Phat Turtle BBQ is a casual Kanas City Style Barbecue restaurant located in Cave Creek Arizona. Kanas City type BBQ is suppose to be dry rubbed and slow smoked over wood and is served with a tomato based sauce. It is typical of Kanas City BBQ places to offer something called burnt ends. The burnt ends are the crusty fatty pieces from the point of the brIsket.
You know that you have walked into a barbecue when you have walked in. You smell the smokey delicious smell of barbecue when you walk in.
The atmosphere has an Old West and antique shop sort of decor to it with lots of mismatched older furniture, a collection of saddles, all kinds of nick nacks, compasses on every table, and lots of other things.
We ordered.
They run their sauces to our table.
They have sweet, hickory, and spicy.
Our server returns and said that they are out of the bbq chicken from my 2 meat plate that I ordered. So I change my order.
She leaves and didn’t say anything to my husband who ordered the Phat Sampler that also includes chicken. We figure that maybe they had a little bit of leftover chicken for him??
Soon my side salad comes out.
It’s a nice big (almost meal sized) salad. I share it with my husband while we are waiting for the rest.
Around 30 minutes latter my 2 meat plate comes out.
I got brisket, burnt ends, and potato salad. The brisket is a bit on the dry side but ok. The burnt ends are extremely fatty and succulent. … but they all succulent with a succulent bark. (I’ll save them for my husband) The potato salad is eggy and seasoned with dill.
My husband got his plate and a few surprises.
Well lets start with the good.
The onion rings are very good and the pork is ok.
The surprises are that the plate is missing two of the meats (the chicken and the sausage) and the other surprise is that the chopped brisket is all little hard crumbs (at about 2:00 on the plate (like the type of meat crumbs that get cleaned off of the cutting board and get tossed into the beans……….). He also got burnt ends but on his plate they are very chewy and kind of dry. The Phat sampler was suppose to be 1/8lb. bunt ends, 1/8lb. pulled pork, 1/8lb. brisket, 2 baby back ribs, chopped chicken, 1/4 lb sausage filled onion rings with one side.
(I do note that all BBQ restaurants are never consistent due to the nature of hours of food preparation ((smoking) and then keeping the meat fresh for you…)
For the side was macaroni and cheese.
It was pasta shells in a thin white sauce that was very light with cheese (almost not cheesy).
We had a service issue here. – My husband informed our server that if he knew that he wasn’t getting two of the meats from the sampler platter that he would have ordered the 2 meat plate instead that came with two sides.
When she brought the check she gave us a slice of peach cobbler to go to make up for our troubles.
The cobbler is dry and dense and comes with one peach slice.
I heard back already from the owner.
He apologized and said that he wish I brought all this to his attention and he would have taken care of us. He also said that this is unusual and isn’t the way they normally serve.
I should note that you shouldn’t judge any barbecue restaurant from one visit because none of them are always consistent. They spend hours smoking the meats and then the tricky part is timing the meat for you.
That was my trip to Phat Turtle BBQ in Cave Creek.
www.PhatTurtleBBQ.com
30845 N Cave Creek Rd Cave Creek AZ
602-527-3257
Everything is subject to change and everything usually does change anyway.
