Great Ribs & Brisket at Hoggy's, Bad Mac & Cheese

Friday night I went to Hoggy's for celebrating MD Girl's* birthday and had BBQ there. Since I've had tasted more BBQ, I felt I could give a fair review on BBQ tasting because I've got basis of comparisons now.

I've had Hoggy's BBQ before, and it was pretty good. So this time I want to compare samples of their BBQ, so I ordered the Hoggy Grazer, which had pulled chicken, pulled pork, and brisket sandwich, BBQ ribs, cole slaw, mac & cheese, Texas chili, and some cornbread.

First I tried the pulled chicken. The chicken was juicy and soaked in the BBQ sauce, which I think robbed the true flavor from the chicken. Same thing was with the pork. Don't get me wrong, I love BBQ sauce. But the overly saucy BBQ really masked the real flavor of the meat, be it chicken, pork, or beef. The brisket (thank god) was presented without sauces, and it was tender and juicy and it almost felt like a long stewed meat. The little bit of dry rub on the outside layer was very tasty and the brisket was not overly smoky. The rib was presented also sans BBQ sauce, and the main attraction was the dry rub. The dry rub was great, it had lots of different flavors but wasn't overly spicy. The rib was very tender and almost falling off the bone. OK, now on with the side dish.

The Texas chili was all meat chili. All the spices was there, peppers, garlic, tomato, etc., but it wasn't season correctly because the chili wasn't salty but very peppery. So maybe it was an off day for the chili. The mac & cheese was horrible because it came in chunks of mushy macaroni and some cheese sauce, and served LUKE WARM! (Com'on, I ordered mac & cheese, not water!) The cole slaw was so-so because it was the overly mayo type. The cornbread was only so-so because it was somewhat dry. Well, let me put it this way, it was no Brownstone's cornbread.

The overall experience in Hoggy was OK. I would rank the food a 3 out of 5 on my yummy scale. If you get there, definitely try the ribs and the brisket. Be careful about the side dishes because it's usually hit-or-miss. There are several locations for Hoggy, I'm putting two because those are the two that I've been to. One is on 1416 W 5TH Ave. Columbus OH, and another one on 3675 W Dublin Granville Rd. Columbus OH.