Red's True Barbecue

A late Sunday night and Monday off called for a top quality meat intake. Red's True Barbecue was the restaurant of choice. Having visited a couple of times before it's often required a long wait on arrival as it's always busy. So we hoped a mid-Monday afternoon may be a different story. 

Luckily we were correct as even our reasonably sized group were seated straight away without a booking. 

Red's True Barbecue continues to open in new locations and can now be found in Headingley, Leeds, Nottingham and of course Manchester. 

Red's True Barbecue

The Manchester restaurant can be found right on the corner of Albert Square. It's therefore surrounded by other popular bars and restaurants, so Red's were obviously confident of their product by selecting this location. They were right to do so though as Red's is almost always full, meaning you can have a couple of hours to wait for a table sometimes. 

Over the door on the corner of the building is the neon sign of "Red's True Barbecue," and on the walls within the porch are hands praying for meat. 

Pray for meat

As soon as you walk in the door, before noticing anything else, the smell of barbecue will hit you! I'm not sure if they vent the extract fans from the kitchen over the door or something but the smoky, barbecue smell is fantastic. I can't remember any restaurant where the smell has such a positive effect as this. 

As the waitress leads you to your table she'll likely lead you past the open kitchen where you can see the barbecuing in progress. Chefs pulling apart racks of ribs which have been cooked and smoked for hours, while another will be mopping other meats with barbecue sauce. 

The rest of the restaurant is a mix of brushed steels, colourful neon signs and church like symbols. Under the kitchen partition logs are stacked for the grills and smokers. 

Fuel for the fires and the open kitchens

"The Good Book"

"I believe"

The bar is a colourful display covered in chicken wire. 

Bar

As we sat at our table the waiter left us with the "good book" (menu) to look over. You may need some time to make your choice in Red's as the menu is very extensive (You can read their "good book" HERE). 

"The Good Book"

The Ten Commandments

If you decide before the rest of your party then it gives you chance to try the 5 different barbecue sauces in the middle of the table. 

1. Triple 6 hot sauce - from 5 types of chilli
2. South Carolina BBQ - a mustard based sauce with spicy kick
3. North Carolina BBQ - a vinegar based sauce
4. Judas Ketchup - their own made tomato like BBQ sauce
5. Kansas City BBQ - a sweet & smokey barbecue sauce

Barbecue Sauces

As the names of the sauces suggest, their barbecue is based on some of the most famous barbecue towns in the USA. This is why almost every American style barbecue item can be found on the menu, from pulled pork, barbecue ribs of various varieties, burgers, chicken, you consider it barbecue and it's probably on the menu. 

You can sample quite a lot of the menu with their wide selection of starters. Ribs tasters, burnt ends, BBQ chicken wings etc. Or there are other great American favourites such as macaroni and cheese. 

On this visit I decided to try their "swine fries." Sweet potato fries, topped with pulled pork, cheese, sour cream, onions, jalapeños, and salsa. 

Having not tried these before I was apprehensive about having fries as a starter, but I wasn't having fries as a side with my main so figured why not. The fries were excellent, nice and crispy but I had to dig to find them. They were lost under mounds of sour cream, and huge chunks of pulled pork! 

Swine Fries - £6.95

The pulled pork was easy to pull apart and combined with the fries, salsa and sour cream tasted incredible. Toppings you'd normally find on nachos were even better on sweet potato fries! 

Then it was on to the mains. 

Red's True Barbecue burger creations are famous for including extra barbecue in the form of steak, or replacing the traditional bread buns with doughnuts or waffles. 

My partner ordered their "Sleepy James," a southern fried chicken breast, topped with bacon, lettuce, burger cheese, and ranch dressing all between a couple of waffles. 

The Sleepy James - £14.40

As you can imagine they also offer pulled pork sandwiches, steaks of all varieties, barbecue sandwiches, brisket etc. 

The Meat Memoirs were here for some proper barbecue on this particular day and needed to try their ribs. In previous visits there had always been one of the 3 types of ribs sold out. Luckily as it was quieter this time they were all in stock so I jumped at the chance to try them all. 

Red's offer up 3 types of barbecue ribs. You can try a small sample of their pork ribs as a starter but we wanted a proper portion. There's the choice of Kansas City wet style pork ribs, Memphis dry rub pork ribs, and huge beef long beef ribs. To try them all, they offer a "bucket o' bones," and seen as they were all available on this visit I opted to try take that down alone. 

All the mains in Red's True Barbecue are offered with either 2 "humble" sides (e.g, fries, onion rings etc.) or 1 "divine" side, such as mac & cheese, grilled cheese on toast, bbq beans, bbq corn on the cob, or sweet potato fries. 

To side my bucket of ribs I choose the grilled cheese on toast. 

Grilled Cheese on Toast side - £2.95 or included with a main

Not long after the starters had been cleared the mains arrived. The bucket of ribs didn't look too overwhelming to begin with. A combination of small racks of ribs could be seen from the top of the bucket which didn't look too much to finish. I therefore took a bite of the side of grilled cheese on toast first. Huge, doorstop thick sized slices of fresh bread were topped with a thick layer of melted cheddar and finished with garlic and herb butter. For simple cheese on toast these were very good. I figured I best make a start on the ribs though before I got full! 

Taking off the first small rack of ribs the meat was full of smoke flavour! 

The barbecue flavours are some of the best I've tasted. 

After the first little rack I pulled out a bone sticking vertically up one side of the bucket. It was then I realised how much I'd underestimated the challenge of finishing this bucket alone. This beef rib was one of the biggest ribs I'd ever seen. The rest of my party agreed! Taking this down was challenge enough. 

Bucket o' Bones - £23.95

Beef Long - the largest rib I've ever eaten

Throughout the bucket of ribs the barbecue flavours were outstanding. The meat was a little dry though and the ribs were perhaps a little overdone for my personal liking. The selection of barbecue sauces in the middle of the table helped to soften some of the drier ribs but I'd have preferred some of the ribs to be cooked a little less. 

The bucket of bones could easily have served 2 people, if not 3! I managed to complete it alone though, but feel sorry to say I have to take the grilled cheese side home (I finished it later, I'm not one for letting food go to waste!).

Conclusion

Red's True Barbecue brings a larger American menu to Manchester than anywhere else I'm yet to discover. The traditional tastes are fantastic and all the senses are involved when you eat at Red's. The small is better than any restaurant I've yet visited and the barbecue methods are brought through from the states to the tastes.

The portion sizes are very generous, even if you opt for a more traditional sized meal unlike me who ate what was probably a meal for 2 or 3 people! 

My criticism is that the ribs were too dry, and the barbecued exteriors too tough. The great selection of barbecue sauces helped alleviate this issue a bit but it couldn't over power some of the charcoaled edges. 

I did finish the ribs though which I wouldn't have done had they been that bad. Had they been a little softer and more moist they'd have been perfect! 

@RedsTrueBBQ

Red's True Barbecue Facebook 


Meat Rating: 7/10

Money for Meat: Paid in Full

Almost Famous

Almost Famous is often regarded as the best burger restaurant in Manchester. Their success has been huge, expanding from a single small restaurant hidden away in Manchester's Northern Quarter to running 4 hugely successful restaurants throughout the North of England (2 in Manchester, 1 in Liverpool and their latest restaurant in Leeds). 
Their increasing success isn't down to expensive or extensive advertising either. They use social media to voice themselves online and apart from that, just let the food speak for itself. The food is obviously worth shouting about as word of mouth seems to be the main method of advertising for Almost Famous, and it's keeping their restaurants full! 

Their original Manchester Northern Quarter restaurant unfortunately suffered a kitchen fire (it has since reopened if you can find it) which lead them to opening up a restaurant in the ever popular Great Northern warehouse near Deansgate. This was their first restaurant I tried almost a year ago and since then they've been my go-to restaurant for burgers. 

Outside, again, there's hardly any advertising indicating what this restaurant is. The Almost Famous name isn't visible anywhere outside. Just a neon burger with wings hangs above the front door. 

Front Door

Around the rest of the glazed building there's labelling suggesting a burger restaurant serving magical meats, but with a lot of the windows frosted over you can't see much inside, but they do give a couple of clear spaces to peer through for "cheap thrills". 

Burgers Get You Ripped

Peer here for "cheap thrills"

Magical Unicorn Meat for sale

When you walk in the process can be a little confusing at first but there's usually a member of staff just inside the door asking how many you'd like to seat and giving you an estimated waiting time. It's always busy whatever time I've been, particularly in an evening, but today's visit for the memoirs was an early Sunday afternoon visit for a burger lunch and so it was fairly quiet and we were offered a table straight away. When it's busier, the staff take a mobile phone number from you so you can wander off or spend time in the bar and they text you when your table is available. It's a great system I always thought, seen as they don't take bookings for tables, and the wait never seems to take as long as they estimate. 

Inside the room is fairly darkly lit with graffiti style drawings on the walls around the place in a "Disney-on-acid" style, giving it a different look to other clean looking restaurants. At higher level there's rules similar to those of fight club, edited to refer more to Almost Famous, and polaroid snaps of beautiful people eating dirty food. 

Bar Area

Disney on Acid

Disney on Acid

1st Rule of Almost Famous Club....

"Ninth and final rule; If this is your first time at Almost Famous club, you have to eat bacon"

We took our seats though and had a look over the relatively small menu. The menu offers a selection of 8 burgers to choose from ranging from the traditional plain cheeseburger (The Famous Burger), to burgers containing outrageous ingredients such as baconaise (bacon mayonaise) or beef Monster Munch crisps. Every now and again they bring up a special burger on the menu to order. 

Menu

For those who prefer their chicken or pork to their beef, there's an Awesome Frickin' Chicken burger or pulled pork roll to choose from. Or there's chicken wings available in each of Almost Famous' signature sauces (Redneck - BBQ, Suicide - hot sauce, or their Pho-King Amazing - Peking sauce).

The fries are a separate order and from the menu it's obvious they aren't your normal fries, with mixes of regular fries and sweet potato topped with bacon bits and baconaise, or waffle fries topped with pulled pork and BBQ sauce (Redneck sauce). 

Option of Fries

The ordering process isn't too obvious but is written on the side of the menu. You order at the bar when you're ready and food will be brought to your table. If you want cutlery, extra sauce or kitchen roll (which you'll probably need to clean your fingers) you have to go pick them up yourself from one of the little tables dotted around filled with these. 

My better half opted for the newest burger on their menu, the John Bender burger (£10). This includes a double cheeseburger, spiced sausage patty, crispy smoked bacon, JD waffle fries, a poached egg, baconaise and chipotle ketchup. For the side she opted for a portion of "Pig and Waffle" fries which are waffle fries topped with pulled pork, Redneck BBQ sauce, blue cheese sauce, chopped chillis and onions. 

John Bender (£10)

The meat in all the burgers is great quality ground steak. The cheap cheese slices on this burger are a bit disappointing but the flavour of them combines to create the taste sensation of this burger. The thick bacon rashers and the crispy waffle fries are soothed down by the perfectly cooked runny-yolk poached egg on top. The egg really makes this burger smooth to eat.   

Pig & Waffle Fries

The pig and waffle fries are cooked and seasoned to perfection. They're then topped with wonderfully moist pulled pork which is packed with flavor and doused with blue cheese sauce and Almost Famous' own Redneck sauce. The sauce has a slight tinge of spice to it but the real kick comes from the thick chopped chilli and onions (although this isn't overpoweringly hot, just enough to tingle the tongue). Overall the fries are fantastic, although one portion could easily be shared. 


For my order I thought I'd try the special for a change, which was shown on a separate little menu. Entitled "The Famous Breakfast Club" (£10) it was constructed from; a double cheeseburger with pepper jack cheese, slow cooked bourbon brined pulled pork, honey beerios (Cheerios in beer), Bacon Rain (bacon pieces), chipotle ketchup and hollandaise mustard mayonnaise. For my side of fries I opted for my favorite "Bacon Bacon" fries (£4) which are a mix of seasoned regular and sweet potato fries topped with bacon rain (bacon pieces) and baconaise (Bacon mayonnaise). 

The Famous Breakfast Club

This was the first time I'd experienced this burger and to be honest I'm not the biggest fan of Cheerios cereal but I thought I'd give it a shot. I'm glad I did! The beer doused cheerios were sweet and delicious. The pulled pork, like the pork on the pig and waffle fries was juicy, moist and delicious, then the Redneck BBQ sauce adds even more BBQ flavor. 

The cheese on this burger was much more delicious than American type slices on the John Bender. Instead the pepper jack cheese was melted to a soft lava texture that softened the delicious thick meat patties. 

The patties are cooked to perfection. Just slightly pink, and made of top quality minced steak. The fresh brioche buns are soft and fluffy but they almost go unnoticed with all the flavor between the bun.  

The Famous Breakfast Club

The bacon bacon fries are my personal favourite. There's nothing too fancy about them, simple seasoned fries with just the right mix of regular fries and sweet potato fries, which are then topped with delicious baconaise and crunchy bacon rain (bacon pieces). It's common to find little bacon pieces like this are overcooked and burnt in other restaurants, but they're done to perfection in Almost Famous. 

Bacon Bacon fries

If ever taking anyone to Almost Famous I try steer them away from the plain fries, and encourage them to try bacon bacon or some other fries as they're almost as good as the burgers themselves. 

It should be a crime to settle for the plain burgers and fries at Almost Famous as their inventions need to be experienced by all. 

Conclusion

Almost Famous isn't your typical restaurant. I say that with two meanings. Firstly the burgers and food is like nothing anywhere else. The creations they come up with and flavors they put between bread and atop beef patties sometimes don't sound that inviting, but trust in their inventions and you will never be left disappointed. 

The second difference is that you don't get the service like a traditional restaurant. You order for yourself at the bar, you collect your own cutlery, napkins and sauces. The only service is that they bring your food to your table and they clean up after you. This is the common complaint I've read elsewhere, this and the staff attitude. I've always found the staff to be very helpful and friendly but found the bar staff a bit short with me on this particular visit. The waiter who brought our food over was very helpful though and made up for his colleagues service. And if you're willing to overlook the lack of traditional service the food will more than make up for it. 

You can't book a table, although this is becoming common in city centre restaurants, but it means there can often be a wait, especially during peak times, but it's worth waiting for. The text alert system they run during busy times works very well and allows you to reply and cancel your table should you change your mind while you're waiting.   

The burgers are the most flavorful, amazing creations put between bread (that I've found to date). It's easy to see why the word is being spread without any advertising. The beef patties are always cooked to the same slightly pink perfection, and always top quality meat. The burgers are topped with ingredients never considered by other places and it works very well. 

The sides are a similar mouth tingling sensation topped with more ingenious topping ideas which work wonders to satisfy the hunger pangs. 

Almost Famous own sauces all have a unique flavor which should be sampled while you're there. The hot sauce is just hot enough without being ridiculous, the BBQ sauce is smokey and thick sticky delight, and the Pho-king sauce is sweet sauce with a chilli kick to it. 

If you're in need of something to wash all this gluttony down with then their cocktail menu isn't to be skipped either. This, like their food, includes similar ingenious inventions (for example, an Old Fashioned topped with toffee popcorn?). I didn't have any on this particular visit, but will hopefully review these next time I visit (which I doubt will be much of a wait). 

Meat Rating: 10/10

Money for Meat: Paid in Full

Pit Smoked Barbeque

Prior to visiting London I'd shared on social media the reason behind my visit (to watch a favourite sport of mine at Wembley), and one food company had replied to tell me that they would be serving outside Wembley stadium and inviting me to visit them. 

Pit Smoked Barbeque was their name and after looking on their website (linked at the end of this memoir) and reading about their custom made smoking pit I was intrigued.

Pit Smoked Barbeque

There were a number of stalls available to choose from outside Wembley, but as Pit Smoked Barbeque had been in touch and after reading about their equipment I thought I'd choose them. 

Pit Smoked Barbeque Outside Wembley

They had a small menu of just three options from their van, all served on a brioche roll:

1. 18 Hour slow cooked pulled pork with BBQ sauce (£7.00)
2. Smoked XXL hotdog (£6.00)
3. Ultimate combo - a combination of both of the above (£8.00)

Menu

A simple menu for event catering, but as all items sounded like they'd satisfy another meat craving I went for the combined option! 

It's worth noting at this point that I didn't make them aware of who I was, or introduce my self prior to ordering to remind them that they'd contacted me prior to this. I just ordered like anyone else. 

So, on to the food.

I fully expected the usual arrangement of a frankfurter on a dry bun, then for it to be topped with pulled pork and optional coleslaw, before being doused in BBQ sauce. I was therefore surprised when the 'slaw went on the bun first, then the pulled pork, then finally the sausage and a thin line of BBQ sauce. Different way of doing it.

The bun was a fresh bun to start, not like the stale things that catering trailers usually sell you at big events. The coleslaw wasn't all all salad cream or mayonnaise either, but instead more just crunchy cabbage and carrot. So far so good. 

The pulled pork then. Now pulled pork from trailers usually isn't prepared that fresh and ends up being in a hot plate for a while and going dry. As their website states, they bring a BBQ pit with them and it smells great but they have the cooked foods on hot plates ready to serve, which is where this pork came from. As previous pulled pork has been when served like this, it was a little dry. It had a decent barbecue taste to it though which couldn't be avoided. They didn't scrimp on the pulled pork either. The 'slaw and pulled pork filled the bread bun. There wasn't any room for the sausage.

So the sausage became a balancing act on top of the pulled pork and that was covered in a 

quick dashing of BBQ sauce. The sausage was well cooked and well seasoned and a good diameter with generous length (steady!). The smoked barbecue taste was again a positive with the sausage as much as it was for the pulled pork. The skin was a little tough for my preference, which I can only liken to that of a frankfurter. 

The smoked BBQ sauce added extra smoky flavour to the meal as well as helping bring some moisture to the meal. 

Ultimate Combo meal

The problem with the meal was that without having a table to sit down and eat at, keeping the sausage on top of the bread and pulled pork was a difficult balancing act. It all tasted great though. 

Conclusion

Pit Smoked Barbeque often cater for large events including Reading Festival, Wembley events, barbecue events in Manchester, and many other events around the country. So although you may not be able to just visit them on request, you might come across them at a festival or event. 

If you do I highly recommend their food compared to the usual bare minimum catering food that's often available. 

The barbecue flavours they offer from their smoking pit are great. If anything they offer you too much barbecue, that or they need to find larger bread buns (my preferred solution over serving less).  It may have been better if the food came straight from their pit to the bread but I ordered at a quieter time and imagine when it's busy the sausages and pork wont have been on a hot plate so long so would probably be a bit juicier. 

If you see them at an event and you're not sure which catering van to choose from then you're in safe hands with Pit Smoked Barbeque. Hopefully they can introduce a bit more to their menus as time goes on.

http://pitsmokedbbq.co.uk/

Meat Rating: 6/10

Money for Meat: Paid in Full

Patty & Bun

The third stop on the meat tour around London was to Patty & Bun for an evening meal. This restaurant is often regarded as serving some of the best burger in London so we couldn't miss this off while in the city. 

They have two restaurants within the city but we opted for the one near to Oxford Road on James Street (the other is located near Bishop Gate). This is a street full of little restaurants and is very busy in an evening for people eating out and socialising. It seems that Patty and Bun are one of the few which doesn't offer outside seating as almost all the other restaurants on the street have seating to the front of the shop. 

The small, open front restaurant stands out on the street thanks to the red paintwork. Arriving, your welcomed by a member of staff at the front door who asks how many you're with and then asks you to wait outside while your table is prepared. Being a weekend evening it was quite busy for our visit and we had to wait 20 minutes or so. 

Normally this isn't a problem, but with only a small bench for a number of people waiting outside at such a busy time it means you're left standing in the street waiting. There is a menu to look over but this would probably be little consolation should the weather be anything like traditional English weather. There is a small overhang to the front of the restaurant but it wouldn't be able to shelter everyone waiting (unless you were all suddenly very comfortable with each other).

Front of the restaurant

Menu

Once we were offered our table the waiter showed us to a table toward the rear of the restaurant. Inside the restaurant is quite small and dimly lit and it becomes clear why you're made to wait on the street, there's just no room for waiting customers inside. There are a set of tables along either side of the restaurant and a small bar tot the back. The kitchen and toilets are located down the stairs to the rear of the restaurant. The decoration is quite simple with chip board lining the walls, and sketches on cardboard hung from the walls higher up. 

Open fronted

Inside the restaurant

Decoration

Each step of a burger?

Having been sat at our table we were offered a paper menu to look over and reconsider our choices. The burgers vary with a wide range of flavours of different sauces and relishes. They also offer chicken and lamb burgers in case beef isn't your bag. Having heard great things about their "Smokey Robinson Burger" this was my choice, combined with sides of fries and "Winger Winger chicken dinner" BBQ chicken wings. It wasn't long before the waiter was back to take our order and deliver our drinks we'd ordered on entering. 

Paper Menu

They also offer a daily special but due to the time of day they had sold out of this option on our arrival. 

Places are then set with a brown paper place mat to save on any plate washing and the centre of the table has cutlery and additional sauces to save you having to get your own. I'm a fan of this as it's more like a restaurant. They've managed to eliminate most of the washing up but keep the need for service staff, as the trend nowadays seems to be for customers to get their own cutlery etc.

Centre pieces

The wait isn't too long before the food is delivered, despite how busy this little restaurant is. 

The sides come in a polystyrene cup and the burger is wrapped and sealed with a signature P&B sticker indicating which burger is wrapped inside. 

Smokey Robinson Burger & Fries

The burger is huge! I was feeling hungry and was tempted to ask if they did any double burgers before ordering but the beef patty in these burgers is so thick a single is adequate enough. 

As you unwrap the burger the cheese tries to hold the burger to the wrapping. Thick, stringy, melted cheese which has to be pulled away from the wrapping. It's great to see proper cheese on a burger, not the usual thin cheese slices. 

Unwrapping

Beneath the patty, the bun is coated in thick ketchup and P&B mayo, along with the lettuce. Then on top of the patty they have a big dollop of caramelised onions and the thick cheese. 

Smokey Robinson Burger (£8.50)

Inside the thick beef patty is a slightly pink in the centre and seems to be high quality minced beef. Under all the onions it's difficult to see the bacon but it's in there! The caramelised onions really flavour the meat and Patty and Buns mayo is a really great sauce. Really sweet flavour. This is easily the best burger I'd found in London so far! 

Burger Section

It's also possibly the messiest burger in London. 

Burger Mess

The fries are crispy with skin on, and quite heavily salted (£2.75). They taste great though. They don't taste like they're cooked in regular cooking oil, there's something different about these fries. They're then seasoned with some rosemary for a bit of extra flavouring.

The wings are also served in a polystyrene cups like the fries, but there's a decent number within the cup (roughly 6 wings). They're doused in a thick BBQ sauce which is very messy to eat. The sauce is has a tangy tomato flavour to it followed by a very sweet sugary flavour. The wings are cooked so well that when I put one down and picked it up again by the bone it left the chicken on the table. Couldn't be cooked better. 

Winger Winger Chicken Dinner (£5.50)

Conclusion

Patty and Bun was the best burger I ate on my search around London. The beef patty was good quality and cooked to perfection. The sides were spot on too! And P&B sauces are fantastic! They've done a great job on the recipes for these sauces. 

The only thing that lets it down is the restaurant size. It's not too bad once you're inside but having to queue outside I imagine puts a lot of people off, especially in poor weather. It's worth the wait though for those willing to wait around outside! I'd be willing to wait in the rain next time as this will be my place to visit next time I'm in London! 

@pattyandbunjoe

Meat Rating: 9/10

Money for Meat: Paid in Full