BIG T BBQ KITCHEN — Restaurant in Dubai

The restaurant is only open on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Why? The kind of slow-cooked Texas style BBQ that they serve requires a lot of prep work and a lot of slow cooking. I’m not mad about it. We live in a society where everyone wants access to everything immediately. Big Ts does things differently and refreshingly so.

If you haven’t been, this is the closest you will get to the now legendary Franklin BBQ and others in the US that have cult-like followings - queues from 6am and sold out before midday!

There is an extensive menu with seasonal products and tweaks to existing products or removals and additions. If it’s your first time, there is a way to approach this. Some things to bear in mind, the food is rich and there is a great deal of protein. You will want to try everything but you must resist and just order some core menu items for your first visit.

I would recommend for two people:

250g Beef Brisket 250g Smoked Sausage Fries Maybe some wings or a burger to share.

That’s it. Don’t go crazy.

The Brisket is the star of the show. This is a fatty and difficult piece of meat to cook and for many years it has been boiled and then cold sliced for sandwiches and the like. The BBQ pit masters took this humble, cheap cut and elevated it using the magic of smoke and fire into one of the best pieces of meat you can have - if cooked properly.

The brisket is served in slices. As you tear a piece off, it comes away easily with a softness and juiciness that is very inviting. Put it in your mouth and you barely have to chew as the juices hit your tongue and as you eat, the light wood smoke bark and umami from the beef fill your mouth. It is served with pickled onion, gherkin and chilli on the side. I suggest eating a little of this before each mouthful of brisket to cleanse the pallet and cut through the fat in the way you use ginger when eating sushi.

The sausage is sliced on the angle and is very savoury with the snap of the skin when you chew. The meat isn’t ground too fine and the tiny chunks of cheese give it extra richness.

The buffalo wings are fried and tasty. Not too big and not too small. The buffalo sauce is sharp, spicy and helps to balance the meat, skin and fried texture.

The burgers are very rich but also very tasty. Half a portion per person as part of a BBQ meal is more than enough. If you’re going there for a burger and fries then DON’T get tempted by anything else…just enjoy the smoky, juicy, cheesy burger.

Big T also offers specials and items that are available seasonally. The burnt ends are an acquired taste as they are the tougher parts of the meat that are cooked for an additional period to get them soft and perfect. For me they are really tasty but a few pieces per person is more than enough. The lamb chops are exquisite with the fat rendering down to a melt in the mouth texture. The baloney is good but better in a sandwich, as is the pastrami.

The fries are tallow fried and a very tasty side. But the side that works best with all this rich food is the fresh and zingy slaw. It has that texture where it’s just slightly crispy but not wilted. Perfect. I like the corn bread. Some don’t but I like it.

Save a little room for dessert. Banana pudding or chocolate pudding are the perfect ending to the BBQ fest. Share one if you’re too full but do try them.

They have a huge selection American soft drinks and the infamous Mexican Coke. I am a big fan of the horchata and iced tea that they make in house. It’s delicious and a real treat as horchata is not widely available in Dubai and most of the iced tea is from concentrate.

Go to Big T’s and order a little of what you fancy. The food is exceptional and you won’t find anything like this for several thousand miles. The staff are friendly and helpful and generous and the place has a family business feel. I like that. There might be on occasional lapse but be human and consider the other humans there before making a hoo haa and try to relax and...

The taste of the brisket was excellent, that's it, it goes downhill from there, the service is awful except for the cleaning guy who makes every effort to help with the limited resources he has.

The food, yes the brisket is good after you dig through all the fat, I ordered 500gr and about 200gr were fat, didn't have french fries because "they ran out" really? 2 hours you've been opened and you don't have any more, unbelievable. The Mac n' cheese had big pieces of pepper which for a child is not ideal.

Which takes me to the next point, the atmosphere, don't go there with children, very limited options food wise, nothing to entertain them and no child is going to wait 1-1/2 hours for food with such loud music in the confined space.

I get the whole excuse of "we're trying to improve, we didn't expect such large crowds" maybe a month ago I could understand that, but now that people are going more often you should prepare better, especially if you only open 3 days a week, they are very disorganized, dirty washrooms, moody staff, confined space, loud music and long waiting time. I'd say give them about 2-3 months until they can get their act together, otherwise you are in for a huge disappointment.

Edit after the restaurant’s angry reply: No, I’m not that guy, I knew very well this was not a place with toys, I never asked for that and I’m not asking for you to turn your place into something is not. I thought by going to your place I did not need to go to Texas, as this was supposedly the closest to a real Texan restaurant. Regarding the fat on the brisket, from the handwritten menus on your wall I could not gather there was any choice, and with the friendliness of your staff didn’t actually feel like I could approach them to complain. With the tone of your reply you can see how right I am on the staff being moody. A proper Texas restaurant would indicate somewhere in a menu what the food contains, you are right, the pepper is not a major issue, but try telling that to a 6 year old who just bit a whole peppercorn, not the nicest of experiences. Then again I would not give any restaurant a 1* for making a mistake on the food, but the whole combination of things going wrongly deserve a 1*, I would obviously not take a kid to a nightclub, but if your restaurant was an “Adults Only” place would be different One thing is to wait in line for say 20 minutes, but 1-1/2 hours waiting to try “the best brisket” makes no sense, I could have gone somewhere else but I wanted to know if it was worth the hype and it’s not. I get that people have their beliefs and have to go pray, but with a busy place and a huge line does all the kitchen staff have to go for ½ an hour to pray? I get that the meat is cooked days ahead and as I said, it was very good except for the huge amount of fat, now the fact that people would want to eat sides doesn’t it make you think you should prepare for that? By the time I reached the counter there were no fries and no bread, just Mac n’ Cheese and Salad, within 2 hours of opening? Really? A review can be what you want it to be, for you it would mean there’s a lot you are not seeing and should improve, for others it’s an opportunity to be prepared and make the right decision instead of going and be disappointed as I was and leave you more “salty” reviews as you put them, work on your tone, your team and your place and you’ll surely have a great place...

Some of the food was not to my taste and a little salty (potato salad and corn salad) and the crust rub on the turkey and brisket was a bit much for my personal taste. But I’m not going to knock the food and the place at all. Still 5 stars from me in everything else.

It did not suit my taste today but I would still go back and try some of the other dishes. It’s not the cheapest and it’s most certainly not the most expensive either. Depends on what you order totally. Amazing selection of unusual drinks. I can’t understand how people found the staff rude. I didn’t see any such rudeness. The guy who took the order was really nice (we went early ). The staff assumed we had been before but they were happy to help when I said I don’t know where I’m supposed to go. For those who have issues with staff I think the communication breakdown possibly started with you. Parking was fun and yes a bit of a pain but I enjoyed the short walk! Didn’t see the valet sign till after we entered. Not the mistake of big t that I was visually impaired !

I see exactly what chef T has tried to create there and it’s far from the glitz and glam of Dubai and rather a very authentic back area cook house just like the USA. If you have ever lived in the states you will know those is right on par to being authentic ! I would honestly say well done to him. How many restaurants can survive only being open three days a week ! He’s obviously got more than something right !

I didn’t personally enjoy my meal as much as I had hoped but this isn’t a reason for me not to go back. I just won’t order the same thing again. There’s loads of choice and it’s all fresh and the place is very clean.

Other people seemed to really enjoy their meals. There were lots of empty trays as we were leaving.

It really has a community hustle and bustle charm about it and I would 100 percent go back and try something else from the menu.

Overall I can’t see where the hate comes from with all the negative reviews. It’s pretty much what it says in the tin and that’s why we get drawn in to go there ! Keep it up chef. You have a good...