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Brother Jimmy’s BBQ
In an old house, a new concept
BY ROBERT NADEAU
Brother Jimmy’s BBQ
(617) 547-RIBS
96 Winthrop Street, Cambridge
Open Sun–Wed, noon–12:30 a.m., and Thu–Sat until 2 a.m.
AE, Di, MC, Vi
Full bar
No valet parking
Access up seven steps from sidewalk level

When the House of Blues closed, it took the blues memorabilia, the wonderful African-American outsider art, and the performance space, and left behind a curiously shack-like structure in the heart of Harvard Square. Since the House of Blues had featured some rather good smoked barbecue, I had high hopes when I saw signs for Brother Jimmy’s BBQ. Inside, the visual impression was more on the bubba side of barbecue than the African-American side. What’s gone up are a bunch of TV screens, which might air a fishing show or a vintage basketball game or some trash sport like women lifting small cars; lots of drinking and souvenir merchandise featuring pigs; a few tobacco signs; a video-game machine; and a bunch of Southern-college football pennants and such, with maybe a little extra Tarheel focus. It turns out that Brother Jimmy’s is part of a chain of three such eateries in New York City. They feature all the major styles of barbecue, very large drinks, and waitresses in strategically cut versions of the T-shirts that the restaurants sell. The tone is less sophisticated than Jake & Earl’s Dixie Roadhouse, and so is the food.

This isn’t entirely a bad thing; young people need somewhere to go where they can get decent ribs and a "swamp water" ($16), defined on the menu as "64 ounces of pure hell! Served in a fish bowl. Comes with your very own gator." I saw a few of these served, and the gator is plastic. That’s the good news. The drink is served in a regular two-gallon goldfish bowl, with a lot of straws sticking out. I imagine the straws are to remind you that you are supposed to drink the 64 ounces of pure hell, rather than use it to remove the chili stains from your pig T-shirt or to degrease your carburetor. I think the straws also remind you to share this drink with a lot of people. Individual drinks are served in Mason jars, so you can pretend they are moonshine, I guess.

On the non-alcohol side, the place serves bottled soda ($2), lemonade ($1.50; $6/pitcher), and raspberry lemonade ($1.75; $6). The lemonades were impossibly weak on an early visit, rather good on a later visit, and a little weaker on my third lunch. A little weaker might be okay if you’re using the lemonade to cut the spicy sauce, since the drink is refilled.

Food might well start with something fried, especially if it’s the fried okra ($5.95): melting chunks in a light batter, not too crisp, but not too greasy, either. The "hot dipping sauce" tastes like a vinegar-based hot sauce such as Frank’s or Tabasco, fresh out of the bottle. Cajun popcorn shrimp ($7.95) include the hot spices right in the batter, but ours were over-fried dark brown during the early visit. A fried-chicken dinner ($11.50) the same night was also fried almost black. Frying has since stabilized, as shown by an actually edible chicken-fried-steak dinner ($12.50). I’m not a fan of chicken-fried steak, but if you pound it as thin as wiener schnitzel (its likely parent) and don’t over-fry it, it’s kind of great. It helps that Brother Jimmy’s has a very good generic gravy, which the kitchen also pours over side dishes of mashed potatoes.

Back to appetizers. There’s a neon sign in the front window for Brunswick stew ($3.95), usually a sort of Virginia minestrone made with squirrel or chicken — you know, tastes like squirrel. However, Brother Jimmy’s has put trimmings of smoked meat into the stew, so it’s a kind of barbecue Brunswick with some sweet corn and no beans. Chili ($3.95) consists of tomatoes, but not too many, and lots of ground meat, not many beans, and a little spice. I’m not a fan of chili with tomatoes, but this is rather good.

Some chili also seems to be in the nachos grande ($7.50), otherwise the usual mound of blue and white corn chips with melted cheese, guacamole, salsa (lacking cilantro), a bit of sour cream, and some black beans — only larger. Caesar salad ($6.95), to mention another quasi-Mexican dish, is a clean, reasonable job with somewhat buttery croutons.

Main food consists of sandwiches (served on a soft roll, with one side dish) and dinners (with two side dishes and corn bread). Begin with the ribs ($15.95), which come three ways: Northern-style, dry-rub, and Southern-style. Of course, I had the combo platter with any two or all three ($15.95). The Northern-style ribs are braised in sauce, no smoke, and are quite successful. Actually, this is the historic Roxbury-Mattapan-Dorchester style, and it’s consistently well-executed here. I don’t think the smoker is fully under control on the other styles. The Southern — supposedly smoked for hours — were smoky but dried out on my first visit, and lacked smoke another time. Dry-rub ribs may be immersed in "21 spices," but mine tasted mostly like salt and pepper. They were pretty good on an early visit, very juicy but entirely lacking smoke on a later visit.

Some things are getting smoked, as Brother Jimmy’s does a pretty good job with its sliced-brisket sandwich ($7.95), using lean flat-cut brisket, yet keeping it juicy and getting a light smoke flavor into it. A pulled-pork sandwich ($7.25) was quite peppery, with a little vinegar sauce and some taste of the fire. That’s probably what I would have on my own money. The cheeseburger ($7.25) is large and reasonably juicy, but not terribly tasty. I suspect ground round here, but it should be ground chuck, which is better flavored.

In terms of side dishes ($2.50/each; $7.95/four), think starch, even though a slab of corn bread comes with every dinner. It’s yellow corn bread, cold, and somewhat heavy. But the skin-on mashed potatoes, with a good gravy, are excellent. The potato salad is chunky, with a few peppers and onions for extra crunch. The candied yams with walnuts are spiced like Yankee apple pie and could be addictive. The macaroni and cheese is mostly pasta, but has some baked-on crumbs. The French fries are very salty, but thin and crisp, with a few skins left on. They resemble the fine McDonald’s fries of the 1960s and 1970s, before that chain started using frozen potatoes.

Of the healthier side dishes, the coleslaw (with some celery seeds) is good, and the collards are properly sour and salty. But the black-eyed peas are quite dull, the baked beans are too sweet, and the corn on the cob knows it’s winter.

There is only one dessert so far, a "mud pie" ($3.95) that tastes like half-baked brownie dough served with ice cream. I know some people for whom it doesn’t get much better than half-baked brownie dough and ice cream.

The early crowd — and Brother Jimmy’s has one at night — appears to be students who are there mostly to drink and eat familiar food. They seem pretty happy, and may well develop an interest in more serious revival barbecue, which will take them to Redbones, Uncle Pete’s, Blue Ribbon, or even the East Coast Grill or Rouge.

Robert Nadeau can be reached at RobtNadeau@aol.com .


Issue Date: December 19 - 25, 2003
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