Visit #1 ·
★★★★★First visit, so I'm still in observation mode. Chubby Cattle BBQ out in Canoga Park — tucked into a strip mall on Topanga Canyon, which honestly is where half the best spots in the Valley hide. I went in without much intel, just a name I'd seen floating around and a free Friday afternoon.
Ordered a spread — brisket, ribs, a couple sides I don't remember loving enough to write down. The brisket is what I kept coming back to mentally. Good smoke ring, fat rendered down the way it should be, not the way a place that's been open six months thinks it should be. Someone in that kitchen knows what they're doing, or they're following a process that somebody who knows what they're doing built. Either way, the result holds up.
Service was fine. Nothing that made me feel like a regular, nothing that made me want to leave early. Competent.
What I can't tell yet: consistency. One visit gives you the best case scenario. Maybe I hit them on a strong day, maybe the pitmaster was actually there, maybe it was just luck. The sides felt like an afterthought, which is either a first-visit miss on my part for not ordering right, or a real gap in the menu. I need to go back to know.
I also didn't catch a total on the receipt, which bugs me because price-to-portion ratio is part of the equation for me. I'll have it next time.
Third visit is when I'll actually have an opinion. Right now I have an impression — and the impression is promising enough that I'm coming back.