Dan The Man BBQ - BBQ Brisket Platter

I was a vegan for years. No animal ANYTHING. I didn't even use honey or beeswax. I held on pretty strong to those convictions for a very long time, but alas, my grandmother was right when she said "Its just a phase". I suppose it was, just a big 8 year phase. I won't get into why I was vegan in the first place, or what it was exactly that made me change my mind (it all started with one single jelly bean). I will, however, say this:


I am not vegan anymore, and it is awesome. 


Its awesome because I can walk into a place like Dan The Man BBQ, order the beef brisket platter (with collard greens and yams), and I can eat it. All of it. And holy crap, its delicious. 


Walking up to Dan The Man BBQ, it smells like a summertime cookout, year round. That is probably because of the giant 12 ft (approximate guess) smoker out back casting a sweet and smoky spell over the entirety of one city block. Its impossible to resist, and no matter what you may be in the mood for that day, one whiff of that slow smoked magic, and you're inside choosing from a myriad of meats, as a platter or on a sandwich. There's so much meat, there is a separate section of the menu devoted to "Meat Sides" its wonderful. 


The man, Dan, is there to greet you as you walk through the door, his kind and welcoming personality made me feel as though he had known me for years. How many restaurants do you go to where it feels like the entire staff had been waiting all day for you, and they had been preparing all this food, just for you? It just feels like home, and you are a part of the family.  If your home is a small takeout restaurant with no table. And if your family has a really thick southern drawl. 


So my choice for today was the Beef Brisket platter which comes with 2 sides, and cornbread. My sides were collard greens and with Dan's recommendation ("they real good"), the yams. There is nothing fancy here. You get your meal in a 3-section styrofoam container, the meat is sliced off per order, you get 7 or 8 slices I would say,  and with it you get a choice of hot or mild barbecue sauce (guess which one I picked...) which is liberally slathered on with what looked to me like a paintbrush, like one you would paint your house with. After each step my mouth would water a little more. After talking with Dan for a while about his business (originally from Florida, opened the restaurant in 2007, been cooking since he was 15, watches the food network a LOT, which is how he learned how to cook brisket, caters events, and brisket takes about 4 hours to cook in the smoker) it was finally time to get home and dig in. 


There is a good deal of fat on a brisket. When cooked over an extended period of time, some of that fat renders out, and soaks into the meat, breaking it down and making it totally delicious (thats a technical term they use in culinary school). This layer of fat doesn't go away completely, and it remains a pretty prominent part of each bite, and as long as you are okay with that,  you are in for a delightful treat. Each bite I took was pretty much equal parts meat and fat, and each bite melted in my mouth, Like, really, melted into my mouth... I barely had to chew at all. After cooking for so long, the meat just broke apart, and its rich and complex flavor was balanced nicely with the soft subtlety of the fat. The heaping helping of barbecue sauce (which Dan says he just buys the "cheap stuff" and adds stuff to it - his own sauce creation has yet to see the light of day) added just the right amount of tangy deliciousness to each bite, and before I knew it, sadly, I had finished all of it. At least I got some pictures this time. You see, I got this very same dish last week, with the intent of writing a review, but I ate everything and forgot to take any pictures. Thats how good this is, it made me completely forget my objectives. 


On to the sides... 

The collard greens were cooked with a smoked turkey leg, and they were perfect. The flavor of that turkey leg soaked through the greens, making them explode with smokiness and salt. I would eat these collard greens with every meal if I could, every day of my life.  A doctor might advise against that sort of "diet" but whatever, they are incredible. I would risk diabetes for these collard greens. 

The yams. Oh the yams. I don't eat yams as often as I should, I love them, but I mostly only have them around holidays. Christmas, Thanksgiving, Those are yam holidays. I don't know what it is, the warm family vibe I get from Dan The Man, the way these yams are prepared (I don't know how they are prepared exactly, but its quite clear that there is cinnamon involved) or just because of my association with yams to holidays, but to me, these yams taste like Christmas. Sweet and cinnamon-y, I feel as though I am sitting in front of a warm fireplace, getting presents. And that is the best taste association anyone could ever hope to have. 


With each platter you also get cornbread. The problem I always have is that after I finish all the other stuff, the last thing I want to do is eat a piece of cornbread. I did take a tiny bite of it, it was good, nothing too over the top, very dense, buttery, tasty. That was it for me, any more and I would pop... looks like I'll be having cornbread for breakfast tomorrow. 
With my collard greens. 


8.9


Dan The Man BBQ is located at 30 W. James St. in downtown Lancaster, PA 
They are open Tues-Saturday 11am-10pm 


The beef brisket platter will run you $10.99 (worth every penny)


Dan.