Welcome to Brown on the Towne, the illegitimate, bastard brain child of two friends who enjoy their eats and surroundings. We are Homer and Jordan. Our mission is to document our experience of ethnic eateries in the Omaha area. We do not claim to be politically, mathematically or chemically correct.

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Monday, January 17, 2011

Beyond BBQ (46th and Dodge)

Let me be straight with you, I really don't consider myself an expert on any of this, as I hope you would understand from reading my musings. I just like food. I don't consider myself a "foodie" or "gastronome". There's just something about those labels that oozes "pretentious".

I do consider myself "hungry" from time to time.

So, it was a Tuesday. And I felt like getting some barbecue.

Omaha has quite a few good barbecue places... at least in my opinion. Jim's Rib Haven, the recently closed Amarillo, Bill's Barbecue and Hartland are a few that I like. A new place opened not too far from home called Beyond BBQ.

Some friends informed me of a peculiar quality of Beyond BBQ: besides the expected ribs, brisket and pulled pork options, BBBQ has ASIAN FOOD. (Here is where I would like to insert the sound of needle scraping across a record - like this - it's late and I decided I'm too lazy to download and embed the sound, so just click on the link) And not just any Asian food, possibly Filipino food. This piqued my interest. I love BBQ and I drive by this place everyday, but now I MUST try it.

My primary mission was to ascertain whether or not this Asian food was, indeed, Filipino food.
Here's an excerpt of a twitter conversation between a friend and I as she found out I was at BBBQ. Great minds think alike. (you can follow me @Midtown_Brown if you're feeling saucy):
Me: Checking out Beyond BBQ in midtown.

Friend: @Midtown_Brown You *have* to try the egg rolls there. Yum!

Me: I did! FYI they are Filipino lumpia! Score.

Friend: @Midtown_Brown Oh, and you *must* try the pork kabobs sometime. OMG. Delish.

Me: I did that too! Fantastic!
Again, I was "hungry". Not only did I try Asian Platter #3 for pork kabobs, as suggested by my friends, I ordered egg rolls (or what we call "lumpia" in the Philippines), some wings AND a half rack of ribs.

Remember - "hungry".

And no, I did not finish everything. Just had to try it all.

The rib order was the logical progression of me seeing the BBQ sauce offerings at this place. Lots of vinegar based sauces and even a mustard based sauce. Nice! Most places around here serve up a KC style, thick, gloppy sauce that, to tell you the truth, gets old after a while.

Logic:
- I see sauce.
- I want to try sauce.
- In order to try sauce I must have meat.
- Order meat.
- Therefore I can try sauce.

See Homer, I still remember stuff from our philosophy class! Now, if i could make a barbecue sauce diorama... (sorry, OLD inside joke).

Bottom line: the Asian food is Filipino... maybe it's better to say Filipino-ish. The lumpia and pork kabobs are really good, but only represent a tiny portion of the Filipino food spectrum. Check out the Philippines episode of No Reservations for a good run down. Now if only this place started serving lechon...

The ribs were pretty good. Not the best I've had, but there's potential. Better than average for sure. It's a new place, so I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt. The sauce selection was a nice surprise, and the sauce quality was really good. Very refreshing to have some vinegar and mustard based choices.

The place is run by a husband and wife team, and they are very nice. The husband is a jovial fellow, and I get the feeling he really wants to make good barbecue. The wife is from my parents' home town back in the Philippines and she treated me just like a family member, complete with the encouragement to eat more and constant prodding to become a doctor or engineer...

So, give the place a shot if you have the opportunity. Pricing is good and what you would expect for a BBQ joint. The Filipino-ish stuff can be had at around $6 bucks a platter. Not bad. Let us know what you think. Leave a comment or email us some suggestions of places too.

Check back for more. There might even be more tonight, stupid insomnia.

Later gators.

- J

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The extra "B" is for "BYOBB".
Guys, where's the RSS feed for this blog?