On a Diet? Here's How You Can STILL Enjoy Wobbly Boots BBQ!

Summer (aka- swimsuit season) is just around the corner. This is the time of year when many people try cutting back on calories and may think that the best BBQ in Des Moines may no longer be an option for them. NOT TRUE! We've got a few tips in today's blog that will help you enjoy dining at Wobbly Boots Roadhouse while still keeping things "light." 

Be Picky About Meat Choices
Some meats are a healthier choice than others, yet still have that satisfying hickory-smoked flavor that fills your tummy with happiness. Chicken and turkey are always a great choice when you're searching for a low-fat protein, and if you're craving beef, the lean meat on our Prime Rib French Dip is a good decision. 

Some dishes, like our catfish items, can be ordered grilled instead of fried to make them healthier for you. Another way to get your meat cravings fulfilled but not overdo it is to use them as a salad topping. That way they are mixed in with lots of vegetables to fill you up quickly. Our Cowboy Cobb is a perfect choice, but it is a BIG salad, so if you're worried about eating too much, order a half-portion instead.  

Sauce on the Side
Just like a lot of folks order salads with dressing on the side, our BBQ is available with the sauce on the side. (Except for the Burnt Ends, which are always served with the sauce they are smoked in.) Dishes served without sauce are ordered "dry," but don't worry, that's just a phrase. Our slow-smoked meat itself is never dry, but instead tender and juicy! Getting our house-made BBQ sauce on the side allows you to control exactly how much is added to your meal.

Choose Side Dishes Wisely
Most of the menu items come with at least one of our scrumptious, down-home side dishes. Even though those gigantic Onion Rings and that creamy homemade Mac & Cheese are hard to resist, if you're watching what you eat, we do have lots of other choices that are equally delicious. Instead, order a baked potato, cottage cheese, green beans, or a side salad.   

Drink More Water
Staying hydrated is always a good, healthy idea, but it's also an excellent trick for making your body feel more full. Drinking a glass of water before you eat can help you to eat less for your meal. (You can always get a doggy bag for any leftover food.) If you need a bit more flavor, add a squeeze of lemon to your water, and unsweetened tea is another good no-calorie option. For those in the mood for a cocktail, using water or club soda as a mixer, or simply enjoying a really good liquor over ice, adds zero calories to your drink.  

BBQ may have a reputation for being a "heavy" food, but if you change your ordering habits, you can still enjoy the best BBQ restaurant in Des Moines anytime that you like. Just because it's not deep-fried or covered in sauce, if it comes out of the Wobbly Boots Roadhouse kitchen, you know it's going to be amazing! You can still order the higher calorie dishes on the days you have earned a "cheat meal." 

Award-winning BBQ right here in Des Moines! 

Don't forget you can take home 16 oz. bottles of Wobbly Boots House Recipe BBQ Sauce!!

Open EVERY DAY at 11:00 AM!

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Wobbly Boots Roadhouse

1301 NW 114th St
Clive IA 50325

(515) 223-5700

A Mountain of Food - the Wobbly Boots Sampler!

There is an enormous amount of delicious food to choose from on the menu at our Des Moines BBQ restaurant. Sometimes it can be very difficult to decide which dish you want to order. One menu item that allows you to get a taste of not one, but four of our amazing food choices, is the Wobbly Boots Sampler.

It may be listed in the appetizer section, but if you tackle this plate on your own, it's more than enough for a full meal! It's also a great choice if you'll be sharing with a few friends. Here's a little more about each of the mouthwatering treats you get when you order the Wobbly Boots Sampler. 

Wobbly Wings
Wings are quite possibly one of the most popular items on our entire menu, and with the Wobbly Boots Sampler, you get 4 of them to try. One thing that makes them so very tasty is the fact that they are smoked rather than fried. 

First, we take jumbo chicken wings and then we coat them in our house dry rub. Next, they are slow-roasted over hickory, ensuring only the most flavorful, juiciest wings possible. The flavor is incredible, even if the wings are served plain, but if you are in the mood for sauce, you can pick from these: 

• BBQ
• Jamaican Jerk
• Dijon Hot
• Jalapeno Garlic
• Chipotle Buffalo
• Habanero BBQ

Baby Back Ribs
When you dine at a BBQ joint, you really should give their ribs a try. Here at Wobbly Boots Roadhouse, you'll certainly be glad when you do! The 4 Baby Back Ribs on our sampler are very likely to make you crave an entire dinner featuring this incredible hickory-smoked meat! 

We prepare them for the smoker by adding our special dry rub. Once they're done in there, they are lightly grilled and basted in our house recipe BBQ sauce before being added to the plate. They are tender, mouthwatering, and the very best in ribs!

Bacon Wrapped Shrimp
Another extremely popular item from our appetizer menu is our Bacon Wrapped Shrimp. They are small treats with a great big flavor! 4 jumbo shrimp are each individually wrapped in our hickory-smoked bacon. Once that is done, they are grilled to perfection and served with a side of our own Jamaican jerk sauce. Delish! 

Famous Onion Rings
This dish normally comes on a plate as a full or half-order appetizer, or sometimes people upgrade their side dish for dinner to include these crispy treats. On the Wobbly Boots Sampler, you will get 4 of our amazing onion rings made from thick-cut yellow onions. We bathe them in buttermilk, then hand-bread each in our seasoned flour and fry them to a golden brown. The chipotle ranch dipping sauce is great for dipping! 

So, are you ready to give the Wobbly Boots Sampler a try? It's a wonderful introduction to a few of the tastiest menu items at our family BBQ restaurant in Des Moines, and this mountain of food is suitable both for a BIG meal or for sharing. You can't go wrong when you order 4 foods in just 1 dish, but of course, no matter what you choose to order from Wobbly Boots Roadhouse, it's going to be a delicious decision. 

Award-winning BBQ right here in Des Moines! 

Don't forget you can take home 16 oz. bottles of Wobbly Boots House Recipe BBQ Sauce!!

Open EVERY DAY at 11:00 AM!

Like us on Facebook!

Follow us on Twitter!
Follow us on LinkedIn!
Follow us on Google+!

Wobbly Boots Roadhouse

1301 NW 114th St
Clive IA 50325

(515) 223-5700

Every Wonder Why Bacon Is So Irresistible? This Is Why...

Just the smell of bacon wafting through the air is enough to make most people's mouths immediately water, and once you get a bite, it's tough to make yourself stop eating it! We witness bacon's effect on a daily basis here at our Des Moines BBQ restaurant each time we bring in a fresh batch from the smoker.   

It's a natural reaction that is pretty hard to control, but have you ever wondered why bacon causes such an uncontrollable reaction? Wobbly Boots Roadhouse did a little research on the subject, and we found out there are actually some scientific reasons why this particular food is so very appealing. 

The Science of Bacon
Some foods contain a single molecule that is responsible for what you taste. For example, bananas and almonds are very distinctive flavors that mainly rely on a single molecule for flavor, but as yummy as they may be to you, those are foods that aren't too difficult to resist.  

Bacon, on the other hand, has a phenomenal combination of factors that come together to create that crispy goodness. The best explanation that we found came from an online article from the BBC. It gets a bit scientific, but it's extremely interesting for any bacon-lover. 

" 'Some of the major flavour players are the result of the pork belly's fat breaking down,' says Guy Crosby, food scientist and science editor at America's Test Kitchen. 'It's not just the white marbling that's in play. The cell membranes of the muscle tissue contain fatty acids that disintegrate during cooking to yield a bouquet of flavourful compounds like aldehydes, furans, and ketones. By themselves, some of these molecules have distinct tastes or smells – furans have a sweet, nutty, caramel-like note, aldehydes a green, grassy note, and ketones tend to be buttery – but whatever they are doing together seems to be key. If any of these classes of molecules were missing from the overall bacon flavour, you would notice it.' "

So basically, the combination of sweet, nutty, caramel-like notes + green + grassy notes + a buttery flavor all come together in a magical way to create the magnificent bacon flavor we all know and love! The kind that you get from our family-friendly restaurant in Des Moines takes bacon's flavor one step further because we prepare it in a smoker over hickory. 

Hickory-Smoking Makes It Better
Even though bacon seems like a food that couldn't possibly get any better than it already is, the Boot goes and does it! The rubs and spices that we add to our bacon play a part in the final flavor it takes on. The chemical reactions of everything combined create a variety of tastes, pointing the various molecules in different directions. 

The act of smoking bacon causes the meat to take on a distinct set of flavor compounds. The best hickory-smoked meats in Des Moines go through a long, slow cooking process, making them the best in the Midwest. The smoke created by our hickory wood releases both acrid and sweet-smelling compounds that combine to add that amazing extra flavor that puts our bacon far ahead of any other you've ever tasted. 

Bacon at the Boot
The menu at Wobbly Boots BBQ features quite a few items that have to give the credit for a portion of their great taste to the addition of bacon. There are plenty here to get you started, but if you see another menu item that you want to have bacon added to, we can definitely do that for you.

• Bacon Wrapped Shrimp
• Texas Fries
• Turkey Bacon Ranch Wrap
• Cowboy Cobb Salad
• Loaded Baked Potato
• Baked Potato Soup
• B-L-T Flatbread
• Buffalo Bacon Chicken & Jalapeno Flatbread
• Wobbly Melt
• El Diablo Burger
• Bacon Egg & Cheese Burger
• Wobbly Style Club Sandwich
• Buffalo Chicken Sandwich
• Catfish BLT
• The Griller

Wipe the drool off your chin, hop in the car, and get yourself to Wobbly Boots Roadhouse in Clive. You can enjoy not only our incredible bacon, but also all of our amazing hickory-smoked meats 7 days a week for lunch or dinner. If you're a bacon-lover already, come on in and give our fantastic version a try. If you're not big on bacon, we're willing to bet that ours just may change your mind. 

Award-winning BBQ right here in Des Moines! 

Don't forget you can take home 16 oz. bottles of Wobbly Boots House Recipe BBQ Sauce!!

Open EVERY DAY at 11:00 AM!

Like us on Facebook!

Follow us on Twitter!
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Follow us on Google+!

Wobbly Boots Roadhouse

1301 NW 114th St
Clive IA 50325

(515) 223-5700

Why Eat BBQ For Dinner?... Why Not! 5 Great Reason To Do It

With all of the different dining choices available on a daily basis, you may have to do a little convincing to get everyone in your group to agree on picking the best BBQ in Des Moines for dinner. If they've ever tasted the food from Wobbly Boots Roadhouse in Clive before, it will be an easy argument to win. On the other hand, if they haven't tried us yet, here are a five excellent points to bring up to convince them that BBQ is the way to go. 

#1 - It Tastes Great!
In our humble opinion, that should be enough reason to choose BBQ for your next meal! Not all BBQ is equal though, so you may need to tell your friends just why Wobbly Boots BBQ is worth the trip. First of all, we slow-smoke our meats over hickory for the intense, rich, full-bodied flavor that particular wood produces. After years of practice and perfection, our cooks know exactly how long to leave each meat in the smoker to make sure it reaches its most mouthwatering potential. 

Add to that deliciousness our house recipe BBQ sauce and special dry rubs, and you've got a taste that will leave you wanting to come back again and again. Both the cooking process and the sauce recipe make up our hybrid-style of BBQ which was inspired by the 4 BBQ meccas of the U.S.A.: Kansas City, St. Louis, Memphis, and Texas. We learned from the greats, but created a flavor that you will only find here at the Boot!  

#2 - Lots of Dishes to Try
When some people hear BBQ, they sometimes limit their idea of dishes to chicken, burgers, and steak, like they might grill at home. On the contrary, our menu has a wide variety of different meats that we hickory-smoke, which include but are not limited to: 

• Hand-Pulled Pork
• Sliced Turkey Breast 
• Sweet Smoked Italian Sausage
• Applewood Smoked Ham
• Tender Smoked Beef Brisket
• Brisket Burnt Ends
• Baby Back Ribs
• Chicken
• Wobbly Wings

You don't just have to order those meats piled on a plate together or stacked high on a bun. One glance through our extensive menu shows you that many of our dishes are created using these savory smoked meats as one of many ingredients to create unique and delicious dishes. You'll have to come back many, many times to try all of them! 

#3 - BBQ Pairs Well With Beer and Sports
Sports fans will be thrilled to find out that they can eat BBQ while enjoying all of their favorite sports on our 17 TVs which are placed strategically throughout the restaurant. It doesn't matter whether you pull up a seat at the bar or a table in the dining room, you won't miss any of the action. 

An ice-cold beer is an excellent beverage to wash down a plate full of hickory-smoked BBQ. Here at Wobbly Boots Roadhouse, we not only have a wide selection of bottled beers, but 18 incredible beers on tap as well. We always have a wonderful selection of local Iowa brews mixed in there too, because after all, Iowans know how to brew an amazing beer! If you didn't know that already, come in soon and let us pour one for you. 

#4 - Food All Ages Love
If it's the family that you're trying to convince rather than a group of friends, our family-friendly atmosphere and down-home hospitality will make everyone feel right at home when they walk through the doors. Young diners will be pleased with choices on our kids' menu, which include favorites like Chicken Strips, Mini Corn Dogs, Cheeseburger, Grilled Cheese, and Mac & Cheese. There's even a kid's version of our Pork Sliders if they're ready to start moving toward becoming a smoked meat lover. 

Let them use our tasty BBQ sauce for dipping and they'll be hooked! The very best part is that eating BBQ encourages you to get a little messy, which kids absolutely love. As long as you take care of cleaning up yourselves when you're done (we have plenty of wet naps for you) we're happy to clean up all of the dishes.   

#5 - The Boot is More Than BBQ
There's always that one person in every group that won't agree with you. (Unless of course, they've been to the Boot before, which means they already realize how great it is here!) For that one friend that refuses to eat BBQ tonight, let them know that our Des Moines BBQ restaurant has all kinds of items on the menu that are not BBQ related! For example, we have Spinach Artichoke Dip and Crab Stuffed Mushrooms for starters, plus savory salads, fantastic flatbreads, Black Angus Burgers, and sandwiches like the Catfish BLT and our Famous Tenderloin. (An Iowa restaurant staple!)  

Well, while writing this we've certainly convinced ourselves that dinner at our family-friendly restaurant in Des Moines sounds like a perfect idea tonight, and we're willing to bet you think so too! Now all you have to do is share this wisdom with all of your friends and you'll be dining at Wobbly Boots Roadhouse in no time. 

Award-winning BBQ right here in Des Moines! 

Don't forget you can take home 16 oz. bottles of Wobbly Boots House Recipe BBQ Sauce!!

Open EVERY DAY at 11:00 AM!

Like us on Facebook!

Follow us on Twitter!
Follow us on LinkedIn!
Follow us on Google+!

Wobbly Boots Roadhouse

1301 NW 114th St
Clive IA 50325

(515) 223-5700