[Henry]

Like so many other foods, real pit beef is dying off right before our eyes. I happen to live within a few miles of which I guess recently has attained a rep as the go-to pit beef spot round these parts, even referenced in the pit beef thread that seems to have died a while back. It's pretty good but not really real. Two things should jump out at pit beef enthusiasts from the get go - there's barely any char or crust on the meat, and it is way too tender (also a characteristic of the "pit" beef at Key Pit Stop, which I sorta reviewed for the Citypaper '08 Eat Guide).

After peeking into the kitchen from across the counter, it's immediately apparent that this place uses pre-prepared deli meat, instead of cooking from scratch. Now this may make some sense for pit ham, or perhaps even pit turkey, but not for pit beef. This may explain the sporadic availability of rare and medium-rare beef encountered by some. They do however use real wood charcoal, fwiw.

I need to have that deep, dark char and slightly chewy, bloody texture you get from medium-rare top or bottom round. Here's my default order at chaps, the bulldog (pit beef, sausage, cheese), genius in concept if not execution:



The ribs here are actually worse than I could have possibly expected. They're completely untrimmed spareribs, so in a full order you actually only get 3 ribs, with lots of the coarser "outside" meat, fat and gristle attached. Very unattractive. Plus they are obviously boiled or baked, lacking any smoke flavor at all. Another candidate down in the search for decent bbq in Baltimore:



...and then simply thrown on the grill briefly before getting doused with sauce that tastes like genereic supermarket or Sysco. Very bland and more akin to eating pork roast than ribs. DO NOT WANT! Note the total absence of a smoke ring:



As has been mentioned in the pit beef thread, fries were terrible, one step away from mashed potatoes - yeah, that soggy.

[1000yregg]

Thanks Henry for the detailed review. I was dissed for recommending Canopy over Chaps on the Chowhound board. I feel vindicated.

[Dmnkly]

I wasn't a big fan of Chaps either, and I'm practically a pit beef virgin so I don't have a discerning eye just yet, but are we talking about the same place, Henry?




Note, bloody bun. It looks like they're cooking hunks of meat from scratch to me. Or did you mean that they're taking packaged deli meat and just putting a little char on them? That could be -- it's not something I was watching for -- but they didn't seem to have that kind of uniformity to me.

I'm not defending the sandwich. I wasn't a fan. But though I wasn't looking with a suspicious eye and might've missed something, I'm a little surprised by the suggestion that they aren't cooking their own meat. I'm curious as to what leads you to think so.

[Henry]

To me, the beef had that supermarket deli meat injection brine flavor, and again the tenderness draws suspicion. I didn't mean that they take sliced deli meat and grill it (which they actually do do at Key Pit Stop), I believe they take whole cuts of cooked, brined roast beef, grill them for a time, then slice. When you buy this kind of roast beef, you can get medium-rare or fully cooked styles, thus I think if/when they run out of the medium rare cuts, they can't just take out a raw cut of top round and start cooking it. I also think the excessive moisture content in the commercial deli-style meat is what prevents a proper char crust from forming on their beef. This is gonna sound nasty, but although my sandwiches also had pink stains, I believe it was brine solution, because it didn't taste bloody at all. Ewww. I mean mmmm. When you have the real stuff, you will immediately be able to differentiate. Also, based on the size of the building and what was visible of the kitchen, I couldn't imagine where their actual pit would be. What I did notice was meat being taken out of storage drawers, already cooked, and then being grilled. I really don't know jack about cooking pit beef, but I imagine you wouldn't get good results actually cooking such large cuts on a flat-top grill.

[Henry]

Also, and I will confirm this next time I go, the cuts on the grill looked way too uniform, semi-spherical with a distinct flat side. Real pit beef tends to be much more irregular:



Now I suppose I could be wrong about all this, but I'd bet money there's no raw beef in the Chaps walk-in.

[Henry]

Henry, on Jun 7 2008, 03:54 PM, said:

Also, and I will confirm this next time I go, the cuts on the grill looked way too uniform, semi-spherical with a distinct flat side. Real pit beef tends to be much more irregular:



Now I suppose I could be wrong about all this, but I'd bet money there's no raw beef in the Chaps walk-in.

GRAAAHHH!!!!! Mother Fffiddle dee dee.... Sigh, I guess I was wrong. If Food Network is to be believed, Chaps does indeed cook their beef from scratch. But it is bottom round and not top round, which may account for the inferior flavor, but makes me really respect the place for being able to get it so tender. Sorry Chaps.

[Ericandblueboy]

Thinking about stopping by this joint on the way back from NJ on MLK Day. Too lazy to do much research, should we go here or somewhere else?

ETA: Looks like we should go to Canopy but that's a little out of the way. Does the difference in quality warrant the extra driving (considering we'll be driving home from NJ, already a 4 hr trip)?

[Ericandblueboy]

I liked the Tiger sauce I'm no fan of BBQ but I found the beef sandwich edible, a little dry, a little smoky, but definitely edible. The cheese fries, mac 'n cheese....not horrendous just nothing special. My wife liked her BBQ pork sandwich but she's not inclined to go out of her way to go back. Something to do on the way home from NJ....once!