the night better would have been a slice of pecan pie. And because I didn’t get to see the dessert menu, I called the restaurant this morning to discover that they do have pecan pie. In addition to sweet potato, key lime, peanut butter and a chocolate ice box. Damnit.
I guess I’ll just have to go back.
(three meats)
DINOSAUR AT MY SCREENING SATURDAY! WOO!
Just one more reason to come