I met a couple of friends at Famous Dave's for lunch today. The place is pretty big, but wasn't very busy at 11:30. We were seated immediately. I loved the atmosphere - especially the music. They had kind of a southern blues/jazz thing going on, and I really dug it.

I ordered a lunch plate, with two types of meat - chopped pork and beef brisket (served on Texas toast). It was reasonably priced at eight bucks, and came with two sides. I chose baked beans and corn on the cob. It also came with a delicious corn bread muffin.

I was salivating when it came out, it looked and smelled fantastic. For the most part, I wasn't dissappointed. The sliced brisket was tender and moist. The beans and corn were good, but not fantastic.

Once I was done with the brisket, I used the slices of bread to make a sandwich for my chopped pork. The first bite was pure bliss. The second bite was crunchy. What the heck? The pork was cooked extremely inconsistently. Some of it was perfect, and some of it was overcooked to the point of having no moisture left in at all! It was like they took a previous day's meat and threw it back in the smoker with the new stuff.. or something. I ate it all anyways. It wasn't that it was horrible or anything, it was just unexpected. It was like eating little chunks of jerky mixed in with delicious bits of juicy chopped pork.

Their BBQ sauce is good, but I've had better. Their hottest sauce (Devil's Spit) is pretty mild, in my opinion. Mix the Devil's Spit with the Rich & Sassy to create your own that is better than any of their stock sauces :)

My friend Sean wanted some pecan pie, and I'm a true friend, so I couldn't let him eat dessert alone (who wants to do that?). I ordered the Bread Pudding, even though it is WAY too expensive at Six dollars. Normally, my dessert limit is five bucks - if its over that, I won't even consider it. But I do love bread pudding.

Sorry I don't have a picture, but take my word for it - it was HUGE. I'll never understand why restaurants make their desserts so large and expensive. I would have happily paid half of the price for a third of the bread pudding I received. I ate way more than I should have, but I couldn't eat it all.

Famous Dave's isn't my favorite BBQ joint in town, but it is definitely good. If you don't splurge on dessert, you can get a fairly priced, delicious meal in a short amount of time. I've never been dissappointed with the food or the service, I hope (and believe) today's pork issue was a fluke, and not an indicator of a downhill quality slide.