[What You Should Order At...] Fort Reno Provisions

WHAT YOU SHOULD ORDER AT... is a recurring column designed in kind for your opinionated asses and our lazy asses. When the mood strikes, we pick one Park Slope resto and recommend our favorite dish. Are we right? Are we wrong? YOU KNOW YOU WANNA WEIGH IN.

Over the last few years, Park Slope has gone from a nabe with zero legit BBQ joints to one with a few respectable spots sprinkled around the Park Slope/Gowanus border...& NO, Pork Slope does not count as a place to get legit BBQ, no matter how many times people refer to it as one. Sorry, LJ. It just isn’t.

Before Fletchers & (soon to be) Dinosaur BBQ, there was Fort Reno Provisions, the place owned by a group including Jacques Gautier of Palo Santo. Since opening back in January of last year, the tiny restaurant on Union just above 4th Ave has gone through a number of menu tweaks & while it hasn't earned the same acclaim as Fletchers & probably isn't worthy of it, it's continued to pump out pretty solid BBQ. For most of this time, they've offered up a dish called the "Hot Mess." While one might hope that a dish with such a name would have clumps of LiLo's, er...Amanda Bynes' hair in it, that's unfortunately not the case.

Instead, The Hot Mess is a lil' bit of everything on the menu, a layered, more-cohesive, mason-jar-encased, BBQ version of Rochester's garbage plate. As you make your way down from the top of the mason jar, there are hot pickles, cole slaw, a meat (brisket or pulled pork), cornbread, burnt end beans and mac & cheese. For $7 ($8 for the brisket), you can order one with a beer, get a sampling of a good portion of the menu & call it a mostly-filling meal...unless you want to be a fatass about it & call it an appetizer. Either way, you should try one out. If nothing else, that random janky hookup won't be the only Hot Mess you fuck with that evening.

Read way more from Shawn at eatdrinksnack.com and eatdrinktaco.com.