Earlier in the year I paid a visit to Hickory's Smokehouse, in Castle Bromwich, and to be honest I was quite impressed. Walking into the place the smell of smoking and grilling meat hits you instantly and within seconds my mouth was watering. We hadn’t booked a table and, with it being fairly busy, we had a slight wait, this wasn't unexpected and thanks to the layout of the restaurant it wasn’t too bad. The restaurant has been separated into two main areas, a larger eating area and a smaller bar area, we walked over to the bar, found ourselves a couple of stools and ordered drinks. The bar has a decent selection of good quality beers, ciders, spirits and soft drinks to keep you ticking over while you wait, in fact I’d go as far as saying the selection was better than a lot of pubs I’ve visited as of late.

After waiting for about 40 minutes a member of staff collected us from the bar, took us to our table, spent a few minutes explaining the menu and left us to our deliberations. As there was 2 of us, and it being the first time either of us had visited, we went for the Smokehouse Platter to get a little taste of a bit of everything and, as it turned out, we were in for quite the treat. The platter came with several types of ribs, smoked beef sausage, beef brisket, pulled pork and beans, fries, slaw and pickles, we split everything down the middle and shared it out onto two plates. All the meat was absolutely gorgeous, so much time and effort had clearly been put into preparing, smoking and cooking each different cut that I honestly can’t fault a thing with any of them, even the pork and beans was absolutely amazing and I wouldn’t hesitate in recommending any of the meats we tried. The pickles and slaw were decent, they made a fairly good side and a reasonable counter point to the meat, though I would have personally preferred frickles or mac n’ cheese. Unfortunately they were slightly let down by the fries, they weren’t great, they were somewhat tasteless and greasy. They seemed like run of the mill frozen fries to me, the likes of which you’d expect to find in a chain pub, this is something that I found disappointing in a place that clearly puts so much effort into other aspects of their food and, seeing as the fries come with virtually every meal, I expected them to be better.

Overall I really do recommend this place, it’s a great place to eat with decent decor, a good atmosphere, a good menu and, for the most part, excellent quality food. Obviously some improvements could be made, but I left feeling full and happy with my menu choice.