If you order a plate of juicy, tender, sticky, hot, crispy, flavourful BBQ ribs, and somehow end up with perfectly clean fingers – you’re either a BBQ pro or a human specimen requiring serious scientific study.
Getting sticky is just part of the experience. The BBQ ribs at Ribs & Burgers are the real deal, and they’re certainly not the kind of cutesy finger food you’ll find influencers nibbling tidily. They’re the kind of meal you order when you’re serious about flavours not photos, and whether you’re after a Pork Spare Ribs, a Premium Pork Baby Back, the classic Beef Ribs or the luscious Lamb Ribs, you can expect things to get deliciously messy.
Here are our tips for how to eat ribs like a pro.
The Five-Star: Use napkins
Napkins are your greatest ally when facing down a plate filled with meaty, sticky ribs.
One gets tucked into your shirt as a bib. One goes in each hand so you can pick up the ribs with your fingers without getting the stickiness all over yourself.
And here’s the real pro move: One must be wetted and left ready to clean off your fingers and wipe down your face once you’re finished the meal. Don’t tell the influencers.
The Silver Service: Bring a friend that lost a bet
Next time you have a bet with a friend, make your winning condition be that they feed you Ribs & Burgers ribs by hand.
Pros: You get a perfectly tidy meal while they get all the stickiness.
Cons: You will look weirder than someone eating a burger with a knife and fork.
The Mannerly: Use a knife and fork
Look, using a knife and fork to eat beef short ribs or spare ribs is a bit like using chopsticks to eat a pizza, but our job is to make the best ribs you’ve ever had, not to judge you for how you eat them.
In all fairness, a knife and fork will keep you, your fingers, the table, and your face mostly free of delicious BBQ ribs residue. On the other hand, we’re not sure how a knife and fork will let you pick up the bones and tear off the final little strips of meat at the end (you can’t deny you love this part).
The Cultured: Use chopsticks
Anyone who has spent some serious time in Japan will attest that the humble chopsticks are the natural enemy of messy ribs.
A skilled chopstick master can deftly use their tools to tear apart the ribs (they’re beautifully tender, after all), then daintily manoeuvre those meat sticks to your mouth.
A word of warning however: An unskilled chopstick user will end up with so much sauce on their face that the ‘saving it for later’ excuse simply won’t cut it.
The Prepared: Tie your hair back
Long-haired ladies and gentlemen, those luscious locks are a sight to behold, but they’re just not practical when it comes to the stickiest and juiciest of BBQ ribs (ours).
Don’t forget to bring a hair tie to tuck back those tresses, as we all know that it’s one thing for hair to get in the way of a good meal, and something else entirely for those strands to end up sticking to your face by the end of the night. That’s just a shameful waste of basting.
The Alternating: Swap out the mess with sides
It’s a fact of life that everything those juicy ribs touch will end up smothered in sauce.
So while you have some of that tasty sauce on your fingers, pick up an onion ring, or some of our Famous Chips, or even a Golden Tender. By alternating between your BBQ ribs and a side dish, you can spread that saucy love around and enjoy it all the more in the process.
The Pig-in-the-mud: Get stuck in
How often are you faced with premium ribs, slow cooked for a fuller flavour, and prepared with a 35-year-old secret recipe sauce that will have you craving another bite the second you’ve finished the first?
How often do you find BBQ ribs that have been finished over a flame for the perfect crispy skin, yet succulent and tender meat?
Not often. Or probably, however often you visit your pals at Ribs & Burgers. So we say – get messy.
Accept your fate as a sticky, saucy, satisfied mess. Start with clean fingers (we’re not savages) and dive into those ribs like a pig in mud and don’t come up for air until you’re finished and grinning happily.
We’ll show you the way to the bathrooms so you can clean yourself up afterwards, and give you a high five on the way back to your seat.