Imperial Highway: Mom's Bar-B-Q on Mother's Day

My wife and I don't have kids, but we wanted a Mother's Day brunch, so we went to Mom's Bar-B-Q on Imperial Highway, just east of the 110 Freeway.



I'm from Texas and I'm kind of a Bar-B-Q snob, and I've been really disappointed in most of LA's Bar-B-Q joints. Mom's is a great discovery though.



It's take-out only, meaning there is no seating anywhere. We took the brown package they gave us and picnicked in near by Holly Park, shown in the map at the bottom of the post.

I got the ribs and Bar-B-Q beans.

The ribs were a little disappointing. Big, smokey and flavorful, but kind of tough.

The sauce however was awesome. They give you a choice of hot or mild sauce. I chose hot. It was vinegary and thin and reminded me of sauce from my home state of Texas (home of the best Bar-B-Q). It worked great with the flavor of the meat, compensating for some of the toughness. The meal also came with two extra slices of white bread to sop up the sauce with at the end of the meal. The sauce had quite a bit of heat in on just the bread that it didn't notice when it was on the meat. If you can't handle spiciness, I'd go for the mild.

The beans were great too, mushy and cooked in what tasted like the mild version of the sauce. I would say beans are definitely the side to order.



My wife got a brisket sandwich with mild sauce, and coleslaw and potato salad.

Don't bother with the slaw or potato salad. It's not homemade and is worse than the stuff you buy in the grocery store deli.

The brisket on the other hand, this is what you have to order. It was great. Some of the best brisket I've had in LA. Tender, smokey, very lean. And they serve it with a ton of sauce and put it on two slices of wheat bread.

Here it is before:



And after:



So to sum up, get:
• Brisket
• Beans
• Plenty of sauce.

My Bar-B-Q rating: *** 3 stars

Mom's Bar-B-Q
1050 W. Imperial Highway
Los Angeles, CA
323-756-8405

View Imperial Highway in a larger map