L.A. Brisket
2930 Bristol Street
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
Nothing quite gets my feet moving out from behind this computer faster than barbecue. I can hear about a new pizza place opening, or maybe even a burger joint, and I'll put it on my restaurant list, and it'll sit there for awhile. I do the same thing about barbecue, but something gets me thinking about it, and actually finding reasons to be nearby so I can give it a try. This is what happened when my good friend Ed came to town a few weeks ago and wanted to meet up for dinner. We decided to give LA Brisket a try.
LA Brisket is located at the always busy Lab Anti-Mall on Bristol in Costa Mesa. Meeting Ed on a Friday evening at 7, it was definitely a challenge getting a parking spot. I ended up utilizing the valet, while Ed got lucky and pulled into an open spot near the back of the lot. LA Brisket is situated right near the driveway where you enter, and this is their second location, with the original being in Artesia.
The focus at LA Brisket is of course on brisket, but they also offer chicken, pulled pork, and pork ribs. There are no combo plates available, although you can order these meats by the pound and they will come with sliced white bread and bbq sauce. There are also bowls, a version of loaded fries, and a handful of sides available, but it seems that their main focus is on their sandwiches. There are 6 to choose from, all named after Southland Freeways, and with the exception of the 405, which is a buck more, are priced at $11.
Ordering is done at the register right next to the front door, and then you wait for your food in the dining area, which has about twenty or so tables, hanging lighting, and a self-serve soda machine. When we walked in at 7, we were one of two tables occupied, but as the evening went along, the tables did fill up, but it was never what I'd consider overly crowded. I have it on good authority that they smoke their meats on the premises, but the smoker is not within eyesight, and the overwhelming smoke smell that you'd expect was not really present on this evening. It took us about five to eight minutes for our food to arrive, and this is how it turned out for us.
Let's start things off with Ed's meal on this evening, the Chicken Bowl ($10). Ed has always been a little odd, so it wasn't a shock to me to see him order a chicken and rice bowl in a barbecue restaurant. Joining the dark and white meat bird and garlic infused rice in this was some of their LA Slaw, which added a slight tinge of vinegar to it. I'm not sure I saw Ed use the green sauce which comes with this, and I'm not even sure what that green sauce was. Ed felt this was a pretty good dish. The chicken was tender and flavorful, with a slight pepperiness. The garlic rice and the slaw made this a nicely balanced bowl.
Loaded Fries ($11) are always a favorite of mine when I see them, so I had to give them a try at LA Brisket. Here you have your choice of having these with chicken, pork, or the protein we tried, their famous brisket. Also topping the sturdy fries was some of their slaw, caramelized onions, mushrooms, parsley, a blue cheese sauce, and finished off with a generous dusting of parmesan cheese. This worked well for me. The blue cheese had just the right bite to it where it did not overwhelm. The brisket was tender, but with everything else going on around it, it was hard to get a feel for if it was good or not. The fries remained crisp during the whole life of this starter, and the parmesan was a nice touch which finished this off. I'd get this again for sure.
Okay, I did something that I had never done before in eight-plus years of writing this blog, I ate my meal before taking a picture of it. It couldn't have been the conversation because Ed is not that interesting. It must have been that I was really hungry or something else. Anyways, I had to go back and buy another sandwich and bring it home to my house. As I said earlier, at LA Brisket they offer six different freeway inspired sandwiches, and the one I pictured here is the 101 ($11). This one comes with garlic aioli, mustard sauce, slaw, caramelized onion, and gruyere cheese. As you can see from the pictures, most of these items are not very prominent. They were in there, but because of the way the sandwich was constructed, it was hard to get everything in one bite. Everything was very compartmentalized with this sandwich. They were also very stingy with the aioli and the mustard sauce. I would have appreciated a heavier hand with these condiments. The brisket itself was pretty good, and they supplied plenty on this sandwich. It had a nice smokiness to it but could have been a tad more tender. The bread was excellent, with a very nice crunch to it, and held its structural integrity. Again, if the menu had not alerted me to the fact that there was cheese on this, I never would have known.
I had really wanted to love LA Brisket, especially after I had read a few critics rave about these sandwiches, but I left a little disappointed. It was not awful, but it was kind of like Christmas morning when you have your heart set on an Atari 2600, and your parents end up getting you a Pong video game. Yes, I'm showing my age a bit here. My point is I was left disappointed in both cases. I'll definitely give them another chance and maybe ask for extra aioli or sauce on the side next time. I'd also be interested in their pork ribs and pulled pork too. Everyone that I encountered on both of my visits has been really nice and pleasant, except for of course my cantankerous friend Ed, but I've known him for over 40 years, so I guess I'm stuck with him.
Out of five night-vision goggles, (because the land that now occupies the LAB retail complex used to be home to a night vision goggle factory more than 20 years ago), five being best to zero being worst, LA Brisket gets 2.5 night-vision goggles.
For more information about LA Brisket, but no location info, head to their website here: http://labrisket.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment