Squealers- revisit

We were excited to learn we would be getting a Squealers location near our house—they have opened up in Castleton in what was a Max and Erma’s forever, and then for a short time, a Mexican place that was just okay. The interior is pretty similar in layout to the places before, but with a rustic BBQ kind of feel.

We were with friends on the night we decided to try it, and so we got an order of fried pickles ($6) to start. They were pretty solid fried pickles and you could tell they were making them in house. They were not all uniform and the pickles inside were still juicy. The breading had a nice seasoning, and as it turns out, was the same that was on the fried tenderloin sandwich (more on that later). I was curious about the dipping sauce they gave us and it turns out it’s a mix of ranch dressing and bbq sauce. That’s a pretty good combo—giving you the coolness of ranch but a bit of spice and heat from the BBQ sauce. We all enjoyed them and I would get them again.

For my main dish, hubby and I split the pick 3 sampler plate ($22) with pulled pork, pulled chicken and baby back ribs. For sides, I had a salad and mac and cheese. Both the pulled pork and chicken are good, although not my favorite in town. They are not quite as tender as is my personal preference, but once you load them up with sauce (I got half sweet/half hot combo for my sauce), it really doesn’t matter. I didn’t eat the ribs, but hubby keeps them on the top of his list for baby back ribs in Indy.

My salad was ok—I liked all the stuff on it—boiled egg, mushrooms, cheese and onion (not a fan of giant croutons). Strangely though, there wasn’t much lettuce underneath it all. It was almost like a garnish to the other stuff. The blue cheese dressing was tasty though—pretty thick with some nice hunks of cheese in it. The mac and cheese is good. Again, nothing mind blowing, but a good match with the bbq. Let’s face it, to me mac and cheese and BBQ are perfect partners.

AND FRIED BISCUITS. I will always like Squealers for the fried biscuits, even if the rest of the food isn’t my absolute favorite. Take one of those delicious, hot, crusty and slightly sweet (we had an extra order of them to share for $4) and load it with some of the pulled meat and some sauce, and you are good. I love those little fried biscuit sandwiches. I think next time I would just get the pulled pork (it was more tender than the chicken) and biscuits and be a happy camper. They also give you apple butter to go with them, which is also good and I happily make a dessert of the biscuits with it.

The surprise of the evening for me was my friend’s pork tenderloin sandwich ($10). It was one of those huge ones that hangs off the bun in every direction, but it was really, really delicious. And I wouldn’t have thought of ordering this at a BBQ joint (we kind of teased her about this), but they do designate it as one of the house specialties on the menu, and for good reason. It is really thin, but still amazingly tender and is breaded with that same slightly grainy, well-seasoned mix that was on the pickles. Also, she ordered cheese on it, which I have never done, and I can’t lie—it was pretty darn good as well. The fries that came along with it, well, they’re big steak fries and not my thing.  

Hmmm….I wonder if it would be weird if I ordered a fried tenderloin sandwich with a side of fried biscuits…

Squealers

5899 East 86^th Street

Indy  46240

317/915-7777

www.squealersbarbeque.com  

Squealers BBQ

Hubby and I have been in the mood for barbecue lately, and now that we have started trying them, we are hoping to go to several in the near future so that we can compare them without forgetting them.  Squealers has been on the list for quite awhile, and recommended a lot, so we thought we would start there.  Several people told me the original location in Mooresville is the best, but is quite a hike for us, so we just went with the one out on West 86^th Street.

So we ate a lot of stuff, and I will get to it, but man, the fried biscuits?  Freakin’ awesome.  Seriously, I have been thinking about those biscuits ever since.  They are super light and fluffy inside and fried just right to be a little crispy on the outside.  A teeny bit of sweetness, but not much.  I called them extremely tender, but not as sweet, doughnuts.  I want to go back just for them.

Ok, let's get to the real reason we were at Squealers-- the barbecue.  I ordered the pick 2 sampler platter ($15.50) with their “award winning” pulled pork and the “jumbo” chicken wings.  You also get your choice of 2 sides.  I chose mac and cheese and the Amish potato salad.  Oh, and you get two of those biscuits with apple butter.  Have I mentioned how much I like those things?  They also give you several choices for barbecue sauce. I went with mixed (“smoky sweet” + “smokin’ hot”) on my pork and just the sweet on the wings.  Anyway, my favorite thing meat-wise was definitely the pulled pork.  They give you quite a healthy portion of it and top it with some sauce.  If I had eaten all of it I probably would’ve wanted more sauce, but had enough for the amount of it I ended up eating.  The pork is pretty tender, although not the most tender I have had, and had a moderate smoky flavor on its own.  What I really liked was taking a little bit of it and piling it on a little piece of one of those biscuits.  I thought the sauce was really nice with smoky flavor and a bit of spice, but not too much.  The wings on the other hand were a write-off.  I ate only one just because I needed to taste it, but they were small, dry and blah.  Where they come up with “jumbo” as a descriptor, I do not know.  I do really enjoy barbecue chicken in general and would be interested to try the half smoked chicken and see if it was better.  I really enjoyed the pork, but was not so in love that I wouldn’t venture in another direction next time.  I found the sides kind of average-- I really didn’t like the potato salad and the mac and cheese was fine, but not amazing (although of our sides, it is one I might order again). I am not exactly sure how “Amish” potato salad traditionally made, but after some research, I have found nothing but disagreement on the subject.  This one clearly included a lot of sugar and tasted like it was probably made with a recipe similar to this, although I don’t think it had as many ingredients as this, it seemed mostly just like potatoes and celery in the dressing.  (On the bright side though, while I was looking around, I found this recipe for warm goat cheese potato salad which sounds quite delicious.) The mac and cheese was nice and cheesy, and certainly seemed homemade with actual cheese, and not “cheese product.”

Hubby, on the other hand, had some pretty amazing ribs.  He is the barbecue rib lover in our house and that is his go to item in a barbecue joint.  He ordered the ½ slab of baby back rib dinner ($16.20 with up charge for onion rings).  He got onion rings and cole slaw for his sides.  He declared that these were the best ribs in Indy, and after having a bite of them I agreed.  I wouldn’t exactly call them “fall off the bone” tender because you did actually have to pick them up and bite the meat off, but it came right off the bone when you did.  Absolutely no resistance.  They had a wonderfully smoky taste and were nice and “wet” in the mixed sauce.  The cole slaw, again was too sweet for both of us.  It actually tasted sort of similar to the potato salad (and look at the picture—it looks like mashed potatoes).  The onion rings were good—your basic onion rings, as hubby said, there are really no bad onion rings, only better onion rings, and these were somewhere in the middle. 

We also tried one of the cherry cobblers for dessert (not that we needed one more bit of food). Our server told us they made the cobblers there and they were only $1.95 with an extra $1 for ice cream.  It was okay.  The cherries were from a can and there was so much ice cream on top that the cobbler topping got lost and soft.  I would ask for the ice cream on the side if I got another one.  The service was friendly and efficient and our server checked back several times to make sure we didn’t need more sauce.  The interior is pretty much what you expect—casual.  There are several booths and regular tables.  They also have a full bar.

Hubby really wants to go back to Squealers and get some more ribs, and I want to go back for the biscuits.  But for now, we are setting out to try some other places first and compare them.  Who really has the best barbecue in Indy?  And do any other places do the fried biscuits?  I would love to compare them too!

Squealers

5515 West 86^th Street (another location in Mooresville)

Indy 46268

317/871-7427

www.squealersbarbeque.com