Barbecue is good for us.

2135 Old Middlefield Way
Mountain View, CA 94043
(650) 964-4476

Hours:
Monday – Friday :
Lunch 11.30 am – 2.30 pm
Dinner 5.00 pm – 8.00 pm

Saturday :
Noon – 2.30 pm
5.00 pm – 8.00 pm

The Nutshell

Uncle Frank’s is a BBQ oasis in the parched, mega-mall wasteland that is the South Bay. The brisket was maybe the best we’ve had in the Bay Area and they give you a mountain of food. It’s hard to beat the low-key ambiance of the bar Uncle Frank’s lives inside of. Great side dishes, friendly staff. Yum.

The Place

Uncle Frank’s lives in the back room of an unassuming bar called Francesca’s. Walk right past the bar and to the left and you’ll find a run down but clean dining room next to the pool tables with a little kitchen in the back. We lorded over our meal in a big ol’ booth that could have fit 6 or 8. The staff was super friendly and the service was fast. You’ve got to go to the bar for your drinks, which was hardly a problem. It wasn’t at all crowded on a Thursday night.

The Sauce

Lately I’ve been finding a lot of sauces like this – good but not great, sweet, not particularly spicy, good with ribs and maybe not quite as good with brisket. I tend to think brisket is the harder meat to pair with sauce anyway – the Kansas City sweet thing just doesn’t cut it. If you want the heat you might be disappointed, but a sauce like this allowed the quality of the meat to come through. I had to ask for extra sauce, which they happily brought in a big cup. All in all, no complaints.

The Meat

I ordered the two-meat platter with both brisket and ribs. The waitress delivered a giant plate of both. I try not to leave BBQ behind, especially when it’s good, but I couldn’t eat it all, no way. The brisket was thick cut (which Tamar didn’t care for), but it was fork tender, smokey, and flavorful. This may be the best brisket we’ve had in the Bay Area. Tamar in particular liked that it was nice and lean – the sign of a long slow smoke. A lot of the brisket we’ve had around here is rather fatty in comparison.

The spare ribs were a bit more hit or miss. The first two I ate tasted ok, and had a beautiful pink smoke ring, but were dry almost to the point of being jerky-like. The next few, however, were quite tender, juicy, flavorful, and on par with ribs from someplace like Everett & Jones. Compared to baby-backs or gourmet baby-backs, spare ribs can be harder to cook evenly because one side of the rack is so much thicker than the other. This is why I’m such a fan of the pouch method for smoking – I think it helps to avoid the jerky problem in the short end.

A side note: Tamar wanted to branch out a bit since Uncle Frank’s is supposed to be ‘Lousiana Style’, so she ordered the cajun fried shrimp. Clearly they were frozen, but super tasty just the same, with cajun seasoning and a crispy batter. Made a nice counter-point to the BBQ.

The Sides

Great sides at Uncle Frank’s. Tamar couldn’t stop talking about the potato salad, which was pretty close to how we make it at home. I thought the beans were by far the best I’ve had. I could taste just the right amount of the seasoning that I think gives BBQ that special something: celery seed. Overdo it and it’s over-powering, but get it just right in sauces, rubs, and (apparently) beans, and it’s wonderful.

Tamar also got some slaw which was pretty mediocre. It had pineapple in it, which I object to. The only real loser of the bunch was the cornbread, which was like yellow sheet cake, except that there was some kind of effervescent, chemical after-taste. Not good at all.

In the End

I might drive down to Mountain View just to go to Uncle Frank’s again. It’s got lots of character and lots of flavor. It’s not the cheapest BBQ around, but you certainly get a lot of food for your money. The beer is cheap and plentiful too, and you can get a cocktail if you prefer and stay to drink up and play pool after the BBQ is gone.

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3227A Lakeshore Ave
Oakland, CA 94610
(510) 627-0067 (was disconnected when we tried it, but hopefully it’s fixed now…)

Hours: Tue-Sat. 12:00 p.m.-7:00 p.m.

The Nutshell

Taste of Joy is good, especially for the price. The brisket and especially the were tender and smoky, and fit well with the middle-of-the-road sauce. The sides were extremely good and clearly homemade. The only real knock on Taste of Joy is that we had to wait almost 30 minutes for our to-go meal, and when it came out our orders were mixed up and they had run out of corn-bread. We’re hoping it’s a fluke, and I suspect we’ll go back.

The Place

Taste of Joy is in a little cave of a storefront along Lakeshore where a crepe shop used to be. It’s dark but nice inside, although a little strangely decorated for a BBQ joint. They don’t sell alcohol and they don’t take credit cards. We rolled in at about 6:45 on a Saturday, and it wasn’t particularly crowded when we got there. But after we ordered, it took them almost 30 minutes to produce our order to-go. That’s long for any take-out place, but particularly bad for BBQ, considering there wasn’t a single thing on any of our plates that wouldn’t have been made in advance. Let’s hope it was a fluke.

The Sauce

The sauce was good, though it was a somewhat nondescript, sweet Kansas City style. Especially with the brisket, some thought it needed a bit more spice, and the addition of some hot sauce really improved the meat-sauce match. I thought it was good for ribs, but I tend to prefer that style.

The Meat

Between us we ordered both the ribs and the brisket. The ribs were quite good, not dry at all, firm, with a nice pink smoke ring. Not the best ribs around, but far from the worst. The brisket was not quite as tender as the ribs, but had a great beefy flavor and plenty of smoke.

The Sides

We were pretty impressed with the choice of sides, and they were all good. Excellent, creamy home-made mac & cheese, potato salad with a mustardy kick were the two biggest hits. Collard greens were good but maybe a little over-salted, and the black eyed peas were a little bland. Yams were sickly sweet. It’s too bad we couldn’t try the cornbread!

In the End

Taste of Joy has a bunch of things going for it. It’s decent to good BBQ in a very cool neighborhood near Lake Meritt. More than that, it’s a great value. We came away with plenty of dinner for about $40. We’ve certainly had better BBQ elsewhere in the Bay Area, but walking from Andrew’s place over there and ending up with a really nice BBQ meal was a treat.

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3422 Mt Diablo Blvd
Lafayette, CA
(925) 283-7133

Hours: Tues. – Sun. 11:30 – 2:30pm, 5 – 8:30pm

The Nutshell

We arrived with high expectations based on personal recommendations. We left feeling a little like we got hoodwinked. $80+ for three mediocre (at best) meals and some (admittedly very nice) beer. Bo’s is good BBQ for people who have never really had good BBQ.

The Place

Bo’s is on the main drag in Lafayette, down towards the end with very little around. Perusing the reviews on Yelp, it seems like a lot of people like Bo’s because it’s one of the few night-spots in Lafayette where you can sit, listen to music, drink a beer. They’ve got a nice, clean, open dining room. Service is at the counter and they bring the order to your table. The night we were there, a fun 4-piece blues band was playing. We sat and listened a long time after our BBQ was done.

The Sauce

We tried both the ribs (long and short ends) and the brisket. All were served dry with sauce on the side. You get a really pitiful amount of sauce in a tiny stainless steel cup. Extra sauce will cost you $2. What?

Tiny sauce cups and highway robbery for an extra (tiny) cup would be tolerable if it were great sauce. But it’s not. It’s fine – it tastes like any one of a number of bottled sauces from Safeway. Quite sweet, not much spice or smoke or heat. They can’t have added much in the way of drippings, since there was no discernible meaty flavor. We all agreed that the sauce was equally appropriate for the beef and the pork, but mediocre on both.

The Meat

I ordered ribs (long end), Andrew ordered the short end, and Tamar ordered the brisket. Our ribs were falling off the bone, but not at all tender – almost dry, like they’d been sitting in a heating cabinet for a long, long time. Some of Andrew’s short end pieces were so dried up they were inedible. I know Bo’s touts the quality of its meat – Niman Ranch. But, honestly, we couldn’t tell. Other than falling off the bone, the ribs were not at all porky or smoky or seasoned. In fact, they were light on flavor all around. There was a small bit of the Brown, but not much. We were all surprised at how bland the ribs were considering the nice pink smoke ring.

Tamar’s brisket was marginally better. It was also falling apart, and not quite as dry as our ribs. Again, though, very little beef or smoke flavor. We began to ask each other which we liked better, the pork or the beef, and Andrew said “You know, it’s kind of hard to tell the difference.” We all agreed. If you close your eyes you wouldn’t have been able to tell beef from pork.

The Sides

You don’t go to Bo’s for the sides. There aren’t many choices. Each of our meals came with a tiny glop of potato salad (which wasn’t bad), a piece of baguette (Acme, OMG!), and a few greens. Not exactly authentic.

In the End

I can see why some people like this BBQ. It falls apart, and when you dip it in some sauce you get seemingly tender, sweet BBQ sauce flavor. Make a night of it with some beer and a band and it seems like a great spot. But don’t be fooled. This is not good BBQ, or at least it wasn’t on the night we were there. If you’ve ever eaten great ribs or brisket, you won’t be impressed with Bo’s. If you want quality ribs, we recommend KC’s (for the quality meat) or Everett & Jones (for the value and the beer). For brisket, Great American is still the best around.

Compared to almost any other place we’ve reviewed in the Bay Area, Bo’s comes out the worse. That’s especially true if you look at value for the buck. We spent more than $80 for three meals and some beer. Admittedly some of it was nice beer, and their selection is very good. Still, it’s expensive BBQ, and given that it’s not really very good, I doubt any of us will be going back.

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