EATING OUT AND DRINK

IT will be a 20-minute wait, the waitress says in a frankly rather offhand and you’d-be-better-off-going-elsewhere manner but I dig my heels in and we’re directed to a rather bleak waiting area facing a rather bare wall with only an almost equally offhand barman to take the drink order.

Crikey, I think, as I savour the attractive odour of woodsmoke and idly count this vast restaurant’s empty tables … 12, 13, 14. This is like a scene from The Flintstones. Racks of ribs, heaps of burnt offerings and piles of what look like slabbering brontoburgers are being carried hither and thither amid tables which it’s hard not to notice are occupied largely by the restaurant world’s most endangered species – men.

They are not your hairy-faced hipster types either but as smooth shaven as Daisy Duke, most of them. So guys, is this is where we all went when the whole Indian restaurant and five pints of lager gig fell out of fashion?

Smoke BBQ here is an English mini-chain which migrated from the deep south of, er, Sheffield a few months ago. But this is surely, hopefully anyway, the tail-end of Hurricane Man v Food, Adam Richman’s US programme that changed the eating scene by making diner food look good and thereby inadvertently splattering corporate burger bars and half-assed industrial smoke pits half across the western world.

The waitress is back before time anyway and clutching a menu that seems to be stickily pre-flavoured with someone else’s barbecue sauce. We’re led to a four-seater with a window looking out on to Glasgow’s West Regent Street.

What was all that 20-minute wait stuff about? Maybe the kitchen was busy, maybe they’re short staffed, maybe I should have shaved, but there are and will remain plenty of free tables in here throughout our meal. Odd.

Fork down, get dirty, the menu says, as we start with a jalapeno corn bread muffin that’s dry but pleasantly flavoured. Certainly more so than the bizarrely partially-filled dish of mac ’n’ cheese which looks like a chef threw a portion at it from across the kitchen. Or it was filled ages ago and has slid up to one end of the dish because of the way it’s been stacked. It tastes awful too.

There’s a £12 Pit Plate on the confusing menu that turns out isn’t a mix of meats, but just has one thing on it. To get the full experience we have to order a £30 smoke sharer plate with pulled pork, turkey leg, chicken thigh, hot sausage and baby back ribs. OK, or yee-haw, let’s go with it.

There are twice-cooked chips on the side and the corn bread thing that came early is included in the price too and when the meats arrive they are indeed slabbered with sauces and rubs.

But sausage, chicken thighs, turkey leg, ribs and pulled pork for £30? Hang on. Are you thinking what I’m thinking? I like the idea of barbecue as much as the next man, in fact I watched those Man v Food episodes and thought I want some of that. But the Sheffield/Glasgow versions?

Big portions, but the pork is disappointingly dry and bland under its sauce, the turkey leg silly and the sausages and chicken absolutely nothing special. As for the ribs, the gooey sauce kills all taste.

We ordered a double chop pit plate too, “smoked, spiced, seared to perfection” the menu says. Tough as old boots, says I.

Finally let’s try a burger. After all the

time Mr Richman spent showing us what a proper burger should be – decent bun, simple seared meat, nothing else – what can go wrong? Yet still nobody seems to be able to get it even half-right. In fact, if you ask me burgers now are probably worse than they were before this whole casual food revolution started.

As for this one, served like they all seem to be in here with a landslide of toppings, it’s instantly forgettable.

Sausage, chicken thighs, turkey leg, ribs and pulled pork for £30? Hang on. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?

PHOTOGRAPH: MATTHEW COMER Although the scent of woodsmoke is a plus, the negatives at Smoke BBQ include the service and the flavours