BBQ Restaurant Review: Dixie's Smokehouse (King's Park, NY)

Hey there kids. It's been a looooong time. Too long. So long that I had even forgotten that this blog existed. Until last night when a Twitter buddy reminded me about it. I still love the idea of a collaborative blog about all things food and booze. What you ate and drank, where you ate and drank them. Stuff like that. And since I recently decided that 2014 will be my "Year of BBQ", I figured I would get back into the game with a review of the first new BBQ joint that we hit up this past weekend. Dixie's Smokehouse in King's Park, NY.

Situated, oddly, in a busy strip mall right off of the Long Island Rail Road, Dixie's is a actually a comfortable little spot amidst that kind of crazy. They offer attractive (for the setting) outside seating, but since it was just in the mid-60's we decided to head inside. We got there for a super-early Saturday dinner at 4:15PM, so we were pretty much the only people in the joint at that time. We were there so early, that old people just started showing up as we were leaving. They looked confused. Like they couldn't understand why anyone without an AARP card could possibly want to eat that early. Yeah...it's not normally our bag. But we had been researching local BBQ all day and we were starving because of it. So that's that.

The interior was clean and attractive, and had a great smoke aroma lingering in the air. So you know they actually smoked their meats right on premise. Something they reminded you of all over the walls and menus. Good. Be proud, on-premise smokers! We started with ordering some beverages, and herein lies my only real complaint with the joint. If you run something you call and "authentic BBQ" joint, try just a little bit to have a reasonable cocktail/beer list. They had zero in the way of craft beers and even less in the way of geographic appropriate offerings. This is a Texas-style BBQ, but no Lone Star or Shiner to be found, not even PBR in a can. Nada. Went with a plain old Budweiser because I had to have a beer with my BBQ. I'm not a fucking barbarian. For what it's worth, Gia went with a margarita and she said it was delicious. But I still feel that they could greatly improve the joint with just the smallest of efforts in the booze area. By the way, this is the same problem I have with many BBQ joints on Long Island. They put all their efforts into the food and nothing into the bar. It's like they don't even know who I am anymore...

For appetizers, we went with the Burnt Ends, burnt ends of smoked brisket over Texas Toast, and Over the Top Nachos with chili. When the food arrived, we immediately saw that we ordered too much. Our waitress realized it as well. She let us know halfway through our apps that she hadn't even put in our entree yet because it looked like we were going to take our time. We did...slow and steady. Still didn't finish either app because we wanted to save room for ribs. But both were delicious! The Burnt Ends were incredible flavorful and a great way to try a joint's brisket. The nachos truly were over the top. Biggest complaint with nachos is that the toppings sometime make the nachos a soggy mess. Not so with these. Crispy, delicious nachos and toppings all around. Well done.

Baby backs top left, St. Louis top right, Beef below

For our entree, we shared a Three Rib Combo platter. Half-racks of St. Louis and Baby Back ribs and one huge beef rib. We ordered it with steak fries and macaroni and cheese. Had the choice of ordering the ribs dry or glazed with their Texas sauce. We went with glazed. They were all delicious. Smoky, juicy, spicy and a little sweet. The surprise for both of us was the gigantic beef rib. It was really, really good. Again, we couldn't finish it all, so we took about half the platter home with us. Later that night, as a midnight snack, I chopped up the fries and the remaining beef rib to make a quick beef hash. That was really delicious as well. Except that I didn't listen to my gut and augment with a sunnyside egg on top. Sigh. You live...you learn.

Missing: sunnyside egg

Overall, a very positive experience and a restaurant that we would be willing to return to. Especially if they do a little something about their bar offerings.

Official Rating: 3.5 gnawed rib bones out of 5