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The neighborhood around Camelback and Seventh Avenue has another restaurant to enjoy courtesy of Arizona native Bill Sandweg. Sandweg first moved into the area with Copper Star Coffee and recently ventured into full-on food with Circle H Barbecue.
Circle H serves up a variety of meat: pork, beef brisket, and chicken, hickory-smoked and slow-cooked with Sandweg’s signature rubs and sauces.
The barbecued pork is the star at Circle H, but there’s still work to do in areas like the starters, says New Times food critic Laura Hahnefeld. The brisket and chicken can also be hit-and-miss.
Still, with a few tweaks and greater attention to detail, Circle H could become a new neighborhood staple.
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Here’s an excerpt from Hahnefeld’s Cafe review, from the print edition:
Circle H is more about simple fresh ingredients and cooking techniques than intricate gourmet. And when it gets them right, its ideal customer — someone from the neighborhood — can enjoy a decent, affordable meal that will send her away satisfied and perhaps with a bit of barbecue sauce on her shirt. But Circle H doesn’t always get them right. The starters are a curious bunch. Like staples at a picnic, you wouldn’t reject them if they were put in front of you, but ultimately they’re an uninteresting lot. There are small, mustard-y deviled eggs, not-so-loaded loaded potato skins with cheddar cheese and bacon, and grilled cheese sandwich halves, served without any additional ingredients to make them special and amounting to little more than melted cheese and plain, crispy bread. If Sandweg were to re-think some of his restaurant’s menu items, the appetizers would be the place to begin.
Read the full Circle H Barbecue review.
