On my regular Saturday bike ride to and from Jean Talon Market, I occasionally use the opportunity to stop and try some desired location located on my route through Mile End and Little Italy. Last week, I was in the mood for some BBQ so I headed off to a pretty new addition to the scene in Little Italy, Dinette Triple Crown.
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I had first heard of this location through Natasha Pickowicz‘s blog. As a fan of BBQ, I was instantly intrigued and boy… was I not disappointed. The restaurant is in a small space at the corner of St-Zotique and Clark across from Martel park. There is a small counter area to sit inside but the place is really set up to pick up and enjoy elsewhere. In fact, they offer an option to provide a picnic basket filled with your order to bring across the street to enjoy outside. Had I not been alone, the option would have been a perfect one but inside was just as enjoyable. The restaurant has a cool look with amazing music playing throughout. Any place that plays jazz, crooner and soul music the whole time is a winner in my books!
The menu options run the gamut of classic southern style food: brisket, fried chicken, pulled pork, biscuits, sweet potato, greens, etc… I went for a large wide swatch of their options for my lunch: Pulled pork sandwich, one piece of fried chicken, a buttermilk biscuit, sweet potatoes and a lemonade. There wasn’t a single bad option on this plate. The sweet potatoes were perfectly cooked with a nice crisp exterior without the interior becoming complete mush. The biscuit was a perfect combination of rich, soft, flaky goodness. It was the kind of thing where you can just tell that lots of butter and buttermilk was used in its making but you don’t care in the least. The fried chicken was simply perfect – the skin was crispy, seasoned perfectly and not overbearing. The chicken was probably the moistest I’ve ever experienced with fried chicken. That classic feeling of needing to drink loads of water to offset the dryness of fried chicken was nowhere to be found. The chicken definitely deserved to be enjoyed in a larger quantity but that had to wait because I needed to try the pulled pork.
When I want to judge a BBQ place, the pulled pork or the ribs are, to me, the to go options. The pulled pork here is just amazing. Perfectly done with the right level of tenderness & amazing flavor and that is without sauce because at Dinette, the pulled pork sandwich comes un-sauced. On the table, you have numerous options of sauces from which to choose from. You have a more classic Memphis BBQ sauce, a South Carolina mustard sauce and a vinegar based East Carolina sauce. Dinette Triple Crown also experiment with other sauce options from time to time. When I was there, the chef came over to provide me with a sample of his current concoction, a peach jalapeño sauce. Let me repeat that because I believe it deserves to be repeated: peach jalapeño sauce. Now, I really don’t enjoy jalapeño spice but I definitely needed to try this one. I tried both it and the Memphis BBQ sauce. The BBQ sauce was spot-on and hit the notes you expect from a top notch BBQ place. The Peach jalapeño sauce was just out of bounds. Spicy to start with a nice sweetness midway to cool the pallet before the heat kicks up again at the finish, this sauce was ridiculous. Just ridiculous. Not sure how much I use it given my lack of hot sauce enjoyment but for those who do, Dinette does sell the sauces they make periodically so check it out with that’s your style.
All in all, Dinette Triple Crown is the best southern BBQ experience I’ve ever had. Period. Anyone who loves BBQ needs to stop over and give this place a shot. I will definitely be heading back very soon to try the rest of the menu.
Cheers!
Dinette Triple Crown
6704 Clark (corner St-Zotique)
514 272 2617
Ramblings from the Complex Mind of a 30 Something 
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