For the purposes of this review, I have promised to admit that I could have tried the “devastator challenge” but I was too much of a ‘fraidy cat and vetoed that particular suggestion. Right, now that’s out of the way and I’ve emerged from my food coma, shall we get on with the review? Great, so this review is for the American barbecue restaurant near Lace Market named Red Dog Saloon. Now, let’s begin!
Say what you want about the Americans but they sure know how to make a meat feast, as Red Dog Saloon demonstrates. Myself and a guest arrived at the venue, greeted by a very friendly waitress and taken into a completely wooden dining area, consisting of largely booth-based seating, taken from the golden age of cowboys (so you couldn’t really get any more American unless it had a rifle mounted on the wall).
We sat down and ordered enough food to distend my stomach a good few inches from its comfortable and natural form: sweet potato fries, mac & cheese, jalapeno poppers, Cajun chicken wings, a philly cheese burger and the beef short rib, and also a pitcher of long island iced tea to wash it down. If reading that list and/or consulting the picture below hasn’t caused saliva to erupt from your mouth then you’re either a vegetarian or you have no hedonistic quality to you at all and thus you are no fun!
I could go through all of these one by one… and so I will, but I’ll do a brief summary for the sake of time:
- Who the hell doesn’t love sweet potato fries? Because these are (to coin a phrase) totally fuckin’ sweet.
- The mac & cheese was everything you want in such a dish, creamy and rich but not so heavy that you’d think twice about bombing the entire bowl to yourself.
- Jalapeno poppers, chili peppers and cheese your thing? What about chili peppers and cheese covered in crispy breadcrumbs? Yeah, I didn’t think much more description to be necessary
- The wings are a fantastic combination of spicy and salty, the skin is crisp and it’s served with a blue cheese sauce which mellows out the strength of the wings. I’ve only ever had blue cheese sauce with wings once before and now I’m convinced it’s not a fluke, it’s weird but it’s wonderful.
- Philly cheeseburger, do you assume humans can unhinge their jaws like snakes? The only complaint I heard from Mal regarding this is that you can’t actually get your mouth around the burger.
- And the beef short rib is marvellous, it’s charred on the outside, it’s almost blackened but cutting into it reveals meat so tender you can pinch it off. My personal tip is to smother it in barbeque sauce.
To finish off we had the oreo and white chocolate fudge cake (I think, by this point my brain was 100% focussed on eating as much as humanly possible). It was essentially an oreo cheesecake which I found so enjoyable, but I think the fudge cake name was a bit misleading if I’m honest.
That being said, Red Dog Saloon is a fun venue with a really satisfying meaty menu with American portions that will fill you up to the oesophagus if you’re that committed, and that I most certainly was. Enjoy your food before the nuclear fallout wipes us out, **** Trump.
Jake Tenn
Images and featured image taken by Jake Tenn
