Review – Buster Rhino’s BBQ Restaurant Whitby Ontario Canada

After 3 months of procrastinating I finally made it over to Buster Rhino’s Southern BBQ Restaurant in Whitby, Ontario Canada

I have spoken with owner Darryl Koster a number of times via his twitter account on which he is very personable and gets involved in the community.

On the day of my visit he had tweeted that the place was full of customers for lunch, I did not go over til 7pm on Friday which is getting close to his 8pm closing time.

At first glance his hours of operation seems a bit odd.

Store Hours:
Mon – Tues 10AM – 4PM
Wed – Fri 10AM – 8PM
Closed weekends

But the hours do make sense, since Buster Rhino’s is located inside an Industrial Park south of the Hwy 401 and East off of  Thickson road, so during the hours Darryl is closed there is really no one around to serve.

Walking in the decor and appearance compared to a cafeteria in a large office or plant.

It was very clean though I would not say overly appealing. The walls were very plain and could use some decoration to give it a more inviting, warmer feel. At this time Darryl was the only one working and he welcomed Andrew and I as soon as we entered and since he has seen my picture from my blog before he looked at me and asked, Oshawa Ogre right?, so rats my cover was blown.

Ordinarily when I review a restaurant I do not want to announce my self first so that I do not get any special treatment.

After looking at the menu for a few moments, Andrew decided on the Pulled Pork Sandwich with 2 sides, Potato Salad and Cole Slaw. Darryl suggested I have the special priced Friday night Ribs as they had just come out of the Smoker, and as you all know Ribs is one thing that I know having covering Ribfests all season long. As you can see in the chalkboard photo the special is a great deal for $14,99. I also ordered a side of Fries and the Baked Beans. Darryl was very nice to offer us a Brisket sandwich to share as well since he thought it would be important to try it, and he was right on that!

Along with our drinks (A&W Root-beer) the whole order came to less than $30.00 so very affordable.

Most places your paying over $20.00 for just a rack of Ribs and these are smoked to perfection. served with the opinion of sauce or no sauce I chose that I would get them without the sauce and add it my self so that I could better rate the ribs on their own merit.

And they were fantastic, you could see the nice smoke ring on the Ribs and they were served as you see in the picture below ready to eat.

The meat had just the right amount of bite or pull away from the bone, some people like to have fall off the bone but I like to have it tug just a tad, and that is how these were. I then added some sauce, Darryl has condiment squeeze bottles with his mild and hot sauces available at the table so not to be running short. One thing I did not see was any wet naps, eating Ribs by hand needs wet naps to make it a little easier.

Here is what Andrew and I thought about the rest of the meal.

Coleslaw- Pleasing taste made stronger by Andrew adding  Black pepper, but Andrew likes it that way. A+

Potato Salad - Very tasty with fresh ingredients and Sweet Potatoes used, excellent! A+

French Fires – , cut fresh, tasted fine but a little too dark for my liking, told the new crop of potatoes from this year does that. B-

Baked Beans -Very flavourful great sauce and a huge portion. A+

Pulled Pork Sandwich - Wow, the meat was tender and with the Buster Rhino Sauce, exceptional. A+

Brisket Sandwich - Out of this world good flavourful meat and also very tender with a beautiful red Smoke ring in the meat, Andrews favourite part of the meal. These are all great choices for the lunch time crowds in the Whitby Industrial area. Especially those on a budget. A+

Ribs - This is the highlight of the visit, Nothing like these in the local area, Wonderful Goodness! A++

The trip to Buster Rhino’s was well worth it to make, great food and Darryl was an excellent host, spending time talking with us about the processes involved in smoking and talking about the business it self. I want to go into more depth with Darryl about the business side so I hope to arrange an interview at some point soon and I will share that with you in a future blog post.

I would most definitely  recommend Buster Rhino’s as a place to order great BBQ which really there are not a lot of choices in Toronto’s GTA for authentic Smoked BBQ in a restaurant.