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