Chicago Ribs serves up hearty but uninspired fare

Chicago Ribs serves up hearty but uninspired fare

I knew I was entering familiar dining territory as we walked
into Chicago Ribs in the BRI II Center Park building on Jl.
Sudirman, Central Jakarta.

The bracing feeling of having passed this way many times
before was not evoked by the aromas of food (none was
particularly distinct) nor the wall-to-wall gallery of
photographs of Hollywood stars of yesteryear. But with its wooden
furniture, pretty waitresses in too-short skirts and cluttered
but homey decor, Chicago Ribs is on par with thousands of family
restaurants scattered across the Midwest of the United States.

Of course, those eateries serve up such soul-satisfying but
heart-aching fare as patty melts, fried cheese balls and reubens,
while Chicago Ribs prides itself on being a specialty restaurant
for (no prizes here) ribs. Either way, though, the restaurants
fill diners up and send them out the door sated and with their
money's worth.

That is if one is in search of quantity. There are no
pretensions to refined culinary tastes here, which you wouldn't
expect anyway, but there is the unwavering commitment to
"overfacing" the customer. You immediately know the meaning of
overface (a cryptic adjective favored by my father although there
is no trace of it in Webster's) as a groaning plate of hunking
cuts of meat, a mound of french fries and the ubiquitous clump of
coleslaw is trundled before you and you are hit by the daunting
task of polishing it all off.

Which brings us back to our dinner at Chicago Ribs. The
restaurant was deserted when we arrived and the servers were
engrossed in the tribulations of a sinetron on one of several
televisions placed around the room. A waitress finally tore
herself away from the TV action but this was obviously done under
duress -- she kept one eye focused firmly on the screen as she
scribbled down our order.

We plumped for staple menu items -- an appetizer of potato
skins crammed with various fillings, entrees of beef baby back
ribs and barbecued chicken, and desserts of an ice cream sundae
and cheesecake.

We barely had time to begin the guessing game of putting names
to faces of Hollywood has-beens of Tony Curtis, Hedy Lamarr and a
very gorgeous and very young Liz Taylor when the potato skins
arrived at our table. These "Gold Coast" skins may present a very
real case for truth, or lack thereof, in menu descriptions. The
limpid sour cream was unappetizing and the "hoards" (or however
the chopped onions were glowingly advertised in the menu) were
actually little more than a few strands of shallots.

My friend, who had never tried potato skins before, enjoyed
them and their assorted fillings of chili, beef and (I think)
minced chicken. I agreed that they were pleasant enough. But
these microwave-zapped skins were inferior substitutes to anyone
who has tasted potatoes baked after being caressed in a dash of
salt, the insides then forked out and mashed with butter, cheese
and black pepper, and finally put back under the broiler until
the layer of cheese topping is bubbling a golden brown.

The potatoes were removed and we tackled the main course. The
ribs were the one item on the menu which did not disappoint. The
tender meat peeled off the bone easily, was neither too sinewy or
fatty, and tasted delicious. Unfortunately, the same could not be
said of the side dishes of lukewarm waffle fries and that
nondescript clump of coleslaw (does anyone actually eat the
stuff?).

The chicken was a huge piece of breast daubed in barbecue
sauce. The sauce was too sweet and caramelly for our tastes but
there was no denying that the meat was moist and plentiful.

In hindsight, we probably should not have expected much from
the dessert selection. After all, this is a restaurant
specializing in the hearty, no-nonsense fare of ribs, not dainty
desserts. But the Windy City Sundae and a slice of New York
Cheesecake sounded so tempting that we threw caution to the wind
and ordered them anyway.

You live and learn. The sundae was three dollops of
strawberry, vanilla and chocolate ice cream, smothered in what
resembled Cool Whip, and with that universal garnish of an
unnaturally deep red Maraschino cherry.

The less said about the cheesecake, the better. But I will
discourse on it anyway as it ranks up there as a veritable
culinary disaster. It must have been a mighty cold winter when it
was packed in New York, or someone forgot to push the thaw
setting on the microwave, because the cheesecake was still frozen
solid. Not as hard as a rock perhaps, but it would have been with
a couple more minutes in the deep freeze.

It was so hard and cold that it tasted like ice cream (it
actually sent shivers down my spine trying to slice into it)
instead of the creamy texture of real American cheesecake. The
crust may have been made of Graham crackers for all I knew, but
it was brittle and crumbled apart on the fork. After several
spectacular moments of frozen cake ricocheting across the table,
and wary of putting somebody's eye out, I rested my fork on my
plate and called it a day.

Simply put, Chicago Ribs is a great spot for filling your face
at a comparably reasonable price. The meal, plus three coffees,
came to just over Rp 71,000 (US$29.20). But the lashings of food
and its affordability come at the expense of taste.

We found this for ourselves. Although we had moved a notch
down on our belts by the end of the meal, our taste buds weren't
dancing and craving a return trip anytime soon.

-- Epicurus