Barlow & Co

2 Reviews on “Barlow & Co”

• BigMeatManAU

  Going into this review you should know a couple of things about me. Firstly, I’m a big bloke that loves meat. Second, I’ve eaten brisket in Austin Texas, and that’s going to be hard to beat; I knew that going in, but am starting my search to find a place that does good brisket in Sydney. I figured I’d give this place a go. I won’t be again, unfortunately.I ordered the brisket plus burger, and some brisket on the side (remember point one in my introduction?). It arrived hot, looked good, smelled good, no problems there.I started with the side of brisket, and was almost immediately disappointed. On the positive side, nice fatty piece, hot, not falling apart of its own accord which is actually good in brisket.Truly the biggest let down was that it just lacked flavour. It was bland. No salt to speak of, barely perceptible spice, no good smoke flavour, meat too dry. A let down to be sure.The sauce with it didn’t seem like it knew what it was trying to be. Was it trying for a nice vinegar / hot sauce bbq sauce? Was it trying to be a classic sweet sauce? I felt like it didn’t know, and it suffered for it. Too vinegary to be sweet, too sweet to be vinegary. The tomato flavour was also still very fresh in it, which lent it a weird element almost like passata. I’d recommend caramelising that tomato some more, really cook down those high fresh fructose sugars.The Burger was, as mentioned, a brisket burger, and as such suffered for the same reasons the brisket did, though the edge was taken off by the rest of the burger accoutrements. The slaw was all crisp and fresh, a big plus, not too much liquid. The cheese was a classic american cheese which always does well in a red meat burger. The onion rings were crispy, oniony, worked very well. I didn’t have any by themselves, but I think they’d have held up. The real stand out though was the bun, which was everything I wanted from it, soft but firm, chewy, slightly sweet. If I were to order here again, I’d get the classic cheeseburger, because I’d wager their burger is more flavourful, and it was only the meat letting this burger down.The chips were good. Good choice of potato for the chunky fry style of chip, nice rustic appearance, skin on, good potatoey body, very pleasantly salted, crispy and soft at the same time.Over all I’d say the BBQ elements are what let this place down, and unfortunately it’s what I went in for. With some tweaking and decisiveness in the nature of their sauce, and a vastly more seasoned brisket, I think they could really pull this together to be an excellent source of BBQ. Hopefully this was all a fluke, as other reviews seem to disagree with me, but I can only judge by my own experience.

  December 7, 2020, 4:59 pm

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• Ned

  Real solid pulled pork burger, saucy pork balanced out with coleslaw and added crunch from the pork crackling. Brisket burger was however, very disappointing. Brisket was really dry and flavourless. The real surprise for me was their thrice cooked, hand-cut chips. Pretty awesome for a small neighbourhood joint like this to do American BBQ and homemade chips, and value is amazing with burgers starting from just 10 bux. Will definitely be back to try out the other options.

  April 6, 2019, 9:07 am

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