Jonesy's review of Bodean's Poland Street

Give me meat! Bring me a chargrilled hog that I can tear apart with my bare hands and bury my face in its aromatic burnt flesh. These are the sentiments one contemplates during a meal at Bodean’s, the barbecue ‘smoke house’ established by the same team who run Oklahoma Joe’s Barbecue in Kansas City. They really know what they’re doing when it comes to delivering a genuine, US-inspired meat-fest of an experience.

Staple dishes such as the BBQ burnt ends and pulled pork, sticky, unctuous ribs and 16oz burgers are what Bodean’s is all about. They have a nice selection of beers too, some interesting desserts, and the whole experience is thoroughly unpretentious and stomach-pleasingly good. It’s the type of restaurant Homer Simpson dreams about.

This isn’t somewhere you go to sample gastronomic delights or to impress a first date. It’s somewhere you eat until you cannot walk, drink Canadian Moosehead beers until you actually contemplate buying a red-checked shirt and a pick-up truck, and watch baseball which you know nothing about but are strangely interested in now because the barbecue sauce and the beer have gone to your head.

It’s simple and affordable, and the food is shamefully tasty. It’s everything you’d expect from a US-style smoke house. There are so many restaurants in London that claim to be a ‘genuine New York steakhouse’ or an ‘authentic American grill’, but Bodean’s is the only place of its kind that actually does what it says on the tin, and does it very well. Just ask Bubba Gump.