DALLAS: Red Hot & Blue
9810 N Central Expy
Dallas, TX 75231
214-378-5098
Open S-Thur 11-9, F-Sat 11-10
www.redhotandblue.com/
Beauty is only skin deep, and the meat at Red Hot & Blue proves that cliche. The Dallas location of this popular national chain was busy on a Thursday night. This is technically Memphis style 'cue (and ironically founded in Virginia), but it's a BBQ joint in Dallas, so I tried it. It felt like they were expecting me when I found a 5 meat sampler plate with no sides for only $11.49. The friendly waitress brought out a plate heaping with sliced brisket, dry rubbed Memphis style ribs, pulled pork, turkey breast, and sausage. The finely ground sausage was bursting with flavor. Specks of black pepper complimented the lean links, and the casings had a decent snap. The turkey was the best item on the plate. A deeply smoky flavor permeated the crusty slices of real turkey breast. The rest of the meats personified the skin deep beauty mentioned earlier. The ribs had a good looking dark crust with a generous powder rub. Unfortunately the ribs were dry with little flavor outside of the crust. The picture perfect brisket had a similar problem. Though it was nicely moist and tender, and bites without crust were simply lacking flavor of any sort. The dry, tasteless pulled pork was by far the worst offering. Even the flecks of dark and rosy crust added nothing. I needed to resort to dunking it in the smoky sweet sauce that came on the side. I'm not sure which of the four sauce offerings it was, but it was tasty enough. I would definitely come back here for the sausage and turkey, but the key to good Texas 'cue is the brisket and ribs, and in those categories this joint is just average.
Rating **
This place used to have the word Memphis in it's name. After eating there, I was ashamed and mad at the same time. You see, I am from Memphis. That was the most disappointing BBQ experience of my life. It was like being set up on a blind date with the chick that has a great personality. They failed to mention she was a butter face! I will never in life eat at that joint again ( or go on a blind date).
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