Bernie Whitmore

Mill Street Barbeque Company
242 Mill Street, Worcester
(508) 762-9990

On this, my second visit to Mill Street Barbeque Company, comprehending the menu was easier than the first time; I guess I’d climbed their learning curve and learned to put aside traditional BBQ restaurant expectations. Here’s a guide to planning your meal:

Things start out easy enough with a section of “Starters”, a list of ten appetizers. Then the menu continues with a list of what you anticipate as popular BBQ entrée items. But take care! A banner over these eight items proclaims that they are actually sandwich options.

Turn the page over and you reach the “Lunch” section; another generous list of mostly sandwiches and wraps. The actual dinner section, “Big T’s Pit Dinners”, is modest in scope and strangely excludes a few typical BBQ items: no brisket or pulled pork. BBQ chicken is listed yet described as deep fried or char grilled over a mac n’ cheese waffle. There is a solution to these gaps if your party opts for the Full Pit Board, which for $99 serves a bit of everything for two to four people. And there are loopholes such as the BBQ Sundae (more about this below) or just ask your server for possible variations.

Word of advice: stay calm, move methodically through the options and start your journey with a draft beer. Bond with your server. Lyndsy, our waiter for the evening, was the ideal guide.

We started out with MSBC’s “Dirty Tots”. These are the ever-popular ‘tot’ potato treatment topped with cubes of smoky burnt ends, sliced green onion, along with daubs of gravy and a cheesy sauce. It’s as if your high school cafeteria had executed poutine with government surplus provisions. Tots are never considered high-cuisine, but this dish moved them into a new comfort zone with uniformly soft textures unified by salt and smoky flavors. Strangely addictive, we finished the entire basket o’ tots with little regard to the Surgeon General’s vision for a healthy nation.

My glass of Pulp Daddy, an IPA from Greater Good Imperial Brewing Company, came to the rescue with its citrusy flavor contrast and a level of alcohol sufficient to wash away the tot gravy.

My companion’s entrée, “Bucket of St. Louis Ribs” was a half rack cut into individual ribs stacked on the dish login cabin style aside a slab of cornbread; it was the most attractive presentation of the evening. He’d opted for char grilled (they also offer deep-fried – but that just seems wrong). He reported the ribs to be moist and flavorful; the smoky meat released from the bone with a gentle tug of the teeth. A squeeze bottle of tangy sauce provided the extra squirt of flavor. Onion strings, his other side, were perfectly crisp.

In blocky Old-West Saloon font, the menu proclaims MSBC to be the “Home Of The BBQ Sundae”. I’ll let them defend that title, but it was a first for me and enabled an entrée of brisket – something I’d intended to order that evening. To that end, I followed their DIY-style three step process:

Step One: Choose your base. I selected cornbread topped baked beans. The other choices are mac n’ cheese and country rice.
Step Two: Choose your serving size; small or large.
Step Three: Choose your BBQ. This allowed a choice of pulled pork or chicken, Texas brisket or roasted vegetables. Beyond that, one can upgrade and get all of the above in a dish they call the BBQ Split.

I went with the small portion of brisket.

The resultant meal presented as a mound of brown topped with loops of fried onion rings. The top layer of brisket was soaked in a rich brown gravy that merged seamlessly into the underlying baked beans which all soaked into a chunk of cornbread at the bottom. The flavor spectrum ranged from sweet and smoky to beefy-rich and salt; each element of the dish seemed equally soft; the overall impression was of a journey through dark gravy. And, again, Pulp Daddy saved the day with a zap of crisp flavor contrast.

The Mill Street Barbeque Company is located at the side of Coes Pond and, in the warm months, offers outdoor dining with Country-pop soundtrack. Lucky diners might be visited by a few of the pond’s ducks. Inside dining comes with electronic torch lighting and features the Blues. Though I love the outdoors, my heart is with the Blues.