We Think Our New Favorite Color is Jasper..

Believe it or not, just up North I-45 are some of the best award winning ribs you can try East or West of the Mississippi.

We’re talking fall off the bone, all over your hands and face, craving more even though you’re full type of ribs.

In a charming town 35 minutes North of Houston, known as The Woodlands, you can find these ribs, and so many other delicious options at Jasper’s located central to all the action right on Main Street. In addition to their fabulous year round menu, they have recently added some summer items perfect for the season.

As an appetizer, is there anything better than goat cheese on everything? Don’t worry we’ll wait because the answer is no. Add it to the end of peach season and you have yourself the perfect start to a meal.

As a summer special, Jasper’s is pushing out Smoked Peach Bruschetta, which is a crispy Bruschetta with goat cheese and fresh peaches with a drizzle of sweet honey balsamic drizzled on top. Its soft, sweet, and tart with a crunch and will prepare your palate for the barbecue feast ahead.

Picking your entree will be the hard part. Between perfectly cooked burgers, quesadilla’s of the day, and a cedar smoked salmon, you’ll be making your next reservation before you even order. However, we highly recommend that whatever you choose, let it have their house-made barbecue sauce, because it’s out of this world good, and they give you plenty of it for dips and drips all over your plate!

Our first pick was the Shiner Bock BBQ Rotisserie Chicken. Mix beer, BBQ, and juicy chicken, and we call that a slam dunk – which it was. Crispy chicken skin, moist white meat, and Shiner Bock barbecue sauce laying on a perfect bed of Applewood smoked bacon-cheddar grits. This dish was light and fresh. The barbecue sauce was tangy rather than spicy and the grits were the perfect texture to hold the moisture and flavor of the BBQ chicken. As a hot new summer special item, we see how this can easily become a go-to for a hot summer day running in and out of the pool.

Our second and most favorite pick – of course, saving the best for last – is the (drumroll) Slow Smoked Baby Back Ribs!!! These bad boys are so juicy, so flavorful, so amazingly good that you’ll be begging for more, promise! They are award winning too! Bon Appetite  named them the top 3 choices of “Best Ribs in America”. IN AMERICA! Bon Appetite wasn’t lying either. Your choice of either 2 or 3 cuts of the ribs (around 4 ribs in each cut) smothered in a tangy and zesty ancho chili BBQ sauce with an unbelievable side of creamy baked potato salad with fried onions on top that you won’t be able to stop eating! 

This is not a drill, and deserves a full size picture ^ for you to understand the seriousness of this dish. The second that you try to pick a rib piece up, this is what will happen – it will fall right off the bone. You’re not even going to know what to do with yourself, because you won’t remember the last time you picked up a rib and that happened. You’ll start thinking of other places where ribs were that tender.. and you won’t be able to think of any, because you will be in a rib-coma from these babies. And Houston, we’re not joking about the ribs falling off the bone, this isn’t just a phrase… we have proof. Pics or it didn’t happen, so please see below! Have you ever seen bones so clean and beautiful? I don’t think so.

Even though you’re probably completely full from your life-changing ribs, if you have room for dessert, go ahead and dive in. If you’re feeling like you need something to hit that super sweet spot, go for the winning Butterfinger Creme Brule, Strawberry-Oreo Cheesecake, or Nutella (!!) Bread Pudding. However, if you want something a bit more fresh and fruity, go for the Seasonal Fruit Crisp with vanilla ice cream. Think a cobbler/crumble mix full of warm and soft berries (blueberries, blackberries, strawberries) mixed with crumble in a smoking hot skillet with a dollop of vanilla ice cream on top to create the perfect hot, cold, sweet, sour mix in your mouth. Plus its mostly fruit, so you’ll feel really good about your decision and one scoop of ice cream isn’t so bad because its calcium anyway and makes your bones strong. Now, thats the perfect meal in our book!

So the next time you’re on the hunt for the best ribs in arguably the world and don’t want to have to wait in line outside of some BBQ joint, go to Jasper’s. Or the next time you’re heading up I-45 on your way to or from Dallas, go to Jasper’s. Or the next time you have a concert at The Woodland’s Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion (Sublime and Luke Bryan coming soon) head to Jasper’s before you rock the night away. It’s truly a culinary anomaly, and more delicious that these pictures can show. You won’t be disappointed!

Stay Trill, Spread Love, and Be The Wave!

– BNH