A few weeks ago, my friend Jon (the guy who created those awesome Converse sneakers), ate dinner at Sweet Cheeks, an American BBQ restaurant near Fenway. He absolutely loved it, so he immediately texted Mal and me to tell us that we all needed to have dinner there soon. Jon knows good food, so we made a date to get together.
Sweet Cheeks is owned by Tiffani Faison, who was one of two finalists on the first season of Top Chef. Cool, right? She actually came out of the kitchen at the end of the night, and I almost snapped a creeper photo of her, but I stopped myself. It was neat to know that my food was probably cooked by her!
Apparently, Sweet Cheeks is a happening place because our group of five waited 1.5 hours for a table. The time flew by thanks to the drink service along the back bar and catching up with friends.
While we waited, I ordered a Trogenator, which I fell in love with earlier this year. I was so happy to see it on the menu last night. It’s one of my favorite beers.
When we sat down at our table, the waitress introduced us to the special sauces on our table: Sweet Cheek’s own barbeque sauce, hot sauce made with Ghost Peppers, and a vinegar-based barbeque sauce. I tried the hot sauce thinking it would kick my butt, but it wasn’t all that spicy.
Our waitress also told us that all of the meats at Sweet Cheeks are responsibly sourced. She referred to the beef as “Never Ever,” meaning it’s all sustainably-raised and NEVER EVER treated with hormones, antibiotics, or chemical additives. Much of it comes from small New England farms.
After perusing the menu, I was all about the side dishes (aka “hot scoops” and “cold scoops”). Thankfully, the menu offered “Trays” that included the best of both worlds: your choice of meat + 1 hot scoop +1 cold scoop with white bread, pickles, and onions. Sign me up.
To start, we shared an order of Hush Puppies among the table. They were good (I’d give them a B+), but they were no Mandarin Oriental hush puppies. I will never forget those babies for as long as I live.
I ordered the Berkshire Pulled Pork with a sides of mac & cheese and a farm salad.
The farm salad was made with arugula, Brussels sprouts, red grapes, hazelnuts, and Pecorino Romano cheese. The farm salad was amazing—so fresh, so flavorful, so delicious. I highly recommend it if you visit. The mac & cheese was pretty awesome, too.
All of the meat at Sweet Cheeks is dry-rubbed, so it’s not doused in barbeque sauce, which I liked a lot. The pulled pork was tender and very flavorful. The portion was HUGE, so I took home lots of leftovers.
I wasn’t sure what the white bread served with our meals was all about, but the guys seemed to like it!
At the end of the meal, I whipped out my phone to try a new app called Serve from American Express to pay our bill. I love fun new apps and know you guys do too, so I was more than happy to give it a whirl and blog about it. As part of Foodbuzz Tastemaker Program, I received a stipend to try it out, but, of course, I will always give you my honest opinion about my experience.
I’m sure you can agree that when the bill comes at the end of a nice dinner, you don’t want to waste time figuring out who owes what. Typically with my friends, everyone throws down a credit card and pays what they owe or we all have twenty-dollar bills and need the waitress to bring us change. With Serve you can settle up the bill quickly by sending and receiving money on your cell phone.
Mal paid for dinner with his debit card and my friend Jon and I planned to pay him back for our portion of the bill using the Serve app. Unfortunately, I had trouble getting Serve to work on my iPhone at the restaurant, but Mal and Jon had no issues downloading it and signing up. They have iPhones too, so I’m not sure what was up with mine. I ended up transferring my portion of the bill to Mal’s Serve account when I got home from my computer with no problems.
In theory, I think the Serve app is pretty cool, and I can see how paying your bill at dinner and transferring money between parties would be really simple via your cell phone. (You just need to make sure everyone has a Serve account to do it.)
If you’re interested in signing up for a Serve account, you can get $10 for FREE for just opening one. Free money rules.
*** Edited to add (12/18/11): I got the Serve app on my phone to work just fine today. I tested it out by transferring an extra $10 to Mal. All I needed to do was enter his email address and my security pin in the app, and then he instantly received the money. Just like that. Easy as can be.
As we pulled into the driveway of our house after dinner, look who was waiting for us! Murphy is a big fan of his “perch” on the back of the couch.
He must have heard our car driving down the road and went to see if it was us. Seeing his adorable pug face made me so happy and excited to see him.
Breakfast
Yesterday, I decided to participate in the Jingle Bell 5K, so I woke bright and early to blog and eat breakfast this morning. Sadly, we’re out of bananas and peanut butter, so I wasn’t able to have my usual pre-race breakfast. Instead I made a toasted whole wheat Sandwich Thin with sunflower butter and dried cranberries on top. I hope it makes me run fast! Although, I’m super sore from CrossFit, so I’m not sure how speedy I’m going to be today.
Off to the Jingle Bell! Wish me luck!
{ 42 comments… read them below or add one }
Sweet Cheeks looks good! Now I want to make some pulled pork in my crockpot. I am chuckling about you paying Mal back for dinner- do you guys always do that?
No, just last night to test out the app!
Tiffani’s food always looked so good on Top Chef! Love the name of the restaurant. I set up a serve account too – have a $100 giveaway going on right now too if mal or Jon or you wanna enter!!!
The restaurant sounds great- thanks for letting us know!
I’ve seen commercials for the app, I think that would be helpful if everyone had it, but I doubt everyone would. I think that’s better for a group of good friends, but would be a little awkward for groups that don’t know eachother well
looks like a delicious meal! there’s a BBQ place by us that serves the white bread on the side too. at first i thought it was weird so i asked our server, and he said it’s so we can put the meat on the bread like a sandwich if we want.
aww murphy is so cute in the window! love that. good luck in your 5k this morning!
Oooh! That makes sense about the bread. Duh.
Yup! I’m from the south and a lot of people use the bread to wipe up the BBQ sauce off the plate at the end. It’s hard to resist that action now. Sometimes they even just bring out half a loaf on a paper plate!
@Ally Cee: I was going to say the same thing, but you already beat me too it.
I think it’s a pretty typical thing in the south and have seen it other places at BBQ restaurants, but less so in Boston.
I always enjoy going to restaurants owned by chefs I know. But I have to say, in most cases (and not sure if this was the same at Sweet Cheeks), they are not actually cooking. What I’ve generally experienced is they are more acting like a boss, supervising other chefs, expediting dishes, etc. Of course, it doesn’t make the meal any less exciting since they still conceive the recipes. But I do actually wonder how much time these chefs spend actually cooking vs. overseeing things.
Also, that salad sounds tasty. Were the brussels sprouts raw?
@Kelly: They were very slightly steamed.
The salad looks amazing! Good luck in your race. I always eat a banana with peanut butter before a race, no matter what.
Good luck with the 5km!
I got the Foodbuzz alert for the Serve program but b/c I am traveling there’s no way I could have posted in time…glad to know you think it works and that you guys were able to have a fun night out. Your hair is getting so long…love it!
I absolutely love BBQ joints, always a fun time and good food. Looks like a great night out!
The white bread is actually a very traditional southern bbq thing…for the idea of making sandwiches etc, but really began as a simple side so as to not take away flavor from the meat. You have to think bbq (although super trendy now) used to be served and was invented largely by poor cultures because it was an easy way to get flavorful food out of cheap cuts of meat that most people typically would turn their nose up at. And the white bread, again while maybe not overly healthy by today’s standards, was a cheap addition to the whole meal. My hubby and I are huge bbq nerds, so we traveled the country and tried our fair share!
@Katie @ Pop Culture Cuisine: Makes perfect sense! Thanks for the info!
Goooooood luck, but no matter what have fun…I am sure you will take care of that.
This reminds me of Dino BBQ here in NYC! Looks like a yummy night… I applaud you for making sure to get some salad in with all of those other tempting items on the menu!
I am a Top Chef junkie and LOVE Top Chef! It is great to see that her restaurant is doing well! She was such a bit$h in her season, but then when she came back for Top Chef All Stars she talked about how she had watched her season and saw how she acted, and changed. Happy ending.
Sunflower butter? I’m allergic to peanuts and always looking for interesting alternatives. I’ll have to check that one out!
I adore Tiffani!! I will definitely want to go there when we come up to Boston. I hope the 5K was a lot of fun Tina!
I think bbq places have the best sides. I mean who can turn down mac and cheese
Good luck at the 5k!
I’m a sucker for some good old-fashioned BBQ. Sweet Cheeks sounds like a fabulous restaurant! Have a great day, Tina!
Good luck on your run! That bbq place looks amazing- I need some mac and cheese in my life right now.
That’s a very pretty pic of you — I really like your hair pulled back like that.
Good luck! Looks great! YUM
I like when restaurants guarantee their meat is raised hormone free!
That restaurant looks great! I need to try that Serve app. Oh, white bread…. real common at BBQ joints… we love it down here in Savannah! Slurp up the sauce, y’all!
What a cool app to test out!
I hope your 5K went well. I’m curious to see how CrossFit affects running. I’m joining CrossFit in January, but I will also be training for a marathon – my first – and I’m nervous about the combination!!!
What a tasty meal! And that App sounds useful!
BBQ looks awesome! Hope the 5K went well…:) Murphy looks adorable, especially on your phone…:) Have a good day!
Oh. my god. You would DIE if you ever tried Dinosaur BBQ. It is literal magic.
Hush puppies = my hero.
@Katelyn @ Chef Katelyn: I’ve had it! I agree, it’s amazing!
i love good bbq! there is a place called bobby q’s near me which has fantastic food! i need to go back soon!
I love a nice night out with friends–sounds delish! Good luck!
White bread is typically served with dinner in rural Southern areas!
I have heard such great things about that place! It’s on my “top to-go” list. That and Tico.
I just noticed a blurb about Sweet Cheeks in the Boston Globe Magazine this morning and thought it sounded really good! Happy to see you gave it a good review, I’ll be checking it out soon pleasethankyou
Troeg’s brewery used to just be around the corner from my house (but they moved from Harrisburg to Hershey)…even though it’s in my backyard, it’s still one of my favorite breweries! I think there’s only one beer I don’t love (and I’m a pretty picky beer drinker!!) Mmmmm….
(It’s not even 9am and I’m thirsty for a HopBack now!!)
The food at the restaurant looked amazing. Especially the mac n cheese. That’s my most favorite “bad” food!
I signed up for a Serve account!
purple_lover_04 at msn dot com
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