Not So Smokin'

Smokin' Betty's

by Trey Popp

Your aunt's in town with her Weight Watchers calculator, your old frat brother just turned up with a jones for barbecue and your in-laws want to take everyone out for dinner as long as there's Jewish food on the menu. Meanwhile, your kid eats hot dogs, period.

Ever find yourself in a bind like this? Smokin' Betty's is the place for you.

Open since June in an airy, bilevel space at 11th and Sansom, this casual restaubar serves a wider variety of food and drink than you can find in some entire neighborhoods. There's pizza. There's ribs. There's Cobb salad, matzoh ball soup and fish tacos. There's quinoa and chickpeas, a Thanksgiving-style turkey platter, and a snow pea chicken salad with tahini-soy dressing.

The kitchen isn’t the only thing that aims to be all things to all people. Wine by the glass: check. A dozen-plus microbrews on tap: check. Specialty cocktails: check. If you ever wanted to sip a Pimm’s Cup while ordering from a children’s menu, now you’ve got your chance.

Unfortunately, the problem with this shotgun-spray approach is that even if a few pellets hit the bull's-eye, a lot more are bound to miss the target altogether. Though I certainly haven't come close to trying everything their friendly servers have to offer, that has been my experience at Smokin' Betty's.

What drew me in to begin with was its tur-duck-en burger, but this was the first of several disappointments. Ground turkey and chicken overwhelmed the core of duck rillette with a blandness that an oversweet cranberry relish only called more attention to. Perhaps it's foolish to hope for much from a derivative of a dish that's a gimmick to begin with, but then again, rooting out fruitless ideas is part of what a restaurant ought to do.

My luck was no better with the grilled pizza, whose toppings change daily. The glory of grilled pizza is a crispy crust that holds its shape, but I could have hung the one I tried over a towel rack.

A trio of barbecue sliders had a little more going for it. The pulled chicken was aromatic with Caribbean spices, while the backwoods smell of hickory smoke wafted from the tender brisket. But the sauce on the latter was cloyingly sweet, while the pulled pork needed some more vinegar to cut its fatty mouth-feel.

A beer lineup has something for everyone, which is all to the good, but Smokin' Betty's errs by trying to do the same thing with food. It would please more diners if it set its sights on fewer.

(t_popp@citypaper.net)

Smokin' Betty's | 116 S. 11th St., 215-922-6500, smokinbettys.com. Mon.-Thu. and Sun., 11 a.m.-10 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Burgers, $8-$11; salads and sandwiches, $6-$10.75; small plates, $4-$14; large plates, $8.95-$22. Wheelchair accessible.