Jump to content

Fat Pete's, BBQ Now in Several Locations in DC and MD


Recommended Posts

According to the owners' facebook page for their sister restaurant, the Cleveland Park Bar & Grill - the new BBQ place will be called Fat Pete's and as of late April, they we're looking to open June 1st. Not clear if that deadline will be met. When I've walked by recently, there has definitely been some activity in the location but the Pulpo sign is still up and they have blacked out the main window to stop looky-loos like me from checking on their progress. Hopefully, they'll open soon and we'll get some good BBQ.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

According to the owners' facebook page for their sister restaurant, the Cleveland Park Bar & Grill - the new BBQ place will be called Fat Pete's and as of late April, they we're looking to open June 1st. Not clear if that deadline will be met. When I've walked by recently, there has definitely been some activity in the location but the Pulpo sign is still up and they have blacked out the main window to stop looky-loos like me from checking on their progress. Hopefully, they'll open soon and we'll get some good BBQ.

I wrote Cleveland Park Bar & Grill and asked, but maybe somebody here knows. Cleveland Park Bar & Grill (which we surprisingly have no thread for) used to be owned by the same people who opened Sesto Senso (now closed) and Darlington House, but I'm unclear about Fabio Beggiato's current involvement (Peter Balish and Jeff Holibaugh are still active). Who owns Darlington House now? And is Fabio Beggiato still a principal in any of these operations? This is all terribly confusing, though I suspect the answers lie deep within the recesses of Google.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

To be honest, the only thing not entirely mediocre about CPBG is the roof deck, and with the average quality of BBQ in DC I don't know how excited I can get for this.

At least people are trying to improve the BBQ scene though - maybe these guys will hit the mark.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

From the Wash Post:

Like most 'cue joints in the area, with the notable exception of the Texas-leaning Hill Country, Balish and Holibaugh's unnamed smokehouse will likely offer barbecue from all major American regions: Texas, Kansas City, the Carolinas and Memphis. It only makes sense, Balish notes.  "We're not going to limit ourselves to one concept," he says. "The people who live in this city, they come from all over."

I will of course hold off judgement until they open, but in my opinion, pick a style and go for it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I will of course hold off judgement until they open, but in my opinion, pick a style and go for it. 

Sure, barbecue can definitely fall into the "do one thing, and do it well" category.

But I will always owe a small debt to Old Glory in Georgetown for having six different sauces at each table, each with a brief description. After several visits, the styles stuck in my mind. Plus, they'd dramatically STAMP the tablecloth with a big, loud WHUMP! (Do they still do that?)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Opening date is July 1st according to their sister restaurant's website, Cleveland Park & Grill. I poked my head in the construction site and the space looks pretty but they are doing the finishing touches.  They also posted a pic on their twitter feed recently that their massive smoker was delivered.  I'm very excited for another new addition to the neighborhood - hopefully the food is good and I hope they serve lunch weekdays (crossing fingers).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9:30 pm and Fat Pete's was out of food. All of it. Guess Cleveland Park is excited to have a bbq joint. I briefly meet Pete and he was very apologetic and even embarassed about it. He said they went through 5 briskets tonight.

I managed to snag a half rack of baby back ribs. It might have been the last order they filled. The ribs had some nice smoke penetration. The meat had a nice chew and not fall off the bone, which led to some good bone gnawing. Unfortunately, the meat was on the dry side, either a bit overcooked or they had been sitting around. Worse was the saltiness of the spice rub, waaay too salty, but the rub did have a nice spice heat to it.

For opening night and clearly overwhelmed, i would give them a passing grade. Certainly interesting enough to revist and sample their other bbq offerings, if there's any left.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've now eaten lunch the last three days, M-W, from Fat Pete's each time sampling different stuff from their large menu. I agree that it gets a passing grade, but bear in mind they are still learning the ropes. They only got their smoker installed a few days before opening last week and are still developing their cooking and tweaking the menu (some sides have changed from the original menu and maybe more to come).

Prices:

Portions of meat are ample about 1/3 lb for sandwiches or platters and come with 1 side and bun *(sandwich) or $1.50 extra for 2 sides (no bun).  The prices are very reasonable around $10-15 for one meat sandwich or platter.

Meats:

All of the meats and proteins (salmon and tofu on the menu currently) are smoked here - they have a grill, but it doesn't look like many items go on it.

Sliced brisket was the best meat so far. Medium thickness with a bit, but not too much fat.  Nice pink smoke ring, but only a subtle smokiness. Soft texture, but not fall apart (they also offer chopped brisket and burnt ends which I'll try soon). I think a bit more smoke flavor would be good, but this went well with the sauces.  Unlike Hill Country and other Texas-style places, I'd recommend saucing all of the meats here - which is actually my preferred, DC native style of BBQ :D

"Pulled" Chicken tasted rather good and had a subtle spice and good amount of smokiness. I say "Pulled" though because it was more like shredded and then dice - almost as if it was in a cuisinart. So the flavor was good, but texture a bit odd.  I had it as a platter, but if you ate it on a bun as sandwich it probably would be fine. I asked several people about the texture because whenever I've had pulled chicken is still usually in small chunks like chicken salad but supposedly when they hand pull the chicken it kind of falls apart like this. I was also told it was a mix of white and dark chicken. I'll have to try it again and see what comes out.  Hopefully, next time it'll be a bit chunkier and not have the small bone in it.  My toddler who we're slowly getting to eat chicken thought it was ok too.

They also offer a half-chicken that is smoked and finished on the grill, which I'll likely try soon.

Turkey was my least favorite so far. Nice medium thick slices of breast meat with a bit of skin on the edges. It tasted just ok - not much different than any fresh roasted turkey. It lacked smokiness. I don't I'd get his again except maybe if I'm sharing with the smoke-adverse.

I don't do pork so someone else will have to report on the ribs and pulled pork offerings.

Sauces:

They have 6 sauces covering pretty much all of the major regional cues.  They are made inhouse and tasty, but could use a bit more complexity for rounding out the flavors. I achieve this effect somewhat by combining sauces. I love having different sauce options in all cuisines so I tried out all of them on each of the above meats alone and in combo (who says it isn't fun to play with your food).

Sweet - a ketchup base that is slightly thick and bit too sweet for my taste. Although it was nice to combine with the mustard or spicy sauce to mellow and sweeten those out. Not spicy at all.  Good on beef, chicken, or turkey.

Spicy - tomato base I think that is a bit chunkier and mostly has a chili spice flavor (probably 5 on the Cal Tort Wall of Fire 0-10 scale). It is better than plain hot sauce, but still mostly a one note spiciness. Nice in combo with the Sweet sauce though.  Good on beef, chicken, or turkey.

Carolina Vinegar - a dark vinegar sauce that has tomatos in it I think. Seemed to be thicker than other more straight vinegar BBQ sauces I've had. I'm not so much a fan of vinegar BBQ sauce at all and so wasn't surprised I didn't like this one much either (but was better than others). Bear in mind I didn't put it on pork which is more traditional.  Only ok on pulled chicken, didn't like it on the sliced brisket or turkey.

Mustard - yellow mustard base and pretty good. It is pretty spicy - comparable to the Spicy sauce.  I'm a fan of mustard in my BBQ sauce so I liked this one on its own or in combo with the Sweet.  Good on beef, chicken, or turkey.

Alabama White - my first time trying this type of mayo and vinegar mixed sauce that is a bit runny. Not spicy. I was surprised I liked it a good deal on the chicken, so so on the turkey and not good on the brisket.

Texas Mop Sauce - a runny vinegary brown sauce that only tasted good in a light layer on the brisket. Flavor was similar to a beef broth like for a french dip sandwich, but less beefy and more vinegary. My least favorite of the sauce, but it was good on the brisket. Not good on chicken or turkey.

Sides: 

 

Vinegar coleslaw - really good. Typical shredded cabbage with a bit extra veg - but the vinegar wasn't too much so was balanced well with the sweetness in the cabbage. (I also don't usually go for vinegar slaw because I find it to sour and not sweet enough for my taste). Very good top on some meat with the sandwich.  They also offer creamy coleslaw too.

Hush puppies - disappointing. A small side with a meat is 5 small balls with a bunch of honey butter on the side. Best part was the sweet butter. The balls just tasted fried dough without any corn taste and delivered no other flavor despite having a dab of goat cheese inside and flecks of poblano in their crust.  I think it is a nice idea, but I'd much prefer traditional, fried crispy outside and soft cornmeal insides.  Their fry job was good, but the recipe needs revision.

Cornbread - a side is two good size pieces with honey butter. It was good bread, but more dense than I like and not sweet - although the butter easily compensated for that. Overall a good side and big portion.

Collard Greens - ok if you want a vegetable. they stew them with onions, some vinegar and a chicken stock (no other meat in it). Flavor was ok but nothing special despite the additions. Recipe likely needs some work.

Atmosphere:

The space is exactly as it was at Pulpo - which may be a tad too dark for a BBQ bar since so many of the tables are set so far away from the big front window and lights are rather dim. A bit hard to read the sauce labels and the 4 brownish red ones look similar.

Service:

I ate in Monday (table with toddler) and Wednesday (alone at bar) and then got carryout on Tuesday. Overall the service is very friendly and eager, but still smoothing things out. One thing they need to figure out is the sauce distribution. Each table has a random assortment of 2-3 of the 6 sauces and it is a bit cumbersome to have to ask for missing sauces. Better to put them in smaller bottles and have a sauce caddy at each table or some other way. 

Also they need to rewrite the menu or figure out what they want to do with the sauces. Some items come pre-sauced, some don't. Some are described this way on the menu and some aren't. Yesterday I suggested to the friendly bartender that they shouldn't pre-sauce anything since almost everything comes out of the smoker dry, everyone has their own sauce preference, and the sauces are available on the tables or at the carryout counter.   What they should do is list of the menu sauce recommendations for each item like I did above.  She took a note, so maybe my wish will come true.

So far business is doing well - even for lunch which is great to have another weekday lunch place in CP. They really want to develop the latenight bar side of the business when food may not be available.  Best of luck that they work out the kinks soon. Worth trying if you are in the area - probably not worth a special visit. I'll probably be back next week a few times.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Went back for lunch today around noon and it was pleasantly busy (the couple of servers were a bit harried and they could probably use another).  Ordered the 1/2 chicken platter which was pretty good - nice smokiness, juicy. The chicken is smoked, dipped in their Alabama white sauce and finished on their grill. The grilling adds a bit of good char to the skin, but the sauce dip is a wasted step as I could see some sauce on the skin, but it was mostly wiped away by the grill fire.  That being said, the white sauce was my favorite on the chicken (I asked for a bottle for dipping). The sweet and mustard as a combo or just the mustard were also good on the chicken.

I was told was a 1/2 lb, not a half chicken (" a breast, but a really big one" said the server) - but I got a half chicken cut into 2 pieces (breast with wing attached and thigh with leg).  I told the server and he said that they must have given me extra meat, which I said thanks for, but I still don't know what the proper amount is.  Both the white and dark meat were tasty (I ate most of the white, picked at the thigh and brought the rest home).  Either way, it is a good, or if you get the amount I got, a great deal at $12.50 which also includes 2 good sized-sides.   For sides I had the Waffle fries and the creamy coleslaw. The fries were meh - supposedly seasoned with Old Bay - they had virtually no seasoning, not even much salt.  Dipping them in the sweet or spicy sauce wasn't bad though.  Probably would skip ordering these again.  The creamy coleslaw was good - same veggies as vinegar slaw but with a light mayo coating instead. I prefer the vinegar one here though.

I also saw another tables order of pulled chicken and it did look more like regular chunks of pulled chicken that you normally see - not as I described earlier here. So not sure if I had an off early day or what, but I'll report back after I try the pulled chicken again.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

At at Fat Pete's for the first time last night. Really glad to see a new place opening up in the neighborhood after we lost a few favorites. This place has lots of potential, but still some teething problems.

We started with an order of the burnt ends, which were lovely; these are tips of brisket smoked for several hours beyond the rest of the meat. Really good meaty smoky flavor. I had the 1/2 bbq chicken platter, my companion had a platter with pulled pork and chopped pork. Both were perfectly fine but neither knocked my socks off. I suspect the brisket was perhaps the way to go. I'm gonna disagree with KeithA on the sides (and perhaps they've tweaked them?)--the cornbread I had was sweet and cakey, and the sweet butter alongside was too much sweetness--I needed a little salt to cut the sweet. I thought the collards were grand, and they were the best thing I ate there.

We also split the cookie monster sundae, described on the menu as a warm choc chip cookie with chocolate chip ice cream, hot fudge sauce, and whipped cream. I'll definitely cop to a serious sweet tooth, and this was entirely underwhelming. The (room temperature) cookie was hockey-puck dense, arrived in a cupcake wrapper, and was topped with one scoop of chocolate (not chocolate chip) icecream. There was another scoop of icecream served alongside,. About a teaspoon of some sort of dark brown sauce had been waved in its general direction, and the whole affair was fenced in by a rectangle perimeter of whipped cream. These folks have pie, and I suspect that is the way to go.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Went back for round 2...so clearly my sampling size is small and these guys have only been open for a couple of weeks, but I'm already convinced that they need to do a rethink.

I ordered the NC Chopped Pork Sandwich.  While I'm not going to claim to be an expert on NC BBQ, I have done my fair share of eating NC BBQ.,  This was not NC BBQ.  First the meat resembled pulled pork, ok perhaps they gave me the wrong pork.  Down in Eastern NC the pork is minced, usually with some of the vinegar based sauce worked into the meat as it is chopped.  It makes a difference.  Furthermore, the slaw, if you go that way, is an integral part of the sandwich.  At Fat Pete's there was a couple pieces of cabbage leaf on top.  Finally, the meat had a weird wet mushy texture, which generally isn't a good thing.

You can drive to the heart of Eastern NC BBQ territory in 4-5 hours (traffic willing), They need to go on a recon mission, Start at Parker's, drive down to Wilbur's, head over to Skylight, Bum's is 10 minutes further North, if you time it right you can also hit up B's.

I also did a sampling of all their sauces and none were standouts.  The mac and cheese was fine but nothing special.

I'm going to go back to my original supposition - offering BBQ from all regions because people in DC are from all over is the wrong move.  Your brisket will never be as good as what you get in Texas, your ribs never as good as Kansas City or Memphis, and your pork never as good as what you can get in the Carolinas.

I'll continue to sample Pete's from time to time because it's a 5 minute walk from my place, but right now their BBQ is ok for DC, which isn't really high praise.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You can drive to the heart of Eastern NC BBQ territory in 4-5 hours (traffic willing), They need to go on a recon mission, Start at Parker's, drive down to Wilbur's, head over to Skylight, Bum's is 10 minutes further North, if you time it right you can also hit up B's. 

Having done it far more times than I wanted to, I can testify that you can drive from NW Washington to Wilson NC in about 3 hours and 45 minutes. Unfortunately, when you get there, you're in Wilson NC.

I am always loath to cry "food poisoning" after eating in a restaurant, but the very first meal I had in Wilson was at Parker's, and I spent most of the night that followed in the bathroom at my hotel. In agony.

I'm not a big fan of barbecue to begin with, but I'd be reluctant to patronize a restaurant that has this on its menu:

Belly Buster

Smoked bologna, 1/2 lb pulled pork, 1/2 lb chopped brisket, candied bacon, topped with mac & cheese and our spicy BBQ sauce.

$15.99

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So after letting the leftovers sit overnight in the fridge, I tucked some of the chicken into my kid's lunchbox today. As a cold chicken, it was pretty good--the smoke flavor came through a lot more. I might be adding this to my picnic repertoire--pick up a half chicken the night before, and pop it in a cooler with some cooked corn & salad.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Have now been to Pete's more than ten times. More or less agree with what can pass for a consensus above with just one exception that may attract a few tomatoes.

Some necessary background. The first time here, shortly after they opened, we were a large-enough group to be able to order around half the menu. The 2nd time, as a party of 6, we checked still more boxes. By the third visit, a decision was reached. And this is what may attract the tomatoes.

Baby back ribs with the dry rub are the thing most worth getting. A bit salty as an early poster above wrote--still true. And, echoing another poster, they aren't "fall off the bone." But, very consistent, good smoke and moist. I think these may well be the best ribs within the DC borders (a low bar imho).

Most sides are okay but nothing special. The collards stand out and have good flavor.

Evidently, they used to deliver but the relevant employee's scooter broke. No joke but for those who live nearby, they getting takeout taxi to resume delivery sometime soon.

Oh, and they still do occasionally run out of mainstay items at odd times...like no ribs on a Friday night at 6pm. But that seems to happen much less frequently than it used to. The place is usually quite full making this the rarest of concepts that may last a few years in the gargantuan space which, long ago before several years of vacancy, was a McDonalds.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...