Simpson’s
5250 Foothill Blvd
(between Congress Ave & Fairfax Ave)
Oakland, CA
(510) 261-1299
Hours: 7am to 8pm, Mon. – Sun. (though they closed at 7pm on a Sunday when we went)
The Nutshell
Edible. Pork ribs were just ok. Sliced beef was our favorite. Sides were decent to awful. You can do better elsewhere.
The Place
Simpson’s is on a corner right on Foothill Blvd., not far from High St. It’s quite easy to get to, just down 580 to High St., left on Foothill. Simpson’s definitely has a vintage storefront, and inside it’s pretty quaint. There’s a small dining room, brightly lit, maybe 10 tables covered in red table cloths and plastic. I’d sit there gladly, but we did take out. We showed up at about 6:30 on a Sunday, shortly before closing, and were the only ones there. The folks who work there were very nice, and gave me a cup of sweet pink lemonade while I waiting about 10 minutes for my order.
The Sauce
Andrew, Rachel, and I agreed on our opinions of most things we ate, but on sauce we differed a little. I appreciated the sauce. It’s thick, deep, molasses brown, and sweet. Too sweet, but only just for me, more so for the others. It doesn’t have a lot of character beyond sweetness, unfortunately, but if you like that kind of sauce, it agreed with the pork ribs well enough.
There was some debate about whether the pork and the beef actually had different sauces. Our order of sliced beef came swimming in a pool of sauce that I think was different. It wasn’t quite as sweet and had more of a brown gravy flavor. Actually, it complemented the beef quite well, I thought. Still not much in the way of character, though.
The Meat
We tried the pork ribs and the sliced beef. We got generous portions of ribs, but the best we can say about them is that they were… diverse. Some were very chewy, dry, others fatty and thick. Several were just right – tender and moist. They’ve definitely seen some smoke – there’s a nice pink ring on some of the ribs, and a hint of the smoke flavor. Andrew commented that the meat itself seemed to be of pretty high quality, though I’m not sure I agree. Unfortunately, any pork or smoke flavors were overpowered by the sickly sweetness of the sauce. In the end, we happily ate our ribs, and admitted that there wasn’t anything overtly bad about them taken together, though that’s not much of a recommendation.
The sliced beef we liked somewhat better. The portion was slightly smaller than the ribs, and it came swimming in sauce. Again, the quality varied a bit from piece to piece. Some were thick and tough, others mostly fat, and a few tender and lean. We all agreed that the beef was better than the ribs. I took a bit home to Tamar, our expert on sliced beef, and she agreed that it was ok, but immediately noted that there was almost no smoke flavor. Actually, there wasn’t much flavor at all beyond the sauce. Again, not much of a recommendation.
I want to give Simpson’s the benefit of the doubt. It was late on a Sunday, and our food was clearly reheated after sitting around all day. Maybe if we had come at a different time we’d have gotten fresher stuff. However, I’m still skeptical. The variable quality of the meat and the lack of flavor wouldn’t have changed, and whatever flavor was there would have been overpowered by the sticky sweet sauce.
The Sides
By and large we were not fans of the sides. The potato salad was interesting – full of mustard and dill (??) – but too sweet. The greens were much too salty, and the black eyed peas were a little bland, though decent. The slaw was just plain awful – none of us could take more than one bite. It was like sugar with a little cabbage. Yuck. The baked beans might have been the star, but we were pretty sure they came from a can, so that’s not saying much.
In the End
I doubt we’ll be going back Simpson’s. We can get much better BBQ in the East Bay, without having to drive down to East Oakland. Mostly we hated the sides, and thought the whole meal didn’t have much character. That said, the people at Simpson’s were very nice, and they serve a wide variety of soul food. Looking at the reviews on Yelp, a few folks say their breakfast is good. But here we’re all about BBQ, and judging Simpson’s on BBQ alone, we’re not impressed.