Famous Dave's Bar-B-Que — Restaurant in Abu Dhabi

We are back at Famous Dave’s at Abu Dhabi Mall, the very first of their outlets in the UAE and the very place they got us addicted to their style of low and slow smoked meats which we have been enjoying ever since across their wide network of branches across the UAE.

This visit too is a special occasion, and it's to sample their very special, limited edition, RIB Volution Menu, that seems to have become the talk of the town, and, oh boy, they blew us away, again.

It’s a weekday evening, but the place is quite busy, we are warmly greeted by Mike the manager and Annie who is our hostess for the evening, who shows us to a comfortable table in a quiet corner.

Soon she is back with the menus. Along with the main menu is a slim two-page special, RIB Volution menu, that is entirely dedicated to their insane, grain fed, slow smoked ribs.

There are three starters and three mains and then there is their showstopper, the humungous Big Daddy Platter featuring the biggest grain fed slow smoked rack of dinosaur ribs we have ever seen, it is definitely a sight to behold, absolutely amazing.

We are three very hungry carnivores, and it was hard to decide what to order, so we just decided to eat the menu, which was a first for us ever, imagine going to a restaurant and ordering the entire menu!

Soon Annie has us sorted with our drinks and the starters arrive, which was a pleasant surprise as they hardly took any time. Here’s what we ordered

Quesabiria Tacos – Neatly plated on a neat round black slate platter come these soft tacos bursting with pulled, grain fed, slow smoked short rib topped with cheese, cilantro and pickled onions with their Tex Mex meat sauce, the meat is even softer than the corn tortilla and packed with flavour.

Trimmed Crusts Ribs Pate – an elegant, visually attractive plating of the short rib, this time it's mashed with mayo, sour cream and herbs on sesame toast, amazing flavour, very light and a treat to the eyes.

Smoked Pulled Rib Corn Tacos – This is another superb dish, superbly presented featuring the rib meat in corn tacos topped with cheese, jalapeño mayo and salsa with some perfectly cooked fries on the side, this is one of the highlights of the meal, loved it.

We are enjoying the meal; the ambiance is soothing with tables placed far apart, so each has their own bit of space to enjoy the meal and the company Annie offers us drink refills and soon the mains are served.

Louisiana Aromatic Rice and Rib – A perfect pairing of the slow smoked short rib and aromatic rice with their Tex Mex Sauce served with their house salad, a great meal we could eat daily.

The Belly Grinder – This has the short rib with their rich and sassy sauce served on a sesame baguette topped with cheese, a super delicious and surprisingly light sandwich.

The Highwayman -The slow smoked short ribs paired with their jalapeño mayo, the rich and sassy sauce topped with cheese on a multigrain bun with a short rib taco and fries on the side, perfect combination and ideal for those who are a little hungry

The Big Daddy Platter – This is the star of the show and an absolute mush have, a huge rectangular slab of black slate heaving under the weight of this gigantic, dinosaur rack of grain fed, slow smoked, bone in ribs that is a magnificent sight to see, we have never seen anything quite like this.

The ribs are surrounded with buttered broccoli, corn on the cob and mashed potatoes along with a nice peppercorn sauce, we just nudge the meat, and it falls off the bone, it's soft, juicy and an absolute delight to eat, be warned this is for serious carnivores only.

So, we are completely stuffed, and it's almost closing time, so we reluctantly take our leave, Famous Dave’s has done it again, a superb menu, expertly executed, bursting with flavours.

The ambiance is just right, the service is excellent and all this at s very reasonable price point has made Famous Dave’s a very popular place for a huge number of people, great work guys,...

Tried the steak and an order of the ‏parmesan cheese boneless chicken wings. The lemonade was good. The winds were also good. Those are the only reasons I’m leaving a 2 star review instead of a 1 star. My husbands steak was wrong twice. We asked for medium and they brought it out well done the first time. We sent it back to get remade. He blamed it on the meat thermometer not being 100% accurate. The second time it came it was super close to being just raw meat. We told the server that it was wrong again but my husband ate it because we had been waiting a very long time for that course to come out and we didn’t want to wait again. Then the server proceeded to tell us that that is call medium rare and we should ask for that next time. We told him that we wanted medium and they still messed it up we were just tired of waiting because they apparently don’t know long to cook a steak. This place used to be a really amazing place but however the quality has gone WAY down. We will not be coming back. We went to complain to the manager when the server said that he was the acting manager that night. After we left a complaint, he didn’t come back to the table. He sent other servers to come to our table for the rest of the night. If you want a good steak you should check out The Cheesecake Factory and try their Steak Diane! That is what a steak should be like!

BTW that’s the picture of the “medium” steak the second time...

Famous Dave's Bar-B-Que definitely exceeded my expectations!

It's no wonder why their fried chicken was the restaurant's best-seller. There wasn't any hint of dryness, and it had enough crunch while still being cooked finely; their fried chicken is highly recommended. (One of the best things about it is they offer you six of those amazing fried chickens!)

There's another meal which was unexpectedly appetizing: their fish and chips. No, it isn't the typical fish and chips which will only make your stomach partly full over how flat the fish is and tiny the serving is. Theirs had enough portion on the plate to satisfy your cravings, and the fish meat was as soft as a cotton. The inside was flavorful, the type of food where you won't have to rescue it by adding sauce. What a delightful meal, hats off to the chef!

As much as we love those meals, of course, we observed some issues as well. The absence of one star was due to the lack of initiative and attentiveness of some servers. Numerous times we had to call their attention to refill our bottomless sweet teas, which shouldn't have been the case. We would have appreciated it if from time to time, they offered us more, not the other way around.

All in all, this restaurant made our tummies happy! We thank the chefs for our delicious food, and also to Nira for being an accommodating and...