Smoky Boys – Watford

Smoky Boys is a small, yet smartly decorated restaurant situated at the end of a relatively modest Watford high street.

We managed to find parking easily enough on a weekday evening, but were surprised to find it relatively empty. As a result, the service was both swift and friendly with lots of advice and suggestions.

With the number of burger joints that have popped up in recent times, the question we Lions were all asking was whether this would have the wow-factor or flatter to deceive like so many.

Cajun Spiced Chicken £4.25

The above was recommended to us from their selection of weekly specials. Unfortunately and despite assurances of them being very tasty, these weren’t very special at all.

To the contrary, what we were presented with, and were subsequently forced to masticate and masticate more on, were two measly pieces of thin rubbery chicken strips which didn’t do justice to the accompanying pungent Cajun sauce.

Smoky Mexican Burger £8.75

This wasn’t as bad as it looks, nor as great as we’d hoped.

Despite the juices oozing out of a perfectly made medium-cooked burger, the whole thing lacked sufficient sauce to cover over the fact that the meat simply lacked any real flavour.

Smoky Bad Boy Burger £8.75. Beef patty, iceberg lettuce, mature cheddar & American cheese, jalapeños, fresh chillies, Bad Boy Suicide Sauce, brioche bun

This burger is hot, as in spicy hot! And so a special thumbs up to the staff member who sagaciously suggested that since this already had both jalapenos and a hot Bad Boy Suicide (Tabasco) Sauce, that we drop the green chillies.

Thank goodness we did because God knows if we hadn’t, we wouldn’t have appreciated how effectively the extra heat almost covered over the relatively bland tasting meat.

Smoky Beast Burger £11.50. Beef patty x2, oak smoked bacon, Cheddar & American cheese, grilled onion, iceberg lettuce, pickled red cabbage, beef tomato, Smoky Boys Sauce, brioche bun

As the name says, this was, indeed, a beast of a burger, which started off well, but quickly went down hill after a few bites.

The problem was that since the double meat patties were served well done, and not medium as initially requested, this quickly turned into a mighty struggle of epic proportions especially with the glaring lack of, yes you guessed it, sauce!

Half Rack Beef Ribs £14.95 (with coleslaw and fries)

Although this didn’t look too bad, it nevertheless lacked any real depth of flavour.

Worse still, it was fairly chewy, indicating that this wasn’t as slow cooked as, say, the tender and flaky rack offered by Meat & Shake (Tooting branch). We were left sorely disappointed, so don’t even bother asking us about the two sides!

Amigos Punch Fresh Fruit, Ginger & Elderflower, Strawberry Daiquri (from £4.50)

Having said all that though, their cocktails were stunning :-P and we recommend them ALL, particularly the Amigos Punch Fresh Fruit.