British BBQ Society Forums

Chicago Rib Shack
Knightsbridge
London

This has to be the most difficult review I will do. I am one of the 80’s kids that spent every opportunity in the Chicago Rib Shack, Pizza Pie Factory or Chicago windy city. They were the ultimate in American Dining until the death of the owner Bob Payton, as with most businesses once the driving force is removed the dream often follows.

I went to the pre-launch a week before it opened in 2008 and was very disappointed with the food. The décor was very similar and the menus and bibs identical but it was lacking experience in the kitchen.



Since the re-launch there has been a change of management and kitchen staff with a new head chef, the staff were very courteous giving me a tour of the kitchen. Seeing the bank of Yieldkings looked promising, as most know these are commercial smoke and hold cookers made simple, some would say foolproof.

We ordered half rack of St Louis Ribs, a mixed platter which consisted of half rack of Babybacks, ¼ Chicken, very small pot of brisket & pulled pork, and of course an onion loaf.



The food was fairly well presented, and I immediately dug into the onion loaf, this was very disappointing at the pre-launch and they have improved it dramatically, there was not any grease evident when cutting into or eating it.



The St Louis ribs were a bit confusing, they were more like spares than St Louis and had been over cooked and lacked flavour. The chicken suffered from the same problem and was very dry.

The babybacks were good, succulent with a decent flavour. We noticed that all of the food lacked smoke in flavour and colour this was particularly noticeable on the brisket where you would expect to see a smoke ring, there was no evidence of this and to be honest the brisket should have been cooked for much longer, even the thinness of slices couldn’t hide the toughness of the meat. The BBQ sauce has a distinct oriental feel to it.

Once the lack of smoke was pointed out to the manager a call was made immediately to the engineer to find out what the problem was. The food was being cooked but without smoke unless this is a strange characteristic of the Yieldking, I have contacted them to find out.



I really love this restaurant, stick to the babybacks and onion loaf and you will have a good meal, I think they should drop the St Louis ribs from the menu especially if they cant improve on them. I will call them in a week or so and find out if the problem with the smokers has been fixed, knowing what to eat I want to go back………………………………...Toby

Well the standard definately seems higher than the last restaurant you put up here. It must be absolute hell going around all these restaurant just to taste their food, its an unenviable task.
Spose somebodies got to do it.
Chris

this is what they cook on [http://www.yieldking.net/p/oven_overview.php ]

I have to agree with Thrillin' Grillin' you are doing brave selfless work eating all this re heated pseudo American BBQ food... just the 4 other Bodeans branches to go and anywhere else the members can come up with.

Quality reviewing Toby, I can almost smell the stuff !

LOL so how many do you supply with wood?? Great wood, tame / lame food

I'd have to agree with you on Chicago Rib Shack. My first experience in London with BBQ was Bodean's in Chelsea (the one near chelsea stadium). One of the more dissapointing experience of my time in the uk. Dry ribs with not much meat or flavour, sauces were ok but we won't be back. So Chicago rib shack was a big step up coming from this a couple weeks ago. Wings were good, but not great and lacked flavour/and rub or sauce.

We ordered a mixed platter and a rack of baby backs. The baby backs were ok, much better than bodeans however the St. Louis were quite dissapointing. noticed that most of the ribs had very little if any smoke to them, but service was good. Would I go back? Maybe if i had a craving for ribs, and stick to the baby backs and not much else.

Went there last year on a corporate jolly, had high expectations due to location.

All show and no go would be my summary, bar area and service was excellent, and enticing aroma as we went down into the resteraunt but what followed was a poor parody of ribs and wings, even the coleslaw was in the style of supermarket budget brand.

My abiding memory was of plenty of free budweiser and a deep sense of meat related disappointment......

Cheers
Tiny 8\

Smokingwoodman wrote:I have to agree with Thrillin' Grillin' you are doing brave selfless work eating all this re heated pseudo American BBQ food... just the 4 other Bodeans branches to go and anywhere else the members can come up with.

Quality reviewing Toby, I can almost smell the stuff !

3 years down the line and there are a few more BBQ joints than the 4 Bodeans Paul talks about here....

are you asking me to come down to Brighton to eat your fine fayre? Cant believe i still havent!!!

The only chicken we have been able to cut with a fork......