I had lunch at the
Dan Gordon Restaurant in Palo Alto California today. The menu features barbecue, I guess? Like so many menus today, it is a mish-mosh of entries that do not convey a strong impression of any sort of cuisine. Are these menus related to the chef by some sort of mystic using a Ouija board, or by recovering stroke victims as some sort of New Age therapy? What in the world are "crispy brussel sprouts" or "kale slaw" doing on a summer bbq menu? Rillettes? Seriously?
There are 3 sauces; Original, Habanero, and Carolina.
The Original sauce is very sweet tomato-based standard sauce you would get in a bottle of some generic brand at the grocery store. The Habanero is the Original sauce with some chili added. Not much heat for something called Habanero. It is a sauce of no special distinction. The Carolina sauce is a version of the mustard sauce, not East Carolina sauce. Again, it is a sauce of no distinction and over-poweringly sweet for a mustard sauce. Evidently the people at Dan Gordon think the most important element of bbq sauce is sweetness.
I had a lemonade, the cheddar biscuits, a green salad, and the 3 meat plate with baked beans, finishing with the banana and nilla wafer pudding. The total was $62.50. Let that cost sink in a moment before continuing. After tip about $75 for what is basically a meat-and-3 with 2 side meats. It's enough to make your mama speak immoderately. For reals.
The cheddar biscuits had the taste of amateur biscuits, the flavor of uncooked flour overriding any cheese taste. Fortunately they were small and there were only 2 of them. They came with a lettuce cup filled with some sort of limp and moist candied bacon and a little cup of aioli. At least it was described as aioli, it had the texture and taste of plain old mayonnaise. I have noticed a lot of restaurants making this mistake, maybe they think "aioli" sounds better? How to eat this odd assemblage on the plate? The waiter had no idea. Nor do I. I would love to know the thinking behind this. Two small biscuits and some weird version of candied bacon with an ounce of mayo. If anyone understands the original intention of this dish or how you are supposed to consume it or if it is simply the result of the random nature of a cruel universe please let me know. I am at a complete and utter loss as to what this is for. Your restaurant should not make me wistful for the fine cuisine of "Red Lobster". And clue to the kitchen, you can't hold candied bacon overnight or even for a few hours. It will weep and go limp. You know, like yours.
The green salad was a limp wad of over-dressed leaves with a few split grape tomatoes. To call it uninspiring is to heap praise upon it.
For the 3-way I chose brisket, ribs and fried chicken. Weird, right? There is no smoked chicken except some smoked chicken wings as a separate menu item. What kind of place that barbecues pork and beef does not throw a chicken in the smoker?
Adding ribs to the platter cost $5. Ribs. I want you to understand that pork ribs fall into the same category as chicken feet and tripe. This was a part that was undesirable and considered inedible without a lot of preparation. It is a standard part of the odds and ends that end up in a smoker. Why in the world am I paying a supplement for it?
Getting the fried chicken on the platter was marked on the bill as a $7.50 supplement. Because the ribs supplement did not show up on the bill I will assume that the $5 for the ribs was included, meaning that the fried chicken was a mere $2.50 extra. For bland fried chicken. Bland, dry fried chicken. Bland, dry, boneless fried chicken. With a sadly deficient crust. At least it wasn't greasy! However, if you don't make really good fried chicken then do not make fried chicken. Here's a hint: You need to season the chicken before you coat it, not just bounce some salt off of the crust after it comes out of the fryer.
The baked beans came in a little dish on the plate with a garnish of a thick slice of jalapeno that was mostly the white pithy placenta, not really something anybody wants to eat. Perhaps if it had been sliced thin I could have eaten it with a spoonful of beans, but as it was, it was inedible. After removing it I was treated to the same monotone sweetness that makes up the Original sauce with beans and some onion floating in it. Look, just get a can of Busch's and empty it into a pot. Heat and serve. It'll be better than what you get now.
The brisket was a meat of no distinction. Passable. Whoopee. Pro Tip: When your brisket starts getting that open texture you've left it on the smoker too long or run the smoker at too high a heat or both. Okay, thank you, move along dearie.
The ribs were what would be considered too tough at any bbq competition in the country. That's a fact. And they came out on the plate with some of the Original sauce painted on them. I guess they thought that makes a nice looking plating. No bbq joint worth a damn will sauce your meat for you in any way without a specific request, and even then they will ask you to try it first without sauce. Lord help me, I do miss Uncle Frank. Four pretty decent sized ribs came on the plate. Somewhere on the menu they mention St. Louis style ribs but I didn't see any. Maybe those are part of a different dish. For your reference, that meaty bit at the end of the rib with that little bit of cartilage in it like you get on a Dan Gordon rib? That part is not on a St. Louis style rib. And for the kitchen's information it is the customer's privilege to sauce their ribs. Please don't paint my ribs with sauce I don't want. For an extra five bucks. You damned Yankees.
The taqueria style fresh pickle that garnishes the meat plate is the best part of it. Ain't that a bitch?
The banana pudding had a strange taste and texture, as if a quantity of cornstarch was added and never fully cooked, leaving that starchy sort of taste and texture.
The lemonade lacked the tart-sweet balance that makes fresh lemonade so good.
I also want to mention some things from the menu that I did not try but left me baffled.
There is something called "Diablo pig wings". I asked what the "pig" part was but the waiter insisted he didn't know. According to him they were simply chicken wings in very hot sauce.
There is a "poutine" without any cheese curd in it. Please, my fellow Americans, if there is no cheese curd then it is not poutine, it is called "wet fries" or "gravy fries". There is nothing wrong with wet fries. They are delicious. Stop trying to lay claim to a dish you are not actually making.
There is also something called, I kid you not, "Fresh Smoked King Slamon Rilelettes" (check the web site if you do not believe me - http://dangordons.com/ourmenu.php). Let us be generous and forgive the misspellings, still it is the case that every single word in that item should be followed by the annotation "(sic)". How can you have something that is both "smoked" and "fresh"? How can you have something that is both "fresh" and "rillettes"? Finally, how can you have a smoked fish be rilletttes? Rillettes are slow-cooked in fat, not smoked. The mind boggles.
There is a "Burnt Ends Chili". I have seen this dish before and I do not comprehend its conception. "Burnt ends" means the meat has been cooked more than fully. There is nothing for the meat to surrender to make the braise necessary in a chili. Why would someone think this is a good idea? What kind of God would allow this?
They also have "Smoked Grilled Hot Sausage". Smoked AND Grilled? Why would you do that to an innocent sausage? And what kind of sausage? The waiter didn't know. Hot links? Bratwurst? Jimmy Dean links? Do they make it in house? Do they buy it from Ditmer's? Who cares, it is an offal tube of some description and that should be good enough for the customer.
The service was adequate. The decor was inoffensive. The restaurant was generally clean. The outdoors seating is nice.
I wanted to like this place, really I did. Truth is, I want to like every place that opens. But damn Dan Gordon, help me out. I know a lot of money and effort must have been spent on this complete redesign of the restaurant, what happened? As it is save yourself the grief and the money and head to Smoking Pig, still the best bbq on the Peninsula and South Bay by a country mile (and now Fremont too).
Labels: barbecue, Bay Area, bbq, biscuits, brisket, CA, California, chili, Palo Alto, restaurant, review, San Francisco
