Dotty Lou's BBQ — Restaurant in Town of Colonie

Good smokey BBQ goodness.

A bit hidden away in the Marketplace Plaza, I found this location while searching for a good BBQ joint I could try. Ordered over the phone, as their online service is not active, going with the 3 Meat Combo. Burnt Pork Ends, Texas Style Brisket, and Smoked Wings. And for my sides I ran with the Jalapeño Cheddar Cornbread, and their Five Cheese Mac. Altogether running me just under $40 with tip.

Arrived right on time to find my order waiting and ready for me, the service was great, and they even threw in a few sauces for me to try out. A white BBQ sauce, a brown BBQ sauce, and a more traditional red BBQ sauce.

Back home I was really digging the burnt ends, so juicy, bursting with rich meaty flavor! The brisket was also quite juicy and so fatty, normally not the biggest fan of a lot of fat on my brisket but turning it into sandwich meat with the included Texas style bread slices worked perfectly. The wings were the opposite though, not a drip of fat to be found, every inch of their skins smoked to perfection, and provided a satisfying texture to contrast the soft mush from the brisket. The mac was good too, nice and cheesy, but I was hoping for more kick to it. Same goes for the cornbread, which despite the presence of jalapeño was not very spicy at all. In fact the bread was pretty hard, very stiff, seemingly due to my trip home taking too long allowing it to cool down. I'd recommend reheating the bread a bit if you too need to drive 30+ minutes.

All said, the meal was very filling, had nice sized proportions, and was well...

I've been looking for good BBQ up here in NY since I moved here from Texas, and man, does this hit the spot. I had the brisket sandwich, beans, and banana pudding. I ordered the brisket sandwich without the aioli (that on a brisket sandwich seems odd to me but maybe that's a local thing,) but I'm going to focus on the brisket. It had a proper smoke ring, a nice bark (not too peppery, but still noticeable,) it was moist, not chewy, and had a great smoked flavor. All in all, it was on par with most of the places I've had in Texas, but it's no interstellar BBQ.

The beans are some of the best I've had, classic bbq beans, with a nice sauce, and burnt ends (the same great brisket on the sandwich,) they tasted great and I would definitely go out of my way to get them. I would place them with the greats like interstellar (in Austin) and Lattuca (in Montreal)

And finally, the banana pudding, it seems hard to mess up, but I've certainly seen it happen before, but they tasted just like the places in Texas make them.

TLDR: tastes like proper Texas bbq, they know what...

After someone recommended

Dotty Lou’s we placed an order today. The food was excellent. We have tried almost all of the Bbq available in the Capital District and with the exception of one other place, Dotty Lou’s is the best and the only one that we will patronize again, and again. They jumped the hurdle where most fail. They produce great tasting proteins across the board as well as delicious sides. But here is where they really impressed us. This was a pick up order 25 minutes from where we live and the order was picked up 45 minutes before they closed. We were missing a couple of items when we got it home and called to let them know and be reimbursed for those items. They were so apologetic, so kind. They offered to drive the remaining order to our house. We declined because of the distance and because their work day was over, no need to prolong it. We were already enjoying the meal. They reimbursed our meal and sent us a gift card despite being told it wasn’t necessary. Class act business that serves...