Meetup.com – BBQ Lovers of LA and Eastside Foodies get together

Shilo and I attended our first Meetup.com BBQ event, a social website that brings together people with common interests.

Many thanks to David from the BBQ Lovers of LA and Alexis from the Eastside Foodies, for organizing this event at Robin’s Woodfire BBQ in Pasadena, California.

There were about 40 of us in a private room at the restaurant which has the vibe of a smoky BBQ joint repleat with peanut shells on the floor.  Most of us ordered the Garbage Can Combo which was BBQ meat served on an actual garbage can which the server put on the table on top of a pizza pan holder, so the meats were elevated to all their glory.  There were beef ribs, pork spareribs, pork babyback ribs, tri tip, smoked hotlinks sausage, and half chicken smothered in Robin’s signature BBQ sauce.  There was a delicious blueberry “cornbread” with coleslaw with blue cheese and pecans served with our BBQ.  Rachel Ray, the FoodTV star, had rated Robin’s coleslaw as 4th best in the nation!  The smoked artichokes and hot wings appetizers were yummy too.  The smoked hotlinks were garlicky and flavorful and according to Robin, they were from Pete’s Sausage in South LA.

Robin, the owner and pitmaster for 27 years at this restaurant, took our group to his smoker building at the back of the parking lot to show us his state-of-the-art $35,000 JR Manufacturing Oyler Smoker.  Here are some photos. Here is the video of what we saw.