Indy Porkopolis BBQ — Restaurant in Indianapolis

i pondered over what to say about this place for a while. first off, NEVER TRUST A BBQ PLACE THAT HAS NO SMELL!! ok, it's very different. i'm going to suggest that you keep driving past them and head to hank's smoked briskets at 37th and michigan rd. as i write this, realized i really didn't like porkopolis and as far as it being a really good bbq place by comparing it to dave's, dave's isn't all that great. we have some exceptional places here. the best is hank's smoked briskets. look at his website. it's a take out only, but you stand in line with lawyers, judges, barbers, 500 drivers, mothers, family, mechanics, etc. EVERYBODY goes there. plus he actually cooks his own food on the premises. maybe you should try that one time as well. but anyway, porkopolis. from the menu and pictures i was expecting a traditional restaurant, heavy wood, country theme, etc. i walked in and saw waitress station, bar, tv's, somewhat open kitchen, and then looked for rest of restaurant. lol. it has more of a blaze pizza or takeout restaurant feel. not a point loser, but different. it's small. also nothing there tastes fresh. it tastes precooked or store brought and reheated. we started with the fried gumbo. it's supposed to have fried shrimp, catfish and okra. when it came, saw 2 small pieces of catfish, a couple of okra and a whole bunch of some kind of nuggets. seems they were out of shrimp and decided not to tell us, but serve up fried cheese curds and fried corn chowder instead. ok, how is that shrimp? she put the tray down and started to leave. we had to ask her what it was. she THEN informed us that they were out of shrimp! why she didn't come and tell us and let us decide what we wanted, i don't know because neither of us like fried cheese. and my buddy HATED the fried chowder. the waitress expected us to be fine. when we asked for something to be taken off of the price, she didn't want to, but did. i don't feel she did this on purpose but felt she had to follow some company policy because she was actually very nice. she then offered up grilled shrimp instead to keep price the same. it was dry and tasteless. i had the corn chowder with pulled pork. the chowder was good and there was a lot of pork, but if i hadn't seen it, i wouldn't have known it was in there. pork had absolutely no taste. i had ordered meatloaf. the mashed potatoes were cold, but if they were hot they would have been excellent and the greens beans were really good. the meatloaf, on first taste was really good, but on 2nd and 3rd, realized it was dry and burnt. i had really wanted to try the steak, but after the appetizer incident, went with the meatloaf because i wasn't willing to spend the money for the steak and be unhappy. i had already ordered the pulled chicken salad to take home. the chicken was dry and had a tiny, tiny little bit of smoky flavor. my buddy had a salad that she was so unhappy with she didn't really eat it and didn't want to tell anybody because she didn't want to be compensated with more food. i don't think i'll go back. think i'll keep...

Not the experience I had hoped for at all. Afterall the young guy working the station informed me that the only other Porkopolis in the universe was featured on Triple D with Guy Fierre. Of this is what he endorsed, I'm done!

First, our order was "To Go", so I guess that means throw whatever into the styrofoam container, "They will not be back!"

Fried Gumbo - "What was I thinking", the description certainly read like it was going to be awesome, what I got was something that looked and tasted like play-doh!! The container had 2 vials of a sauce that resembled and tasted like crushed aspirin and a sweet tart bbq sauce. Shrimp the size of pinky finger fingernails- seriously. Dried and bland shrimp, yikes! Someone took the time to cut up and sprinkle some scallions. I guess that was to mask them vast container of nothingness. The presentation was horrific.

My wife who is the sensible one ordered a Pulled Pork sandwich with Mac n Cheese with Jalapenos, upcharged $1 for the creamy goodness. What she received: a clump of room temperature meat resembling pulled pork with no taste, the bbq sauce that was used to cover the sandwich tasted like Ray's BBQ sauce for the local grocery store - we could be wrong, but it was eerily suspect.

The Mac N Cheese was in a container that resembled a chocolate candy box complete with some sort of tissue material covering it. Cold and barren, sort of like Lambeau Field.

Last order: Specifically, ordered a burger, lettuce and on the side, received: Bacon Cheeseburger. Explain this to a very picky teenager waiting at home!

$38.15 was their take!! Thanks for nothing!...

The sides were good. We enjoyed the mac & cheese, fries, green beans & baked beans. The baked beans were kind of heavy on the chili powder and would actually make incredible hot dog chili sauce.

We got a of the meats: burnt ends, ribs, turkey, chicken, pulled pork & brisket. The burnt ends were just chunks of brisket from the first round of cooking. They needed to go back on the smoker to actually be burnt ends. Not a lot of smoke on them either. This trend (not a lot of smoke) carried to the other meats. Brisket was tender but tasted like roast. Pulled pork was clearly previously made and reheated, had no flavor. The turkey had no smoke, was dry and reheated. The chicken actually had a decent amount of smoke & was juicy - possible it was fresh? The ribs were alright.

Both sauces were over the top, ridiculously sweet. The sweet & smokey was the equivalent of honey & chili powder. The sweet & spicy was the sweet & smoky with more chili powder in it and was not actually spicy. There was no complexity or depth to the sauces. Just sweet, sweet, sweet.

We were very disappointed with the food because we made a special trip to try it out. Our waitress was great and everyone was very friendly. I just wish the food would have been better.

When you order BBQ, you should never have to wait for it because it's already done. Just waiting to have sides added and brought out. We did wait a good amount of time for our food which we can only assume was being microwaved...