Located on Beckley Rd. in Battle Creek, MI it is one of the newest additions to our restaurants. I must say that my first impression was mixed. There were very few seats in the restaurant, and you walked up and ordered your food from the counter, paid, received your number, and then attempted to find a seat. We walked right in, but shortly after we arrived the line was out the door (must be our following). It definitely had the feel and look of a barbeque joint, but was small for my taste. The servers did an excellent job, and we received our food very quickly. They came back to the table (even though it was very busy) and asked if we needed anything several times. They had a small deli cooler where they sold their beef jerky and in house sausage. Service was 4 stars
I was pretty excited (as most fat guys are around barbeque) to see they had a sampler platter. I tried the ribs, pulled pork, chicken, and brisket fro $12.99. I had a side of redline beans (their baked beans), and also shared a sampler with table of the Jalapeño Chicken Dip and Chips. First the appetizer, although it was a little pricey, $5.99, it was very good. Chunks of chicken in a white cheese sauce with diced jalapeño’s are a marriage made in heaven. Although it sounds spicey, it was not, but had excellent jalapeno flavor The chips came out warm, and were homemade and were the perfect carrier for the dip. I was very pleased. I enjoyed the redline beans they had a good smoked flavor, and a good kick to them. The Sampler platter had some mixed results. I will say that it was enjoyable going to a barbeque restaurant that does not need to drown their meat in sauce. Sauce was on the table and you could use as much or as little as you wanted. The ribs were not fall off the bone, and were slightly stiff (as I feel ribs should be), yet they melted in your mouth. They had a good smoke flavor and a noticeable smoke ring they were some of the best I have seen in this County. The pulled pork was also amazingly good. It had a good smoke ring and smoke flavor as well, and it was very tender and held up well to both sauces at the table. The brisket was good, but was over-cooked in my opinion. It was too tender, and fell apart, but had a good flavor and would have been an excellent menu item if it was called a pot roast. The chicken itself had me disappointed. I am not a huge fan of skin in chicken (I know that is the flavor, but that is how I was raised...blame my mom) the chicken skin did have a good flavor, but that is where the seasoning ended. The meat itself was bland and greasy. It was far from my favorite food on the table, and unfortunately for me I saved it for last. Food 4 stars
Overall 4 stars
It was nice to go out to lunch and not hear anyone complain about processed cheeseJ
~The Fat Mexican~
This week we review our trip to Redline BBQ in Battle Creek Beckley Road corridor, the store is new, clean but BUSY! While admittedly, we were there at lunch time, the store line was always long, to the door when I left. The eating area is very small. We had to wait for a table to open up, but it's not fine dining, so the turnaround was fairly quick. The waitresses were very polite and helpful. Service was 4 out of 5 stars in my book.
The food was great, everything tasted like it was home-made, not Gordon's Food Service crap. The meat was not cheap meat, seemed to be more premium cuts. I ordered the pulled chicken sandwich with sides of jalapeno corn bread and Redline baked beans. I love the corn bread the best, delicious, the jalapeno wasn't overpowering. The beans had a slight kick to them but were very good. The pulled chicken was pretty good but I was able to sample some of the brisket and ribs that the other guys ordered and felt those were much better. The BBQ sauces were very good; with the Redline sauce is sweeter while the Texas
OVERALL: 4 out of 5 stars. Food and service is much better than other BBQ places in the area (here's looking at you OT's). The price is a little higher but it is worth it in my opinion.
The Fat Redhead
Friday has arrived and brings forth another opportunity to indulge ourselves in Battle Creek Cuisine in the name of public education. We have virtually sacrificed our own manly physiques so that you the public may make educated decisions on where you would like to dine, so that you will not frivolously spend your hard earned money on food that a raccoon would not pick out of your trash.
So on to the Redline BBQ Smokehouse & Catering located at 5275 Beckley Road in Battle Creek Michigan
Atmosphere: The atmosphere was good. It is a clean restaurant with décor that you would expect to find in a BBQ joint. Seating was limited due to the size of the building, however we were lucky enough to beat the rush and grab a table that had just freed up.
Food: The food was pretty good. I ordered the sampler platter with a price tag of $12.99. This platter came with BBQ Ribs, Pulled Pork, Brisket and Chicken. With the platter I upgraded for $2.49 and added a drink and side. For the side I ordered the jalapeño corn bread. Here is the break down of the platter; the pulled pork was good and had a good smoke to it, it was not dry and pulled apart easily. The chicken I have to say that I did not care for. The skin was seasoned but there was no flavor beyond the skin. The only way to season poultry is inject it, brine it, marinate it, smoke it or get a rub under the skin and unfortunately that was not done on this particular piece. So I would pass on the chicken next time. However, the ribs were good, had great texture with the right amount of sauce. As for the brisket, I have to say that something was wrong. The slice of the brisket was falling apart. It would have appeared to have been over done (not dry) and that particular piece had little smoke to it. However, hats off to the pit master as the brisket is the hardest cut of meat to prepare and I chalk my piece up to just getting a poor part of the brisket. Here is the good news they do not soak there meat in BBQ sauce, the sauce is at your table for you to decide what sauce you like and how much you want (this is unlike other establishments in the area). If you are a BBQ fan you know that in doing this it allows you to taste the smoke and get an idea of the texture of the meat. The sauce that were present at the table were a Redline sauce packed with brown sugar, a white sauce (Carolina style) vinegar base sauce and what they refer to as Texas Sauce which would appear to be their tomato base sauce. I have my own opinion on the sauces I will leave that up to you to choose which you prefer. Oh yea, the cornbread was awesome some of the best I have had. I could have eaten a sheet of it. 4 STARS (if not for the chicken and poor piece of brisket would have been 4.5)
Service: Wow. I actually was very impressed with the service at this establishment. With them still going through that new restaurant rush, they had plenty of staff and worked extremely hard to take orders in quickly and still tend to the needs of the tables. These waitresses deserve much credit for the entire experience; they were friendly and even with the line to the door came to our table three separate times. I think that all the other places we have been so far should send their staff to The Redline for training. 4.5 STARS HANDS DOWN
OVERALL 4.25 STARS
***Please note*** BBQ is not like preparing food in a standard kitchen, is not for the faint of heart and is much harder than standard cooking and takes a lot of skill to do it correctly. Also keep in mind at the time we went to Redline, they were new and going through the new opening blitz. Once again hats off to the PITMASTER who obviously knows his BBQ and thanks for a great experience.
FBB
We went to a barbeque place and I had Mac-n-cheese. It was good, and made with real cheese (you could see the grease). It was magically delicious.
-vertically challenged-
I went to the Redline this past weekend, and ordered the Pulled Pork Nachos. Having had a similiar dish at Brewster's in Kalamazoo I was pretty excited to try them. I was VERY DISAPPOINTED. There was no originality to them at all. They were good chips with pulled pork on them. They then covered the entire dish with processed Nacho Cheese that had jalapeno's in it. It was way to hot (and being mexican I have a high tolerance for heat), and the cheese was some of the worse I have ever had. I was over-cooked and was more of a mountain of jello than a sauce. Yeah, not good. My wife went with me and had a pulled pork sandwich. Again, not their best effort. The "pulled pork" should be pulled, but hers was more like 3 HUGE chunks of meat on a bun...someone forgot to pull it!! This being her first experience she was not impressed and probably will not go back. It seems as though they have started to get lazy in their prep, and execution which is sad. They have some very good food, but need to stay focused on getting it to the customer the right way.
ReplyDelete