If all you ever eat is wonderful top-tier barbecue, you wind up with a skewed notion of what the food should be like. I’m in this lucky position because I did not grow up in a place like Texas, Tennessee, the Carolinas, or Missouri where I would have access to all sorts of BBQ places of varying quality, so well known that they are the local culinary touchstones.
To get a control group BBQ place in for Kansas-City style, I’m going to a relatively unsung BBQ restaurant in the general region of St Louis airport. This one’s called Bandana BBQ. It’s well enough rated on Yelp that it won’t be distractingly bad, but it makes no lists of the best places to eat. Should be a nice middle-of-the road BBQ experience.
The interior of this place is like a typical dive bar, but better lit and with no music playing. Dive bars are generally more pleasant the less you can see and hear what’s going on inside, so this is not a point in its favor. The room tone is just dads chortling at each other.
I ordered a pork plate with an added rib. Each rib you add is $2.50. This won’t be the last you see of the single Kansas-City rib portion.
The rib was the best part. It was a Texas-style dry rub rib. Hands down the worst Texas-style rib I have ever eaten, but that’s not quite fair given that I’ve only eaten them at great places like Franklin and Jack’s. The relative quality was something like, if you could order a rib at Red Robin.
The pork was chopped and was split into two different kinds of pork. One was interior meat, the other was cubed and included charred surfaces. Maybe that’s what burnt ends are? In terms of tenderness, it was somewhere between a fried pork chop and pulled pork as I know it.
The sides are pit beans and potato salad. I don’t know what makes pit beans pit beans. I think they’re supposed to taste smoked. Those sides are unremarkable. What IS remarkable is that this dish comes with two pieces of garlic bread that are comparable in size to a pair of my slippers. Or “flip flops” if you’re from the continental US.
Overall, it was tolerable. 3 out of 5. Right next to the airport, so if you want some slightly-better-than-food-court BBQ and you are a pilot/flight crew stuck in a hotel next to STL, maybe this is your spot! As for me, I’m feeling pretty calibrated and ready to go to the real KC BBQ spot… sooon.