Chili's Grill & Bar - (Corpus Christi - S Padre Island Dr)

Reviews

• ★★★★☆ Half Rack Of Baby Back Ribs Mexican Rice Corn Visited Jun 15, 2021

  Underwhelming Ribs at Chili’s

  I was visiting the Corpus Christi area for work and called up a friend who lived there to meet up for dinner, since I hadn't eaten yet and there wasn't much open late. We ended up deciding on Chili's.
  
  We sat down and browsed the menu, and we decided to order the meal for 2 with half racks of ribs. We figured we could get a better deal and just split the bill at the end. I'm not sure I'd ever actually had Chili's ribs before, or if I had it had been years. The side options were pretty slim, and nothing really looked all that appealing, so I just went with rice and a corn on the cob.
  
  When the order came out, it was a bit underwhelming. It wasn't really plated in any particular way, the serving of ribs was pretty small, and all the food looked rather plain.
  
  I tried the ribs first, and they were pretty tender, but nowhere near the level of what you'd get at an actual BBQ place. The sauce was sticky and kind of sweet, almost masking the fact that the rib it covered was a mediocre BBQ rib, but overall the flavors were pretty simple, honestly something I could've put together at home using a pack of frozen, pre-cooked ribs reheated in the oven.
  
  The rice was pretty lacking in flavor, and I didn't really care for it. The corn was, well, corn, though it did have some seasoning on it which helped a little, but it was still just corn on the cob.
  
  His order ended up coming out with corn despite ordering coleslaw and onion blossoms, which he mentioned to the waitress. She said she would correct it but never came back to the table. We had a different waiter show up, but didn't bring it to his attention as we were already half way thru our meal.
  
  I'd always seen the commercials advertising Chili's Baby Back Ribs, and figured if they push them that hard, they must be pretty good, but I wasn't impressed in the least. It's probably not an item I'll be ordering again. I'm not sure if what I got was some leftover from earlier in the day, maybe overcooked and sauced up after the fact, but they were a bit dry and definitely not the fall-off-the-bone tender that baby back ribs are supposed to be.

  — Paul