Tuesday, December 29, 2015

ChuckWagon Charlie’s Smokehouse & Saloon – Chanhassen, MN

A1 and I are big fans of ribs. He was off work one random day and we decided to meet (or meat) for lunch at ChuckWagon Charlie’s. I knew of its existence, but hadn’t ever been there, although A1 had been there a number of times in the past. Since it was in a strip mall, I knew it had a shot of being decent BBQ.

I had to go with a half slab of ribs and a couple of sides – BBQ baked beans and also Mac n Cheese. A1 got the rib tips and some fried potatoes. I had a good feeling about these.

The ribs were pretty good. Not Top 10 in the world good, but I was happy with them. They had a ice bark on them without being burnt and the dry rub on them was really good. Not much gristle on these and the meat had good flavor without a hint of liquid smoke on them. Great work, Charlie. The mac and cheese was decent, but at the very least, it didn’t taste like cafeteria mac n cheese. The baked beans were also slightly above average, so overall, this was a pretty good plate of food.

A1 gave me a couple bites of his rib tips and I was really impressed with them. I usually steer away (pun intended) from rib tips because you kind of never know what you’re going to end up with. Sometimes, you get some fatty bits, sometimes you get some gristle, sometimes, you get all burnt cinders. These were all meat and had wonderful flavor. If this is their usual showing of rib tips, then I’d for sure get these next time. The fried taters were also really good – obviously not as good as my Alabama grandma made, but still pretty good.

This place was kind of a sleeper surprise for me. And now that I know that I’ll get really good bbq here, I’ll be back with some friends.


Not enough for a Top 5 list, but everything was above average, so it would have gotten a more positive than negative list.

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