State Fair and Good Eats

Last Sunday (yes, I'm behind already) we met my parents at the State Fair. They were volunteering at a booth while we came to visit, eat, and walk around all the exhibits.  Basically there was a whole area just for BBQ and microbrews and although I would have liked to have gone nuts and tried every vendor there, the expense would have killed us so I just limited myself to one vendor.  My FIL told me the place to go for ribs in Salem is a place called Adam's Rib.

Cute name, huh?  We saw their booth and I made a beeline to the front of the line (we were the only one's in line so I didn't take cuts!) and since it was my first "Fair" food of the day only had the 3 rib sampler.

As you can see from the picture, there are actually 4 ribs there. The man behind the counter thought they were on the small side so decided to even things out a bit for us which was a very nice gesture. The meat wasn't overly salted with a rub, but you can definitely taste the smoky flavors. I usually ask for sauce on the side, but since it was in a big jug and you served yourself, I decided to pump some on and try it out as well. It was slightly tangy with a brown sugar taste but not overly sweet. I have no idea how to rate sauces, but I thought it went well with the ribs. 

We ate a lot of other stuff I know I probably shouldn't have but I'm going to gloss over that and fast forward to last night.

I got home from work and the decision on what to do, what to have and where to go for dinner commenced. We finally decided to try happy hour over at Reedville Cafe

 I had never tried their happy hour before so thought it would be fun to try "something new" there and I was not disappointed. I had a Caesar Salad and their Rib Tips which I asked to not be smothered in their BBQ sauce but on the side. All I can say is I was very happy with my choice and felt I received a good sized portion for the cost. The rib tips had a slight smoky flavor and the BBQ sauce was tangy and I could even taste the tomato and vinegar in it. I didn't think the sauce was sweet which was fine with me. I will definitely be back to have these again.

Off and Running

I should start out by saying I am not a rib person. Well, I wasn't. I didn't like gnawing away on bones like a dog or all that barbeque sauce that most ribs are drowning in - Side note: Does anyone recall Louis the Lifeguard who was happy to say he saved a drowning potato today? I am a very messy eater and I usually end up having more food on me than on my plate.

Anyway - my dislike for ribs changed about 2 months ago. My auntie wanted to compare the ribs at Stanford's to the ribs at Claim Jumpers. I didn't know what her fascination for these were until I decided to order some of the Northern Style Ribs off the PF Chang's happy hour menu. I took a bite and a light bulb went on - these are good! No sauce to contend with and a wonderful 5 Spice/Salt mixture that I get to put sweet and salty on my braised meat.

So now I'm on my own little quest to find the tastiest ribs in Oregon. I've actually started 2 months ago, and was doing my own personal rating, but some of my friends thought it would be a good idea to write it all down in a blog (go figure). So now I get to start over (oh darn) and I will try to include photos when I can remember.