8216 104 St NW
Edmonton, AB T6E 4E5, Canada
Meat Smokehouse is a locally owned and operated smokehouse in the heart of Old Strathcona in Edmonton. An authentic BBQ experience served family style at communal tables in a contemporary setting with homemade sauces and savory sides to complement the offering of smoke meats.
A card is present on the table that outlines their smoke times and wood preferences like a calling card to authentic meat perfection. This seems like a good omen.
They battle against tradition by not serving lunch. The weekday offering is for dinner but there is a brunch option on the weekends. While I'm more of a traditionalist about barbecue being a lunch item, this ensured that the meat we had for dinner was fresh.
They offer Beef Brisket, Pulled Pork, BBQ Ribs, Apple Glazed Smoked Chicken, Fried Chicken, Andouille Sausage, and often have a featured smoked meat. While sides shouldn't be the focus of a carnivorous outing, they can't be ignored at Meat Smokehouse.
They have Coleslaw, Mashed Potatoes w/Gravy, Baked Beans (meat or veg), Garlic Fries, Brussels Sprouts, Maple Golden Beets, Mac/Cheese and a Cornbread Skillet.
We had the Baby Back Ribs, Pulled Pork, Beef Brisket and Andouille Sausage with Baked Beans (meat), Brussels Sprouts and Skillet Cornbread.
While the sausage was a "little" mealy, the ribs were firm, crusty from baked on sauce and had a complex layer of flavors. The smoke hits you first, then slides into a pleasant flavor of subtle spices. It was very appealing. The pulled pork started off tough but that just happened to be one bite. The rest was tender and pulled easily. The Goldilocks texture of the pull was just the right size. Not to bulky but together enough to get a good tug. It was clean, moist and fresh. When ordering the brisket I almost asked if they served lean or moist but was pleasantly surprise when they provided some of both. Each was impressively well smoked, flavorful and fresh. One of the benefits of not serving lunch is that the meat was definitely fresh. The beans were thick and flavorful and there was no skimpin' on the shreaded meat. Very hearty bowl. The brussels sprouts were a nice surprise that they had the expected flavor of the woody roasted vegetable, but it was shredded and presented as if it were cole slaw. Now they had cole slaw on the menu but I couldn't imagine replacing the imaginative solution of this more northern side item for their southern presentation. Brilliant. And the cornbread...ah the cornbread. It was just sweet enough but was loaded with buttery goodness.
There were 4 sauces on the table. Bourbon, Cherry, Spicy and Mustard. To be fair, the mustard was not mustard based barbecue sauce but actual mustard. One of the odder choices here. The Bourbon sauce felt like their standard. It was tomato based, smokey and wrapped the meat well. The Spicy was medium at best. The Cherry was very tomatoey and felt a bit too much like ketchup.
Overall this was a high quality meal of barbecue. Unfortunately there was no iced tea, condiment bar of onions, pickles and peppers but that can be forgiven as the focus of this meal was the name sake of the restaurant...M E A T.
