Smoking in Dana Point - CLOSED

Smokey's House of BBQ

32860 PCH #4

 Dana Point CA 92629

I just stumbled upon this place on our way to Laguna for an overnight stay at my girlfriend's cousin's house. I had never heard of Smokey's before, but the couple we were with had, and they seemed to think it was worth a try. I am always up for a good piece of barbeque, so that is where we headed.

Smokey's has two locations, (the other is in Oxnard), and according to their web site, they plan on opening fifty more in the next three years. A very ambitious goal in these tough economic times. We arrived at about 7 on a Saturday night. The place was busy, but we only had to wait about ten minutes. The barbeque smell hits you at the door of the place and is very good. Let's see if the food is as good as it smells. 

 

This is the Pulled Smoked Chicken Po-Boy with sweet potato fries. Sara really liked this sandwich and thought that they had just the right amount of BBQ sauce on it. The bite that I had was okay, I like a little more sauce than Sara though, also this sandwich usually comes with coleslaw on it, so that can be why I thought it was a little dry. She rated this sandwich, "a five out of five!". There were no complaints about the sweet potato fries, but I did not try them. I am not really too big of a fan of sweet potato fries.

Here is the Georgia Pulled Pork Po-Boy. Kevin said that this sandwich was as good as it was before. It again usually comes with coleslaw on it, but he ordered it without. This sandwich actually looked the best and would be what I would get when I get back to Smokey's.

Now, here is my plate. I ordered the Smokey's BBQ Combo Platter. This included four types of meat and two sides. From left to right are; the spicy Cajun hotlink, 1/4 rack of baby back ribs, 1/4 rack St. Louis ribs, and then barely visible in this picture is the Texas-style beef brisket. All of the meats were very good. I added a little BBQ sauce to all of them. They had a very interesting apple pie barbeque sauce on the table, that I really liked. The brisket and the hotlink were the best out of the meats. The coleslaw and fries were boring. They only offer a choice of four sides with a combo, the two above and BBQ beans, and sweet potato fries. For the $21.99 price tag, they should really let you choose from their Signature Sides. These include Mac and cheese, Cajun creamed corn, scalloped potatoes, and grilled veggies. All of these I am sure are better than the coleslaw and fries that I had.  Also, sorry I did not get a close up of this plate, I was really hungry and wanted to eat. So I only took one picture, my bad.

I thought that this place was going to be a little more expensive than it was, because of where it was. The Po-Boy sandwiches were only $9.99, and I thought the other prices on the menu were competitive as well. The service on the night we were there was not too good. Our Skillet Cornbread never made it to our table, and our server was MIA for most of the night. Maybe we just got the wrong guy.

Still, this place was good, not as good as Lucille's, but still good. I am still looking for a barbeque place that is going to knock my socks off, so if you know of any, leave me a comment. Out of five bull's horns, (check out their mascot), five being best to zero being worst, Smokey's gets 2.5 bull's horns.

You can get more information about Smokeys from their web site right here: http://www.smokeyshouseofbbq.com/index.html