Blue Ridge Mountain Bar-B-Q — Restaurant in Blue Ridge

I love BBQ. I could eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner and not get tired of it. This place has good BBQ, no doubt, but I had to drop a star for a good reason and I'll explain that in a bit.

I had an order delivered to my workplace because with my hours I don't get a lot of actual meals these days and I was eager to dig in. I got the pulled pork plate with potato salad and coleslaw, my go-to's. I also splurged a little and got banana pudding, a favorite of mine since childhood and something I hadn't had in a while.

The pork was delicious and finely shredded, which means more surface area for the sauce. Never a bad thing in my book. It had a good smoky flavor. 5 star pork.

The potato salad and coleslaw were kind of mediocre. I think others would enjoy the potato salad, but it was too sweet for my tastes. Not worth taking away a star, though. The coleslaw was kind of soft, but the flavor was decent. Still not enough to take off a star.

Then... I got to the "banana pudding". I'm a southern girl. I've lived in this town my whole life and when I get banana pudding, I expect banana pudding. This is banana flavored pudding with a side of vanilla wafers. Literally, they came in a bag on the side.

Authentic southern banana pudding is a vanilla custard with actual bananas in it (nice and soft ripe ones!) with vanilla wafers in the pudding and maybe a meringue if you're feeling fancy.

I'm sorry. As much as I loved the meat, I just can't with this banana pudding situation. My recommendation to the restaurant is to either bump up the price, make an actual authentic southern banana pudding and relabel it in the menu as such, or simply rename it to banana flavored pudding with a side of vanilla wafers.

I really enjoy your pork, Blue Ridge Mountain Bar-B-Q, and I'll be a repeat customer for sure, but I will not touch your banana flavored pudding with a side of vanilla wafers again. I'm sorry, my old school southern blood won't allow it. I might give your pecan pie a go next time...

Pleasant staff and terrific BBQ chicken. We intended to eat at one of the two trendy BBQ places in Blue Ridge but as it was Sunday afternoon, we missed both. So we walked up to Blue Ridge Mountain BBQ from town with a desire for Bar-B-Que. When we arrived, we were the only patrons in the restaurant and were greeted warmly. We ordered a Hog Heaven BBQ plate with potato salad and BBQ Beans, and I ordered a side of Brunswick Stew to round out the tasting. From the start, the size of the side item portions was on the small side - not large enough for a couple to share. You will want to order a second set of sides. The pile of BBQ pork and the half of a BBQ chicken looked like enough to share. I sampled the chicken, which was claimed by my wife, and I found it to be moist and very flavorful. The "chopped" pork on the other hand was dry... no, let me re-state that. The chopped pork was DRY! and lacking in flavor. I didn't get any smoke flavor at all. It was just a poor dried up pile of chopped pork that had been probably sitting too long in a warmer in the kitchen. My loss as the chicken was mostly gone by this point, my lovely bride didn't waste anytime devouring that succulent chicken. I then decided to chance an order of brisket. At least the brisket arrived with fair moisture but it was not tender as I have come to know tender brisket. It did have a fair amount of flavor but was chewy. While I was "working on" eating the brisket, my wife sampled the Brunswick stew and like our rating of this restaurant, gave it 3 of 5 stars. I saved mentioning the sauces till last. The reason for that is the sauces were all... fairly bland. I am not going to waste time describing the sauces, instead, bring your own. We did finish the dinner with a wonderful desert of Key Lime Pie and Banana Cream Pudding. Both were well worth the cost, both to my wallet and my blood sugar count. So to summarize, order the chicken, skip the sauces (you don't need them) double the sides and save room for...

Disappointing. We ordered the BBQ Plate with chicken, potato salad and coleslaw, Brisket, brunswick stew, and collard greens. On the plus side, the place was very clean, the staff were friendly and understood what we were asking about when we asked about gluten allergy concerns and nothing we had tasted bad. However, the “BBQ Chicken” was a portion far smaller than I would put on a small sandwich and was sliced as if I had ordered it for school lunches from a deli counter in a grocery store. The level of smoke was marginal at best. Again, it tasted and looked like sandwich meat from the deli. The potato salad was quite plain and again in a portion cup the size I would put on a child’s meal. The coleslaw was a bit over sweet and the texture was off putting because of an inconsistent chop/shred that left almost one third of the tiny portion in hunks of cabbage too large for a single bite. The brisket was decent in flavor but could have used more salt and a good bit more smoke. The stew had good flavor but was barely warm. The collards were the only thing we wouldn’t have changed in any way except portion size. The house sauces on the table tasted almost identical. The “sweet” was only slightly sweeter than the other two sauces. The “regular” was exactly that. Not a lot of depth or distinguishing flavor from the other two sauces. And the “hot” wasn’t. I mean not at ALL. I am VERY sensitive to spice and I didn’t consider any different than the “regular” except in consistency and a slight color difference. As a place to get a meal when on the road and NEEDING a gluten allergy safe selection, it’ll work. But just be aware you won’t be leaving stuffed or even comfortably full, and it won’t be a place you’ll specifically seek out for unique or memorable...