Wood-not Chicks...if you dont smell the smoke...

...you should prob walk out immediately and head to another bbq establishment. Jason and I learned this lesson the hard way. He and I went to eat at Woodchicks BBQ in Chesapeake, Va because we had heard about woodchicks on FoodNewtork and had seen Bobby Flay's throwdown with them. He lost, so our expectations were high....we were GREATLY disappointed. For starters, we ordered a pulled pork sandwich combo and a Jr. Sampler (brisket and bbq). Jason's sides were hushpuppies (burnt and had to be sent back) and mac n' cheese. Mine were pot. salad and sweet pot. fries (too many starches, I know, but I had a craving!). The sides were the size of a ramekin and tasted like they were fresh out of the grocers fridge, not like they had been homemade (as we were told by the young lady behind the register). The best thing on my plate was the sweet pot chips and as it is hard to mess up a fried chip, I dont give them much credit for this accomplishment. The bbq was edible, but not buy any means championship quality (I am assuming that they save the "good" pork for Bobby and not for thier paying customers.) The brisket was greasy and almost indistinguishable from the pork...the color being the only thing that gave its original origin away. The pork was dry, had little to no smoke flavor (and you eat bbq for the smoke flavor, right? if not it's just pork roast in my oppinion and not worth the $12 I paid for it!) To their defense, the sauces were good, but almost anything is good drenched in bbq sauce....after consuming our meal we were left with an oddly unpleasant feeling in the pits of our stomachs...was it disappointment or the sting of creeping heartburn? Perhaps a mixture of both. Upon leaving I questioned a fellow patron as he too was exiting the establishment and asked him his genuine opinion of the bbq. He answered that it was pretty good. I asked him if he thought this pork could win any awards in any bbq competition in the country. He promptly responded by saying "oh, no way!" So to sum it up, Wood Chicks is just OK and not worth the gas money or the heartburn. I was greatly disappointed by the mediocre bbq, small portions and raging case of heartburn I was left with. I say save some money and head to County Grill in Yorktown and sample some of theirs if you want the real stuff and word to the wise, if you dont smell smoke get out or be disappointed!

wood chicks bbq Chesapeake

ps. We noticed a newspaper article on the wall of the restaurant that was referring to a bbq championship the owner had won....we also noticed that the head judge of the championship was the owners father....coincidence?