Zeke's Smokehouse

This Texas girl felt right at home at Zeke's Smokehouse in the Target shopping center on La Brea and Santa Monica, though that may of had something to do with the pictures of Texas hung on the wall. The interior is spacious and clean (it's very clean and white for a bbq shop!) and you seat yourself anywhere you like, or march up to the counter for to go orders. Everything looked great to me and Griffin, but we ended up ordering a mixed rib plate to share with mac n' cheese and potato salad. We were a little worried about sharing the plate, but it was more than enough and we could hardly finish it all. It came with 3 varieties of ribs, the Longhorn beef ribs, and 2 types of pork ribs. The Longhorn ribs were huge, each about the size of a grown man's forearm. They were all really good, but I thought one of the pork ribs were a little dry. I don't know that much about bbq, but I believe those were the Kansas City ribs and they are supposed to be served that way (crazy Kansasites). We tried a bit of all three of Zeke's bbq sauces and the mild and sweet one was by far superior to the smokey and spicy sauces. The potato salad was pretty delightful, despite the small amount of mustard in it and the side of mac n' cheese was definitely worth the $0.96 extra. The mac n' cheese is really on the menu as a house specialty for almost $10, an insane price to pay for mac n' cheese, but they'll give you a little as a side if you ask. Our plate came with Texas toast, which was quite a bit crispier than what Texas toast is supposed to be. Anyone from Texas knows that Texas toast is thick, soft bread a little toasted on the top and smothered in butter. I really wanted to try the hushpuppies with honey butter, even though the price seems a little steep at $6, but we'll have to try it next time. On a separate occasion Griffin and I had Zeke's bbq brisket for sandwiches and it was really tasty! If you choose wisely, you can eat here for $10 a person. It's also notable that they serve beer and even have a couple kinds on tap. Their dessert menu looked a little disappointing and I couldn't believe they didn't have cobbler, so we didn't indulge in any sweets here. If you can eat in under an hour you get free parking!

http://www.zekessmokehouse.com/

As a side note, we totally saw Mr. Rooney's secretary from Ferris Beuhler here. She was rad.