Ribbets

I got obsessed with going to Ribbetts one day when Mr W., mentioned it was one of the best places he had been to for a buffet in Brisbane and that we should go there together one day. So I did what any earnest food loving girl would do I went, without him, with my work friends. We were all delighted that it was so close to work as well so it was an easy drive. Z., Lu., and E., came along to try out Ribbetts.

The restaurant is directly across from the Dutton Park Police Station/Boggo Road gaol. If you're lucky you'll get a park in their very small parking lot, otherwise you'll have to risk Dutton Park's 2P zone!

Spot this from Gladstone/Annerly road!

When we went here they had this little toaster oven with free samples. I was super suspicious of it because the restaurant isn't located in a terribly busy street or road. How long had the samples been there? Why were they free? If I grabbed a sample, why do I get the feeling that a net would drop down on me and trap me? These were some of the odd thoughts going through my brain when I saw it.

It's a trap!

Their all you can eat requirements are pretty annoying, you have to call or book online to get a reservation, you have to pay at the beginning, it's one bill only but they begrudgingly allowed us to pay separately and it's a 90 minute time limit of eating. Here is their all you can eat menu.

We helped ourselves to these cups of water with lumps of ice at the bottle. Interesting.

Interesting

As soon as we sat down we were offered some freshly cooked cheese and garlic bread which we accepted and began to burn our mouths on. Except for me because I'm a grilled cheese pro who only gets burnt when I put in tomato, which I never do because molten tomato is a rookie error. I think its made out of pizza dough but its still delicious either way.

Cheese and bread is a match made in heaven

We started ordering straight away. It seems like there are lots of different amounts that you can order from snack sized servings for one, to a group size or family sized but this was quite unclear. When they explained to us, they basically said order whatever you want and we'll make it. I really wanted to just try anything and everything but didn't want to waste food so if I had known this initially I'd have been a lot happier.

These are the Hellfire chicken wings, they're coated in a tomato sauce and copious amounts of chili flakes that are pretty mild, truth be told. The meat was very tender and had a slightly charry flavour to them which I enjoyed.

Not bad!

We got two platters of their five hour slow cooked, then grilled to perfection pork ribs coated in their famous barbeque sauce. It was honestly one of the best ribs I've had, especially if you love tender, falling off the bone meat and a finger licking sauce that is balanced, sweet, fruity and tangy. They were super meaty ribs and I really enjoyed eating them. I'd gladly go here again for the ribs alone. We nearly filled up on ribs alone!

Highly recommended

Z., got a garden salad to help green things up, it consisted of tomato, lettuce, cucumber and a satchet of Heinz Italian style salad dressing. I didn't have any as I was too busy eating ribs.

Salad is for chumps!

I got the barbecue all meat pizza which was the family size pizza. At this point I still had no idea what size the pizzas were but I confirmed that this was to share so we got it cut into six pieces. The base was light, thick, think deep pan crunchy crust with fluffy interior, there only a small amount of sauce and there was a good amount of pepperoni, bacon and ham pieces. We were struggling a bit at this stage and had slowed down quite a bit. Not that it mattered because there was almost an hour gap between this pizza and the following dishes.

Tasty!

I got the bacon carbonara with fettuccine, this was a portion for one and would've just been over a cup worth of pasta and sauce. We all found the pasta sauce very cheesy and creamy, but also quite sweet from the sheer amount of onion in the sauce. The pasta was a tricoloured fettuccine that was quite good, a nice al dente texture that's for sure.

We had to remind our waitress twice about these onion rings, several tables around us had gotten seated and served food before we received them. We started eating them as soon as they got there, so that's why the portion sizing is abysmally small, there were actually twice that many in the bowl. It looks a touch greasy at the bottom but they were delicious! Golden brown, well crumbed and had a lovely sweetness from the onions.

Pretend there's more there

This Hawaiian pizza was in the tuckshop size and was the last thing we ordered to try. This was only four pieces and was about the 10cm in diamater. If I had realised that there was a size this small, I'd have ordered multiple tiny pizzas to try them! I always find that Hawaiian style pizzas are always good, you can't go wrong with the simplicity of ham and pineapple!

Classic

Ribbetts:
Atmosphere: 4, a dreadfully small converted Queenslander house turned dining room. I don't think the place could legally sit more than 20 people and that would only be if everyone was touching. If you put your chair too far back, you'd become a fire hazard cause no one could leave the premises if there was a fire. God forbid you bought a pram in there. There are stainless steel tables and chairs, and its quite an unappealing look.
Service: 3, absolutely abysmal. We had to remind multiple wait staff about our orders after the garden salad was the last to arrive, they stopped asking us if we wanted any more food after the salad arrived too, we had to get our own water on multiple occasions when the waitress forget, had to ask to get additional plates and bones taken away, we were given really disgusted looks when we asked for more food and they seemed stingy on information in general. I got the impression that I was being judged for wanting to eat more food. 
Food: 6.5, solid 80s style Aussie food where Italian and Chinese food was exotic and weird food combinations were king, especially with the weird chicken and banana pizza. I'd go here again for the solid pizzas and ribs. 

Viet style sticky ribs

Every now and again, I get obsessed with making something and this time it was sticky, slow cooked ribs. It coincided nicely with the factor that my butcher was selling Angus ribs for $3/kg. I based the recipe off this one from Not Quite Nigella. I added a few other bits and pieces to the recipe, mostly I've added cinnamon and more star anise so it smells more like pho!

I've made this recipe many, many times over the last few weeks. In total five times at the time of writing. Ribs night is now a big deal at work because news has spread that I do bloody good ribs. Manda and Dani,, both say that they would either marry me or request it as their last meal. I also spam my Instagram with pictures of my ribs in various states of cooking.

I usually can only afford super cheap ribs, they're not the American style ribs you imagine when you get ribs. These are literally chunks of meat, fat and gristle with a bit of bone shoved it, as you imagine its still pretty delicious but its not real rib meat. One day I'll get real ribs, but for now, cheapo $3 ribs are much better than $20/kg ribs.

For marinade times, the minimal is about two hours and the longest time I've ever done it is over two days. Basically the more you want it to be delicious, the more effort you put in. Every hour give the box a shake, or mix the pieces around. Otherwise do the easy marinade option, two hours, flip the box, another two hours, flip again. If you are efficient, flat packed bags are great or I just put my ribs in my largest cake container and shake like a maniac every time I open the fridge. That's the kind of love I have for my food.

Ingredients:
2-3kg of beef ribs,
1 cup of dark soy sauce
1 cup of soy sauce
1 cup of brown sugar
2 large limes/lemons juice, and rinds thrown into the marinade
6 cloves of garlic, skins removed and smashed
7 pieces of star anise
1 large piece of cinnamon bark
2 inches worth of ginger
1 large onion, cut in half
Water to top!
A large 6L slow cooker!

Optional:
As many hot red chilies as you can stand
1 tablespoon of sesame oil
1 tablespoon of rice wine
Extra 1 cup of sugar for sauce

Sans optional ingredients

1. Make the marinade. Literally mix everything up, dissolve the brown sugar in the sauces, smash up your garlic, cut your onion in half, squeeze your limes/lemons and give it a good mix.

2. Put your ribs on top. Marinade for as long as you can stand.

Yay!

You can top up with water if you want to be lazy

3. Separate your sauce and spices into your slow cooker. Seal off the ribs if you want, or don't. It just adds more colour to it.

So pretty

4. Chuck everything into your slow cooker, the ribs, spices, marinade and put in extra water or the leftover sauce from the last time you made ribs. Just remove the lemon/lime halves. Cook for either four hours on high or eight hours on low.

5. Allow to cool overnight if desired so the fat is easier to scoop off. Separate the meat and the sauce.

6. Boil one cup of the sauce down with a cup of brown sugar to make a sticky glaze you can coat the meat in and serve with whatever you want. Favourites of the girls at work include cheap Woolies/Coles brand pasta/potato salad, a fresh salad, good bread and butter, steamed white rice and potato bakes.

The Smoke BBQ

One day, Dr S., and JGirl felt like some ribs so they called me. Then because I gave them so many recommendations and strongly hinted that I would like to come along, I got invited. VGirl was at my house at the time, studying for her exam and she was annoyed that she didn't get asked, so she called JGirl to complain. So before I knew it, we all went to eat ribs!

We got a free basket of jalapeno cornbread with a side of honey butter. The cornbread was a touch dry, but with a lovely golden brown crust and cool to touch, so it didn't soak as much butter as you usually get. It was free, so I guess I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Here is their menu!

Ehh

You're wondering how VGirl got to eat ribs right? Since she's a dirty vegetarian and all. She didn't she was coming along for the company since she had already eaten and wanted to "study". She ordered herself a long island iced tea since I was driving and was ecstatic as she has been the designated driver and the only manual car driver out of her group of friends since she got her P plates. For a snack, she ordered side of potato chips which came with a massive dish of ranch dressing that I kept trying to steal.

Studying? With a drink in hand.

I ordered a side of buffalo wings. They weren't crispy as detailed in the description, instead they were tender and smoky with a thin coating of spicy and vinegary sauce. They came with a side of blue cheese dressing that was quite mild. We ordered way too much food and barely finished this.

This stuff!

 JGirl, Dr S., and myself decided to split the signature rib combo, texas beef ribs, bourbon lamb ribs and thick cut pork ribs with fries and a side of coleslaw. We split the ribs into thirds and were heartily stuffed by the end of it. Luckily for us, we all had a distinct favourite, mine was the pork, JGirl's was the lamb and Dr S., was the beef.

Not the prettiest side

My personal favourite as I said was the thick cut pork ribs, I found them sweetly smoky, with a great flavour from whatever spice rub they used and not as dry thanks to the huge amounts of rich, thick, BBQ sauce they slathered on over the ribs. The pork ribs had the largest amount of meat on them as well and were very fatty and super meaty ribs.

Better

The beef ribs were my second favourite, they were less meaty but really tender but not to the stage where it was easy for us to separate the bone. It did require a bit of knife action to remove them. The sauce on the ribs was a lot less heavy, quite mild and creamy.

Best?

The lamb ribs were the ones with the thinnest amount of meat but also the crunchiest as well as more intensely flavour. The fat had rendered off quite nicely but there was a crispy/crackly texture to the meat especially on the more exposed meat towards the end of the bone which I didn't like. Everyone enjoyed the fries and we were clashing over who got to eat the coleslaw since we had to cut through the super meatiness of everything we were eating.

The Smoke BBQ
Atmosphere: 5, we sat outside in the cold on the pavement. Not my favourite of experiences that's for sure. The interior was deserted but since we were on the first seating, we were sat outside. 
Service: 5, despite getting a booking we sat outside under the fluorescent lights. I don't remember anything else other than wishing we had been sitting inside for the meal.
Food: 6, the food is okay. I couldn't imagine finishing that much food by myself, so it was actually quite a good price for us girls to share. I would probably go back here unless I found a better ribs place in Brisbane.

Ribs and Burgers

E., just started at work and we discovered that we had the same birthday, so of course we became friends really quickly. We had nights together not soon after we found this out so we decided to go out for dinner. I heard that a new ribs and burgers place had opened up in the Valley or thereabouts so off we went!

They are located near the Newstead Centro Cinemas, right across from where ChowHouse is located. It's very easy to locate and the parking is easy too since its in the main James Street area. The sign is one of those giant neon signs so its a bit difficult to photograph.

I was taking photos around the restaurant, hopefully discretely but there are some random people in them, like the waiter who unfortunately turned around.

Awkssssssss, I just wanted a picture of the bar set up!

We decided to sit a bit outside on table 2 and while we were waiting, I went around the restaurant for more photos. The weird metal teapot had a bottle of barbecue sauce as well as their pink sauce, metal knives, metal forks and napkins. Just randomly, here is their menu!

Odd teapot?

Its a very industrial looking set up with exposed pipework everywhere. I quite liked its appearance though as did E., They also had a lot of spill over from the kitchen where you can see those cans on the far left. There's also a sink there to wash your hands post ribs.

Hmm

Another shot

We decided to split the best of both meal, your choice of ribs, one side and two sliders, a chicken and a beef one. So we decided to get pork riblets, the two sliders and decided to have the cabbage salad to be "healthy". The pork riblets were pretty tender, enough so that the meat was easily parted from the bone but not shake off the flesh good. They were pretty plain aside from that. 

The beef slider had a tomato, lettuce and onion salad with some of the pink sauce slathered on it, a tangy tomato/mayo sauce combination I think. The chicken slider was a chunk of chicken breast with the same salad accompaniments. E., was pretty happy that the chicken was real chicken not like the crumbed mince they tend to use in Ireland. 

The cabbage salad was quite tasty, white and purple cabbage, roasted pine nuts, onion, parsley and mint for some added freshness along with the lemon dressing. It was a super fresh salad, full of crunchy texture and bright and refreshing flavours with the mint and parsley. We finished pretty quickly as we had a bite every other mouthful to counter all the meat we were consuming.

We got a side of chicken wings in original barbecue sauce which turned out to be THE blurriest photo I've ever taken. For some reason, I thought this was a great photo at the time, now, not so much so. There were a total of six wing pieces, that included the midwing and drumstick piece. They got served with an awesome ranch dipping sauce that I was using for everything. While described as crispy, they were pretty tender/soft like they had been oven roasted. They were very tender chicken wings and we both enjoyed them a great deal.

Ribs and Burgers:
Atmosphere: 6, industrial and open air little eatery, thankfully they have lots of those massive outdoor heaters everywhere to warm you up.
Service: 6, yeah a bit scattered but not bad, friendly service and quick to clear our table.
Food: 5.5, the wings were solid. It was a bit pricey considering what you got and the both of us agreed that we probably wouldn't go back there again.



I got contacted about promoting the James Street Food and Wine Trail, currently in its 3rd year and running from the 31st of July to the 3rd of August. Read the media release below and if you're keen I'll see you there! I'll keep updating this and posting it to the bottom of my posts until the day of the event :)