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Business & Tech

Hungry Man Dinner

Forget the fussy brunch. What Dad wants to eat on Father's Day is barbecue.

Walk into Bobby Q's on Main street and you might think you accidentally ended up in Kansas City. Or Oklahoma. Bobby Q's is very un-Connecticut. And that's just the way people – especially the men -- seem to like it.

Bobby Q's is a meat and potatoes sort of restaurant, without the potatoes. Order any of several BBQ platters and what you'll get is a big ol' platter of…meat. No, there's no diet special at Bobby Q's. Well, they do serve a few salads, but most of them are topped with steak, bacon, chicken tenders, barbeque wing sauce, or a quarter pound of cheese. You get the picture.

Original Pulled Pork ($16.99) is a go-to dish at Bobby Q's. Smoked slowly and then pulled off the bone, the pork arrives at the table as a big pile of shredded carnivorous delight. The vinegary sauce is served alongside in a small bowl, and people can crank up the heat as they see fit with more award-winning sauces with subtle names like "Nice Rack" and "Big Rack." With the pulled pork, the chef plays it. It's moist and addictive, but there are no surprising flavors here.

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The Sliced Steak Salad ($14.99) was much the same. I enjoyed the nicely-seared NY Strip Steak served in thick wedges on top of the standard greens and ho-hum diced tomatoes. But I wondered why they bothered with the salad underneath. The cascade of blue cheese drowned everything else out. I ended up extracting the steak and ignoring the rest.

The Chicken Caesar Wrap ($9.25) was better than I anticipated. Heavy on the parmesan and garlic, the Caesar dressing was blessedly easy on the anchovy. The wrap consisted of mostly chicken, with a leaf or two of romaine thrown in for color. Also on the plate was a heap of French fries made from real potatoes –skin and everything. Even better than these were the sweet potato fries which were sweet, crisp and crunchy. (Plus, they offer the added redemption factor. Sweet potatoes are highly nutritious, right? Surely, they negate that big bowl of macaroni and cheese.)

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Speaking of which, I'd recommend skipping the Mac. While the sauce was cheesy and rich, the noodles were decidedly overcooked and mushy. The corn bread, on the other hand, is good enough to count as dessert. If neither of these appeals, they've got a whole long list of other side dishes, which includes a corn and black bean salad, mashed potatoes and a corn and edamame succotash.

If by some freak of nature you've managed to save room for dessert, you'll have much to choose from. They serve two of the renown Michele's Pies each night: a butterscotch pecan and another seasonal offering. They also dish up a Mississippi Mud cake, a key lime pie and (no surprise here) a fried Twinkie. The peach cobbler was served scorchingly-hot with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top. What I managed to taste before my companions inhaled it was that it echoed oddly of …margarine. I'd have liked more peach, less butter substitute.

Aside from the cobbler situation, Bobby Q's is a family crowd-pleaser. So go ahead, take Dad for barbecue on Father's Day. Go hungry. And be prepared to do some serious eating.

Michelle Bowers is a Westport resident. The opinions expressed in her review are hers alone. Anyone wishing to submit a review can do so by e-mailing liz@patch.com, or simply commenting on this article.

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Bobby Q's

42 Main St.

203/454-7800

www.bobbyqsrestaurant.com

Hours:

Mon. – Thurs.

Lunch: 11:30am – 3pm

Dinner: 4:30pm – 9pm

Fri.

Lunch: 11:30am -- 3pm

Dinner: 4:30pm -- 10:30pm

Sat. 11:30am – 10:30pm

Sun. 11:30 – 9pm

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