Saturday, February 20, 2010

The Good Stuff

When the people at your favorite BBQ joints recognize you, you know you're in BBQ nirvana. In Charlotte, NC, one of my two local BBQ joints is The Q Shack, which avoids the BBQ wars (for the most part) by having both Texas-style brisket AND NC-style pork BBQ. They sell beer if you like that with your food, and have outstanding blues music playing on the PA system. It's not a huge place, being a storefront location in a shopping center, but can seat about 40 or so people comfortably.

When we went in last evening they were making some of their fine hush puppies, using an extruder to form perfect turd-shaped pups. Sara had a "mustard pork" sandwich, which is pork BBQ mixed with a mustard-based SC-style BBQ sauce; I had brisket, as I usually do, but eyed Sara's sandwich covetously. I'll order that the next time I go in, I think. It looks scrumptious:


You can see mac-n-cheese and collard greens as Sara's side dishes. Sara is fond of the collards here. The mac-n-cheese is good, too. It's served almost universally in BBQ restaurants here in NC.

Here's my brisket plate:


And yes, I DID eat all those hush puppies, most of them dipped into the good tomato-based BBQ sauce. They also have NC-style vinegar-based sauce and SC-style mustard-based sauce on hand.

Gooooood BBQ.

6 comments:

Home on the Range said...

My potential bowl of Cheerios is looking pretty puny right now.

I get there perhaps once a year, I am going to try those! Thanks.

Carteach said...

While I eat well, I haven't had good Q in years. After reading your post, I will need to rectify that sad situation soon.

Here in mid-state PA, good BBQ joints don't really exists. We do our own, or we drive south for a day.

JohnMXL said...

Being a western Iowa boy with a Prohibition-era grandfather, when I saw the title of the post I was expecting a Templeton Rye whiskey story.

Guess it's a little early in the morning for booze.

Of course, since I work 3rd shift, I'm never really sure when it's too early for booze (except when handling firearms, of course!).

wally said...

If you're ever up this way again, Pierce's Pitt BBQ, outside of Williamsburg, is an interesting variation on pulled pork.

Bob said...

@Brigid: If you're ever in town send me an email, Doc, and we'll get together for a plate of BBQ. If you want to go shooting, there's a range not too far away, also.

Bob said...

@wally: thank you, Wally. If you ever need to travel to the Charlotte area, let me know and I'll get you a room at the hotel I work at. We can break bread and make medicine at the Q Shack or any other restaurant you care to name here.