Dining Out: SmoQue Shack satisfies barbecue cravings

At both visits, orders took a little longer to hit our table than we expected, even if the slow-cooked brisket, chicken, ribs and pulled pork had been prepared in advance and needed just some reheating on the grill and supplementary saucing. Meanwhile, some of the craft beers on offer made the waiting more pleasant.

Perhaps real-time prep for the side dishes was to blame for the wait. Those sides were good enough to make us forget our impatience. Fries and sweet potato fries arrived hot, crisp and assertively seasoned. Cornbread was warm, and not overly sweet. Beans were soft and delicious. Mashed potatoes were smooth without being gluey. Just-cooked greens had their bitterness tempered by stock and bits of pork, and were a fine reset for our palates inundated with all the fat, sugar and spice of the meats.

Sweet potato fries at SmoQue Shack

Fries at Smoque Shack

Mashed potatoes at Smoque Shack

Corn bread and beans at Smoque Shack

Greens at Smoque Shack

Of course, the eatery is the SmoQue Shack, not the Sides Shack, so on to the meat of the matter.

I was most impressed by jerk chicken and cubes of jerk pork, which delivered waves of mouth-warming, tingle-inducing, smoky flavour that did the Caribbean proud. Neither meat would have won prizes for succulence, but then again, neither would the jerk pork or chicken that I’ve had in Jamaica.  

A slab of pork ribs, jerk chicken and cubes of jerk pork at SmoQue Shack

Ribs, whether baby back and porky or massive and beefy, were not as potently flavoured as the jerk items. Still, in terms of taste, were much better than run-of-the-mill ribs around town. Beef ribs, rubbed with spice and mustard and slathered with a punchy, coffee-bolstered sauce, had a good balanced kick and long-lasting flavour. The less-spicy baby back pork ribs were glazed with a honey-chipotle sauce that admirably balanced sweetness and heat.

Beef ribs at Smoque Shack

Mind you, the sauces, sometimes too heavily applied, could also overshadow the meaty flavours of the ribs themselves. And when the ribs were lacking in the tenderness, that was still clear, even if we were happily licking our fingers. In the end, I’d say that the ribs were sufficiently tender, but not as sublime texturally as ribs at their best can be.

But then, textural dissatisfactions — that is, ribs that are a little dry and tough or overcooked and mushy — are too easy to come by at any restaurant that must cope with how to reheat a quarter-, half- or full rack before serving it.

Beef brisket came in as a big chunk and was soft and yielding, almost as if it had been braised, whereas more often barbecue joints serve brisket slices and, if you’re lucky, chunks of charred “burnt ends” from the fattier parts of the brisket. I’m not saying that the brisket wasn’t tasty. It just wasn’t the brisket that would be de rigeur in Texas, the home of great brisket, even if SmoQue Shack’s menu calls it “Texas style.”

Beef ribs, brisket and barbecue chicken at Smoque Shack

Pulled pork was moist, nicely flavoured and well-sauced. A bit of the super-seasoned exterior “bark” from the pork shoulder would have kicked the sample up another notch and bestowed some barbecue cred.

Pulled pork at Smoque Shack

Of several desserts, I’ve tried only SmoQue Shack’s hot chocolate cake topped by vanilla ice cream, served in a Mason jar. This kind of indulgent dessert is pretty ubiquitous, and the SmoQue Shack’s well-made rendition shows why. It was a fine meal-ender that squelched the residual heat in our mouths.

SmoQue Shack’s hot chocolate cake topped by vanilla ice cream, served in a Mason jar