I don't really go out to pubs just for the sake of drinking anymore because since I am the age that I am, I put on weight pretty easily. It's probably a culmination of many years of irresponsible activity that is finally catching up with me but I made a new rule in my life: I only go out drinking if it is a Bowling Dumbo Thursday, or if there is some sort of genuine event such as a good friend's birthday or the grand opening of a new establishment that a friend owns.
Other than that, the only get togethers I have with friends has to be a restaurant because for me anyway, and I think most people, when the food is the center of attention, the boozing has a significantly lower level chance of getting out of control.
It wasn't my decision to go here, but since it was really near my house and I genuinely like the couple that invited me, I went anyway.
Country BBQ is the name of the place and I was pleased to see that they didn't have an enormous menu.
When place have a million things on their menu, I already know that they are not going to make any of them very well. As far as mains are concerned, this place had BBQ chicken, ribs, and pulled pork. They had a few other things but mostly they were side dishes. I went for a combo plate that had ribs, pulled pork, and spicy sausages.
This was 329,000 VND which is around $15. That might sound like a good honkin' deal to those of you in the west, but over here this is spendy. I don't go to dinner with this couple often so I just ordered without worry about it.
I do know that on the other side of the river, there are places like this that have the same food but it is half the price. This is the result of the price of rent and land I would imagine.
The ribs were pretty great but the rest of it was pretty "meh." Of course we have to factor in that I come from the USA and went to college in what many consider to be the pulled pork capitol of the world so I was just setting myself up to fail and be disappointed.
I took it in stride and the place was pretty busy so I guess the whole "we smoke our own meats" thing appeals to a lot of people.
My friends ordered the pork knuckle as well and it looked really nice. I didn't ask for any because the mountain of food that I had in front of me was already way more food that I can possibly eat in one sitting.
one thing that occurred to me while I was sitting here was that where I come from, these servings would be considered rather small compared to what you would get at a BBQ place in the States. I probably would have thought that when I lived there and didn't know any better. One of the advertising points that several of the BBQ places around here talk about is that they have "American sized portions" and let me tell ya, I don't really think that this is something that anyone should be proud of.
It came to my mind while I was sitting there, and because one of the other people there was also American, we talked about the rather ridiculous portions that are served in USA restaurants and how not only is your plate a whole day and half worth of calories at your average TGI Fridays but you normally also get unlimited bread as salad. By salad I mean a few sprigs of lettuce drowning in salad dressing.
I didn't pay it much mind and it didn't bother me a great deal because I don't live there anymore, bt the article that popped up talked about how something absurd like nearly 50% of all Americans are overweight and well, I wonder why that is?
I'll leave that for another day but just know this: When you meet a Vietnamese person that is fat it is a big surprise. That is just every damn day in America, basically everyone is overweight. Again, I'll save this for another day.
But as far as Country BBQ is concerned, if I was a tourist visiting here I would give this place a miss. It's just not special enough for what they are charging. I find that there are these Japanese meat buffets that are a far better value and I don't remember what they are called but basically you get all the meat you want and cook it in front of you (so you know it is clean, i guess) and you pay one price no matter how much of it you have.
Smoking meat is an art and that art has been absolutely mastered in the USA. When people try to bring it over here it kind of ends up like the tacos I have tried everywhere: The idea is sound, but the execution simply isn't possible based on our proximity to the crucial ingredients. What is likely holding BBQ places like this one back is lack of access to quality meats as well as someone who likely got their smoking experience from watching YouTube videos and is using a homemade smoker of sorts.
It wasn't terrible by any means, but I ended up not finishing it and while this will make Nadi very happy, I took it home and have no intention of actually finishing it. Since she is on a carnivore diet of sorts at the moment, she is allowed to have this as long as the super sweet BBQ sauce is not on it.
This is the major tourism part of Da Nang and while this might not surprise many people out there, this is also where you are going to pay the most for food and it is not going to be anything special. This is true all around the world. If you were to visit DaNang, you will almost certainly end up in this part of town even if you didn't do it intentionally.
Since my friends that I was dining with are 1/2 Vietnamese, I think I will ask them to take me to places that are off the tourist trail and lets go and enjoy that instead.
I constantly bitch about how the food here isn't very good but much of this might be my own fault. I live in the tourist area because English is widely spoken here whereas if you go just a single km in any direction, that is no longer the case.
It's lazy on my part but after spending a decade becoming conversationally fluent in Thai, I just don't have it in me to learn another one-country language that is hard as can be.