The best brisket I've had in an extremely long time. I could tell it would be awesome as I reached the home-stretch of my wait in line. The carver was taking things in and out of the hot case to slice for people's orders. When he pulled out the fatty beef brisket, and chucked it back in... it JIGGLED, just so. The jiggle of a piece of beef that is striated with enough fat to give it maximum flavor as it hits your mouth, yet not JUST fat. And the crust on the edge of the brisket... oh. my. Gawd.
Believe me, I would take the L every day to hipsterville to have a taste of this - daily - if not for two things: the cost and the wait.
The cost is something that is hard to avoid. Every brisket that exits the smoker is pretty much a work of art being parceled out to a couple dozen customers before a new one has to be brought out. But it definitely limits my desire to hit it every day.. which is probably a good thing because it's probably not health food by a long shot!
The wait... now that can be avoided. Tourists and noobs clogging up the line have no idea how to order meat by the pound. I can't say I'm very experienced either, but I made sure to have my order ready by the time I reached the front of the line. I cannot say the same for the vast majority of other people in line. They were discussing amongst themselves what the appropriate amount of brisket to get was, whether they should get sides, "oh, what are the sides? do you have a menu?", etc. It was just disgraceful that the staff here let the line slow down to that degree. What happened to the no bullshit NYC attitude where if you're not ready to order when it's your turn, you get to wait for the next guy ahead of you to go?
Seriously, they could do a lot better. They could require people to hand in an order form with their choices, then at the last minute they could instruct the carver to get the particular piece they want out of the hot case to fulfill their order with. They could also provide a standard sampler order that they multiply by the number of people in your party for a fixed price. That would be fine. Anything to force people to decide AHEAD OF TIME and not waste the time of the dozens of people behind them in line.
Oh yes, make sure to get the BURNT ENDS BAKED BEANS too. It's all the pure carnal pleasure of the brisket, but only the crispy bits, submerged in delicious goopy baked beans.
Finally, I have to recommend against their cheapo bottle of red table wine. It is just crap. Get beer instead or go for the next price level up on the wine.
But all in all, I love, and need, Fette Sau in my life. Please don't change. I mean, please don't change anything other than your queueing system and your cruddy excuse for red wine. read more