DIABLOS - BBQ SMOKEHOUSE AND COCKTAIL BAR

  SINFULLY DELICIOUS BBQ AND DRINKS:

DIABLOS SMOKEHOUSE AND COCKTAIL BAR

Their Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/DiablosBbq

1693A St-Denis, Montréal QC   Telephone:  514-283-4666

Price Range:  ~$15-30+ per person including one drink, meal, tax, and tip (drinks and meals have a fairly wide range in price).  CASH ONLY!!!

*This restaurant is a Mouthwatering Favorite!
 

Diablos: Meaty, drinky goodness!

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Oh man, where do I even begin...

Let's just start simply and build from there, shall we?

Point the first:  I love this place.

Point the second:  I. LOVE. THIS. PLACE.

Readers of this blog (if any) will have noticed that I loves me some serious meat. There's something just so awesomely satisfying about ripping into a rare t-bone steak or whole bbq chicken. ESPECIALLY if I do it caveman style - no utensils, just my hands and teeth, wrenching and gnawing away! I like finding my inner neanderthal from time to time, y'know? And one of the best places to explore this more primal version of my being is Diablos BBQ Smokehouse and Cocktail Bar.

Rather than jumping into the meat dishes here, I am going to begin by describing the drinks. Specifically, I am starting with a little something called Grace's Apple:

Tastes like liquid apple pie.

As I say in the caption of this drink, this alcoholic beverage tastes like goddamn liquid apple pie. It is my absolute favorite drink here. Every time I come here, even  before sitting down, I order one. This drink is named after one of the waitresses, the lovely and sweet Grace. Apparently, when the restaurant staff had a meeting to create the 80+ drinks in their menu, this drink was so good that Grace couldn't get enough of it. And since it tastes like apple pie, they called it Grace's Apple. If you like sweet drinks and apple pie, you need to get this over and over and over again. Do note though that the sweetness masks the alcohol. Don't be like one of my buddies who thought it was just juice and... well, no need to get into that, eh? :P

The Rocket:

Red, white, and blue - America in a cup?

Named after the classic Popsicle, the Rocket (duh!) (well, I'm guessing, but really, why else, right?), this alcoholic drink tastes pretty much just like that Popsicle. Very much alcoholic candy. Delightful!


Daquiri (can't remember which one - busy night!):

Sweet, cherry-flavored, and refreshing as all get out!

The Jerry Stewart (I think that's the name. Either way, a VERY big drink!). This is a 40oz drink and is so big I needed to show it in reference to a 210-lb man (whose identity is obscured by my hastily-improvised walrus mask) (wait, "walrus mask"? Am I drunk?). This sucker is HUGE:

Rather than my usual blur effect to obscure identity, I opted for a walrus mask because... well, just because :P. Either way, it's a good drink!

If I've understood this correctly, this drink is made of Sailor Jerry Rum, Red Vermouth, Angostura Bitters and Cherry Stewart’s Soda. It has roughly 6 shots' worth of a combination of the above-mentioned liquors and is typically a two-person drink. It's so big that it's served in a glass normally used for decoration. When they serve this (or any of the other huge honking drinks) they ring a big bell in behind the bar to trumpet it in. Like the other drinks mentioned so far, it tastes like candy and/or dessert, and it is just lovely. I surprised a number of eating companions by drinking one all to myself once - it's definitely doable!

Moving along, we have appetizers. Let's start with the bog standard for a change. And so, the chicken wings ($8.95):

Perfectly serviceable. Quite unremarkable. Pretty delicious. If you like wings, there are no surprises here.

Next, the quite excellent corn bread and quite good shrimp:

No, the food doesn't glow. I just can't take pictures properly :P.

Oh MAN. Do I ever love the corn bread here. What sets it apart from other corn breads that I've had is that this corn bread has jalapenos in it. It is just awesomely delectable - it crumbles in your mouth with every bite and has a fair bit of kick to it due to the peppers. I'd eat this stuff all day long if I could get away with it. 

The shrimp is pretty well-seasoned, and the process of cooking results in the shrimp sitting in a thin pool of sauce - which is best enjoyed by dipping the jalapeno corn bread into it. Worthy, worthy beginnings.

And now, the main events. First off, my favorite:  BEEF RIBS ($17.95).

Good GOD, the meat is fall-off-the-bone tender and tasty. It is rich and it is gooooooooooooooooood. The sauce is sweet and salty and makes your mouth nearly excessively water just on the first contact with your tongue. The fries, unfortunately, are only half-good. The regular fries (the yellow ones) are a bit too thin and dry for my taste. The yam fries (the orange ones) are pretty good though. Still, you don't order this plate for the fries. You order it for the MEAT, and on that front it delivers in spades.

They also serve a brisket sandwich ($13.95):

Sandwich closed.

Sandwich opened.

The brisket is nice and fatty - basically what you're looking for in a brisket. It's lovingly cooked for FIFTEEN HOURS, and that care shows. It is seasoned well and is full of flavor. The brisket is also very nicely complemented by the bbq sauce. Never thought to do that myself before coming to this restaurant, but it is worth it!

Chicken-fried steak:

Like fried chicken. Except, y'know, it's a steak inside that batter. Yum!

Prior to eating at Diablos for the first time, I only ever thought that Chinese people battered beef and deep-fried it. Oh, how naive I was. There will always be people who will batter and deep-fry anything. And if the food is inspired by southern cooking, then I better believe that there will be steak that's wrapped in batter and deep fried. This steak was a bit of a revelation - my mouth was confused at first. Not in a bad way at all, mind you - more just the fact that the batter and the seasoning led me to expect chicken. Instead, there was a nice juicy burst of beef flavor when I took my first bite. Why aren't there any deep-fried beef restaurants, I wonder?

And now, the final item of this review (updates will be forthcoming, don't worry), the Burger Week Special, the Cheesus ($10). Because this is a special burger available only for the Burger Week promotion (I think - I really hope they offer this regularly), I will be showing you multiple shots of this beauty:

Cheesus - top view.

Cheesus - top toppings.

Cheesus - bottom toppings (yeah, I know, that sounds weird).

 










Let's recap the makings of this fine burger, shall we? It's a chicken fried beef patty (burger patty fried chicken batter) topped off with a white wine cream drizzle, smoked ketchup, bacon and a cream cheese sour cream coriander sauce. Most uniquely? That's not a bread bun. Oh no, it's two   slices of baked Halloumi cheese that sandwiches all those ingredients. Halloumi cheese was a real revelation to me - prior to this I had never heard of cheese that can be grilled and not melt. Apparently, this is a cheese that you grill or bake and then toss into salad. Well, the fine folks at Diablos took this grillability (is that a word?) property of the cheese and used it in place of buns. It's a salty, chewy type of cheese, not at all gooey, and it was. SO. AMAZING. 

Phew! I wanted to show you guys the fried chicken, but the times I ordered it my cameraphone kept dying; for pictures of that you'll just have to wait and see! It's damn good fried chicken though. Also, one other great option if you're three people:  You can order the omnibus meal called "Dixie Normous". Go ahead. Say that out loud (but not at work! Or in public!). I'll wait :).  Anyhow, the Dixie Normous is $42.95, and it includes pork ribs, fried 1/4 chicken, pulled pork and two sides. It's a good way to try a bunch of things at once. Sad to say - the pulled pork is the only thing on the whole menu that I don't like. I really don't know why; the pulled pork's not bad, just...disappointing. Maybe because everything else here has set the bar high. Or maybe it's just not that good? Don't know - I leave that for others to ponder. I suppose, in the end, nothing and no place is perfect. What I do know is that Diablos comes pretty close to it though. I mean - it serves one of my favorite drinks ever and has the best beef ribs I've had in town. It would be sinful to not love this place, as far as I'm concerned! 

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Map of restaurants I have reviewed: 

 

Mouthwatering Montreal - Diablos BBQ Smokehouse and Cocktail Bar is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.