Earlier this afternoon I had lunch at Zeke's Smokehouse (the WeHo location on Santa Monica, on the Formosa side of that big New Urbanist thing with the Target). The usual sources give the 'cue at Zeke's favorable reviews, although the less-easily-impressed among them say that it's good but not award-winning. I'd need to go back and try more of the menu to give the place a fair assessment, but I think what Zeke's does is a very good stab at middlebrow barbecue and soul food. I've been to similar restaurants and had far worse (and I've had better, but I'm not going to be bitchy since I really enjoyed what I ordered today).
My meal was the brisket sandwich with a side of collard greens ($9.95; side included). I actually believe that they're doing a disservice to diners by offering the brisket as a sandwich -- the flavor and tenderness of the meat get buried in all that bleached white flour, and the roll itself isn't memorable. I ate the brisket with a fork (good call) and put the roll aside for the end of the meal, and then broke it up and made an efficient little transportation system for the trio of barbecue sauces on the table. My favorite of the sauces was the Carolina-style Zeke's Back Porch -- I tend to like my 'cue vinegary and mustardy and not overly smoky or sweet, and this was a nice synthesis of spice, savoriness, and acidity. I almost bought a bottle to take home with me, which says something considering I barely have any other food in my apartment right now (would the Back Porch sauce go with my oatmeal raisin Slim-Fast bars?).
The greens were awesome comfort food, although I felt they were the part of the meal that might have suffered too much from their WeHo-ization. The trick with collards, I think, is to get them to a point where the fatback mellows out the bitterness but you're still left with something verdant, earthy, and a little pungent. If you de-harsh it to where it tastes like cooked spinach, why bother serving it at all?
Zeke's greens don't pass the point of no return, and their version is very tasty, but part of the tradeoff of serving this kind of food to moneyed white folks is that you've got to cut back on the grit and the funk of the genuine article. But on the spectrum of affordable places where your retirement-age yankee dad could find something to eat, Zeke's pwns even the best casual-dining chains.
I wanted to take a picture with my snazzy new phone, but one of the waiters was watching me eat (ooh, I hate that) and I felt self-conscious.
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