Hometown is not cheap. It is the best bbq in the city. They do a proper slow cook of 12+ hours for brisket. It runs $40 a pound. It’s a Hill Country type place where you order meat by amount and pay for the weight. So for example, you will order 6 slices of brisket and a single Fred Flintstone size beef rib which weighs probably a pound and a half on its own. Considering what a packer brisket costs these days, I am not surprised by the cost. The beef rib is spectacular. Most of the other bbq in the city isn’t worth whatever cheaper price it maybe. Dinosaur and Dallas don’t hold a candle to Hometown. Mighty Quinn doesn’t look so mighty either. The bill for @TheGforceNY for two indicates to me that a lot of food was ordered. We are usually under $100 for a lunch for two with beers and leave stuffed and with leftovers. But if you are from the south where there’s a bbq place a cow pie toss away, the prices are outrageous. But then again everything in NYC is.
she mentions two cheap to make sides and two beers in addition to the two orders of BBQ. ive eaten in their redhook location and do not recall massive servings. none of the orders of sides were large and the sauces like at most BBQ places were not exciting It just seems like an excessive tourist oriented price which is a shame. Id like to eat their food again sometime since they are obviously doing something right with the meat.
My point is that there are no “serving” sizes for the meat. If you wanted the beef rib, unless something has changed since the last time I was there, you have to buy an entire rib. That single “serving” will weigh more than a pound. So let’s say you ordered a rib which came in at 1.25 pounds. That would be $50 on its own. Add 6-8 thick slices of fatty brisket at another pound for $40. Two large sides at $10 each plus two beers and there you are at $130 before tax and tip.
I would say that it’s not that tourist heavy in my experience as Red Hook doesn’t get a lot of tourist traffic. Sure you have the occasional lost cruiser who couldn’t find the big boat but Red Hook is still remarkably empty. If you want really overpriced so so food, head next door to Brooklyn Crab. But my favorite restaurant in the area is Billy’s other place, Red Hook Tavern. Great wedge salad, awesome burger and crazy expensive wine list. The specials which often include dry aged steak are also priced kind of crazy. I recall one steak for two at $190. I passed. No tourists there. Used to be an impossible reservation but not too bad these days.
tourist heavy I was talking Industry City. At least thats how it feels to me.
Too far and inaccessible for actual tourists
Local tourists, yes
I’ve had three biryanis at Hyderabadi Zaiqa (52nd, off 9th – or #95 on the NYT list) and they’ve all been very tasty – the rice loose-grained and fragrant, the meat (goat on two occasions) tender, and the fish (third occasion) not overcooked. I highly recommend the place.
Comment: What’s a true biryani and what’s not is a complex question. Without getting into all that, the food at HZ is exceptionally good.
I stepped inside Hyderabadi Zaiqa last July, immediately after it replaced an Indonesian kitchen, and found the lack of AC absolutely stifling. The assertion that they served food “from all over” India didn’t seem promising, either. Perhaps I should have another look-see.
Yes the pan-Indian menu put me off, as well. I’ve only explored the three biryanis I mentioned (goat dum was the best), an acceptable okra dish and an excellent goat appetizer. The appetizer is billed as “goat sukha” which could either mean “goat happiness” or “goat dry” depending in how you pronounce “sukha”. In any case, the goat is is not in a gravy, but isn’t particularly dry, either (as, say, “65” dishes or tandoor ones tend to be). The goat itself is moist, tender and succulent.
It’s clear they cut corners. A proper biryani needs to be layered and then finished with the layers tightly sealed. To my taste, one layer needs to be caramelized onions. Here, the onions are scarce, and it appears the rice and other stuff is mixed at the end. The rice by itself in the goat-fry-biryani and in the fish- tasted and smelled identical. But the end result has been so well-produced and so tasty that I’m inclined to overlook these otherwise major lapses.
ETA: It’s possible that the meat in the goat sukha does double duty as the meat in the dum biryani, but I wouldn’t swear to it.
An Egyptian friend suggested using lime juice in hummus, instead of lemon. It’s nice, too.
Gotta ask: was that one tray plus 2 beers $145? I love Hometown but haven’t been for awhile. Not sure that BKeats wasn’t thinking there’d be more brisket for that price. I know I did. Seems to represent a significant price hike. Oh well. At least you had what looks like a great lunch with your friend. My wife wouldn’t have gotten a bite!
One tray. Two slices of brisket had been taken off the tray already and put on my friend’s plate. The rest was untouched. It is sold by price per half pound.
Was a Saturday. Didnt seem too touristy to me and wasn’t even packed except for Japan Village which was predominantly Japanese. (No way of knowing if they were tourists or not.)
Second time there to shop for furniture. First time I went was on a Friday afternoon and it was dead.
Thanks. The 2 additional pieces of brisket make the difference for me. And they would’ve for my wife as well, since she might’ve gotten some food after all.
(find any furniture?)
gotta say that beef rib looks great, with more meat than some. but still a lot of that weight and bulk is the bone.
I wonder how many meals we’d have to eat here to pay for airfare:
wait, now that I think of it, my brother plays in a poker tournament in Austin every year and reported the salt lick has an ayce for seniors for $25! and not sure if it’s still true, but they used to allow coolers with beer!
Is it really, though? Seems fairly simple. Curry + rice isn’t Biryani. May be tasty, but it’s not Biryani (even if you stick a dough lid on it 
).
What’s a Pulao vs what’s a Biryani, that’s probably more nuanced.
If that was $145 even with two more slices of brisket, that’s just ridiculous
Here’s the menu: https://hometownbbq.com/menu-ic
We got 4 meals out of it. It was the beef rib that jacked up the bill for us.
