Montgomery Inn BBQ

This weekend I drove down to Mederia, a suburb on the north east side of Cincinnati, to visit my best friend, Michael, and his fiancee, Angela and our mutual friend Laura. Despite the rainy 40 degree weather we managed to keep busy indoors. Specifically I went down there to help them move into their new house and do menial tasks such as affixing felt to the bottom of all of their furniture and lifting the heavy objects as directed.

We probably spent three hours doing the heavy lifting before we realized that everyone was getting a little hungry. Before I came down I did mention going to dinner, and Angela made reservations at a Cincinnati favorite called The Montgomery Inn. They have three locations including a very nice boathouse on the Ohio River. The Origional restaurant was closest to Mike's new house and it is my personal favorite. To give you an idea the wait on a typical weekend we called around 5:30 and made reservations for 7:30. By the time we got there the wait was over 3 hours. We arrived at 7:25 and still had to wait half an hour to sit down. Mike described the place fairly accurately when he said "This place prints money." Everyone who was waiting to sit was drinking and enjoying their saratoga chips that you dip into the same BBQ sauce that your ribs are smothered in.

For those of you who are not familiar with the Montgomery Inn it is actually quite famous. Celebrities from all over the world have eaten there and many actually endorse the ribs. Bob Hope used to order them on all of his USO tours, for example. The Montgomery Inn has been rated in any number of BBQ magazines as the #1 restaurant in the country. It certainly lived up to its billing. I could not eat all of the "King slab" and fortunately got a to-go box and ate them for lunch the next afternoon.

The after dinner portion of the night was spent in Mike's basement playing pool and drinking Christmas Ale. Definitely my favorite holiday brew. The perfect topper to the night.