Barbecue in Bay Ridge

I'll be honest. When I'm judging a barbecue restaurant, the meat isn't the first thing on my mind. It's the side dishes. Dallas BBQ is a mostly vile barbecue restaurant with several outposts throughout New York City, but I've happily been there three times because of its onion loaf.

Now I can get something almost identical at Uncle Jimmy's Backyard BBQ, only it's better because (1) it's right here in Bay Ridge and (2) instead of being unnaturally crunched together to form a loaf, the coated-and-fried onions are in free-and-easy strings. And best yet the order was big enough to fit inside a hollow football.

On second thought, maybe that wasn't such good news. By the time my pulled pork arrived, all I wanted to do was keep eating onion strings. By the time I got to my sandwiches (yes, plural: the plate came with two), I was already happily stuffed. I gave one of the pulled pork sandwiches to Paul and got half of my sweet potato chips to go. Unsurprisingly, I was thirsty all night.

So Uncle Jimmy's was good; it's maybe even one of the best places in Bay Ridge if you care as much about quantity as quality. The pork was fine, and the chips were tasty. But give me a basket of onion strings to go and I'd be perfectly fine.