Hill Country’s Thanksgiving smoked turkey, and sausage.

The first of these opened relatively recently, the second was converted from a different restaurant, and the third is about to open.

Hill Country ( near Gallery Place) is a Texas style barbeque restaurant.  Their other restaurant is in New York City.  I have eaten there before (and like their chicken and sides), but I recently tried their entire Thanksgiving catering menu at a DC Food Blogger Happy Hour. we sampled the sausage, smoked turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing, gravy, guacamole and chips, 3 pies (pumpkin, apple, and pecan), and 2 Blue Bell ice cream flavors (vanilla and banana split).  Everything was very good, and the desserts were extremely memorable.  Your thanksgiving order has to be in by tomorrow (the 21st) and picked up the 24th between 9am and noon.  A feast for 9-12 people is $265 and a feast for 5-8 people has a smaller turkey and is $185.

Harry’s Smokehouse’s fried fish, fried shrimp, sausage, wings.

Harry’s Smokehouse (in the Pentagon City Mall) is one half of the Harry’s Taproom split, with the other restaurant becoming Market Tavern. We sampled fried chicken, St. Louis style ribs, salmon, sausage, fried shrimp, fried fish, sliders, mac and cheese, greens, broccoli, baked beans, 2 kinds of corn bread, and various beers and mixed drinks. I was surprised at how good much of the menu was, with some of the standouts being the sausage (smoky and delicious), brisket, ribs, mixed greens (really good!), jalapeno corn bread, fried fish appetizer, and fried shrimp appetizer. The mac and cheese was surprisingly dull and lifeless.

They have a good beer list and the mixed drinks were excellent (except the “Blues” drink which reminded me of OTC medicine). Harry’s has a variety of fruit purees they can add to iced tea or lemonade, and the peach iced tea and pineapple lemonade were very tasty and refreshing.

We did not get to the dessert menu, which is a shame because they make the desserts in-house.

Memphis’ New Orleans Style Seafood Gumbo.

Memphis Barbecue is opening in Crystal City on December 1st.  We got to try the restaurant at the media pre-opening event.  The New Orleans style seafood gumbo was the absolute standout, although some people thought gumbo shouldn’t have crab meat sitting on top of it (and I disagree since the dish was delicious).  The bar-b-que baby back ribs and and blackened shrimp were good, as was the prime rib (although it was served well done and several of us would have preferred medium). The “Original Blondie Brownie” (which feels like one of those 3 words don’t belong) and ice cream sundae both featured the aforementioned Blue Bell ice cream.

The misses? There were major service issues: many people got the wrong entree, my entree came way after the other dishes, and the waiters did not know the menu’s (and probably were busboys and not waiters). Also, 2 publicists (for this event, so they have a relationship with the restaurant) ordered salmon, which turned out to be very undercooked. The restaurant is not yet officially open, so I trust that these issues will be taken care of before the opening.

I will definitely try this place again when it opens (and order the gumbo as a first course).

-JAY

Editor’s Note (2014): Memphis BBQ is out of business.