Expect icy one liners and plenty of rib sauce.
When the rib sauce was reducing, I put the finishing touches on the vegetables, added a pinch of salt to my mashed potatoes, and sat down five minutes later to eat with my boyfriend.
He was ballsy by adding raspberry to his rib sauce, but these judges are not looking for creativity.
"We're open!" "Gelman, you got the short-rib sauce?" Serpico asked his sous-chef.
"Medium rare large tri-tip, no sauce" or "Small slab pork baby back ribs, sauce on the side," for instance.
Patrons can vote on their favorite ribs, sauce and other categories, with the winners to be announced Sunday.
Consider the tartares, spring rolls or boneless pork spare ribs, sauced sweetly but not cloyingly.
The best bites were the crisp, salty, spicy, shrimp fritters, sweet with corn; wide-cut, brittle-crusted and pleasantly greasy buttermilk onion rings, whimsically stacked onto a stick, like a ring toss; and juicy, meaty barbecued ribs sauced with an addictive balance of sweet and hot.
The big plates: paella de mariscos (bomba rice, monkfish, cuttlefish, sweet shrimp, clams, gigante beans and artichoke, $48) and chuletón de buey a la brasa (40-day-aged prime rib, romesco sauce, piperrada and fingerling potatoes, $92).
But the surprise is oven-roasted penne in a shredded short rib Bolognese sauce.
And then there's chef Paul Barbosa's braised short rib, bravas sauce, Mahon cheese, fennel and aioli bocata (baguette sandwich); and jamon, manchego and chive coque (flatbread), you promise yourself you'll try next time.
