A week of sudden rib cravings led me to dine at two American diners last week. First was a meal at Ribs & Burgers in Perth city and the other at Subidoo in Subiaco. The latter was my pick to meet up with a few colleagues over dinner.
To start we ordered a main size buttermilk fried chicken with spicy mayonnaise.
These crispy boneless chicken came out promising. It looked crispy on the outside but it was missing the outer crust with a deep crunch. What also felt lacking was the memorable buttermilk fragrance. Subidoo’s buttermilk chicken had a thin layer of crust rather than a crunchy batter. In saying that it came out really tender and still yummy. Apparently buttermilk works as a tenderiser too!
Fish Tacos; battered fish, slaw, and chilli aioli.
This unsuspecting taco is one of my surprise favourites at Subidoo. Its flavours were spot on! You have the acidity of the slaw, the creamy mayonnaise and the crispy fish. Sounds like a sure win does it not? However, it could be super-sized though to make it real American if you get what I mean. The tacos were a little small.
That night we had three serve of ribs which allowed us to sample all their specialties. The first of the three was the beef back ribs.
The full rack for $30 was a steal. Imagine thick and juicy fall of the bone meat that is tender, slightly fatty with its edges mildly caramelised. Basting was rich, and its flavours all worked so very well together. Delicious.
The other two rib dishes were based on pork. The Five Spice Ribs and the Cuban Style BBQ Pork Ribs.
The Asian inspiration in the Five Spice Ribs were pretty obvious. It had notes of tamarind and was topped with some chilli. The Five Spice flavour was present and to bring all the flavours together you have that fruity sweetness from the palm sugar which carries a natural caramel flavour. It was decent but I did not feel quite as impressed as I was with the beef ribs!
The Cuban style BBQ Spare Ribs was also something which I felt tasted OK but did not really live up to my expectations. With all due respect, I did not get the smokey BBQ flavours one would normally expect. Perhaps it has something to do with the Cuban style barbecue? Never had that before haha.
As a side, we also had the chargrilled corn. Boy, these were so good. Sweet corn perfectly cooked and simply oozing with the chipotle sauce. The added sprinkling of cheese made dreams come true and it was all a very common flavour that everyone on the table enjoyed. Except AC of course as he does not like cheese at all!
Subidoo is a nice place to catch up with friends over a meal in Subiaco as its casual and airy diner means you have a lot more space without the feeling of suffocating. But if you are here for the ribs which is the specialty of Subidoo, you will feel disappointed (with the exception of the beef ribs). The plate of porky ribs did not feel as though there was enough love present in the process of preparing the dish. Clearly enough from the picture, it felt as though the sauce and the ribs were two separate components from start to end. Sauce poured on top of dry ribs? I wanted ribs tenderised by slow cooking. Then set it on a grill and baste it with the sauce repeatedly to initiate the fusion between meat and sauce. Subidoo’s execution of the pork ribs was mildly flawed but its lack of attention to detail made it deplorable. In hind sight, I would return anytime for those gorgeous beef ribs!
WenY.
