Roseville, MI - Lazybones Smokehouse; There are a few BBQ places throughout Detroit, but the big question is which one to try, spend the time driving, and which to pay for, right?

Although Lazy Bones is good, I'm not sure if its worth the drive and flavor. Compared to other places it falls short in most areas except one cut of meat.

We went with the Texas Sampler that has all the smoked cuts of meat: ribs, chicken, turkey, pulled pork, brisket, rib tips, burnt ends, and sausage. It also comes with two sides, your choice, we went with the smoked beans and cole slaw. In addition, we added cornbread because can you truly have BBQ without cornbread?

The meat to really write about is the burnt ends. I haven't seen that often on the menu and it should be there. It's almost like having pork belly. It's meaty and fatty at the same time.  It has the proper charred side giving it the wonderful smokey BBQ flavor, while being extremely tender with its high fat content. If I had this only, the rating would have been five stars and my arteries would have probably seized up at the end of the meal.

All the other meats were ok, but not exceptional. The ribs were very meaty and not fatty, which was nice, but only a smoked flavor, no dry rub on it. The turkey was cut too thin and was dried out. The rib tips had a wonderful smokey, almost bacon flavor, but they were extremely dry and VERY rubbery. It was the least of my favorite. The chicken was nice, very nice and juicy and smokey. The sausage had a pretty good flavor, but very subtle. I like flavors that are in your face, don't hold back. The brisket was a tiny bit dry, but at least they didn't cut away the fat. They left it to enhance the flavor and texture. I almost forgot to write about the pulled pork, that probably because there's not much to say. Not a whole lot of flavor, little on the dry side. The cornbread was surprisingly good. It wasn't dried out, nice cornmeal flavor, and slightly hard top. Lastly, the sides. The beans were extremely smokey, which was nice. It also had shredded beef or pork in it. Nice size chunks of it too. The cole slaw was also fresh, larger pieces of cabbage, lots of celery seeds, but very little mayo. It was nice to see that it's more on the vinegar side than the mayonnaise approach.

They said they make their own sauces, I say just stop making them. There's no point. I don't think they had any flavor enhancement to the meats. In fact, we had it "cooked" on the ribs, they were just rubbed with the sauce, but it was still cold. I could have easily just put it on myself. The bad thing about it is that it completely masks the flavors of the meats instead of complimenting it.

I also asked about their Mac-n-cheese, they said they make the noodles as well as the sauce. I was surprised to hear they actually make the pasta.

The staff was extremely nice and helpful too.