Barbecue Experiment

I've been thinking for a while now that North Carolina-style barbecue, which is usually chopped fine and topped with slaw, is a bit messy eaten as a sandwich, so I wondered if it would be neater if made like a burrito, so I bought some tortillas and a pound of barbecue from my local BBQ joint, and gave it a try:

Lessons learned: these are too thick, I used too much filling. I also added too much vinegar-based BBQ sauce to the mix of meat and slaw, which made them drippy. Next time I'll use much less filling per tortilla, and less sauce in the mix. I tried one burrito made that way, and it ate neatly and easily.

The Story of Texas Pete Hot Sauce

Via Our State Magazine.

Two things: It was originally called "Mexican Joe" informally when it was first made, but the name was changed to "Texas Pete" to avoid offending Mexicans. And it's still less a hot sauce than it is an Eastern-style NC BBQ sauce, with just a little more heat than the usual run of Eastern sauces (Eastern NC BBQ sauce is mostly vinegar, with added salt, red pepper, and black pepper). You'll still find it in most NC BBQ restaurants, at least the traditional ones.

Restaurant Review: BarBee's Bar-B-Que, Peachland, NC

Haven't done a barbecue joint review in a while, time to get back into the habit since I have a reliable car again. BarBee's is a small country barbecue restaurant right off of US 74, the main highway from Charlotte to the Carolina coastline and Wilmington. BarBee's is in Peachland:

It's easy to miss the turn-off coming from Charlotte, and I did so, driving nearly to Wadesboro before turning around and approaching from the other direction. Here's the road sign:

No other signage is in evidence, so the place can be hard to notice; since they have a regular local crowd, that may be what the management desires. There was a portable smoker parked out by the road sign:

There was a half-dozen cars in front of the place, a pretty good-sized crowd for a small place like this. As I looked for a parking slot I noticed several cats in evidence around the restaurant; don't know if they were restaurant cats or feral. Around back was a large, fresh woodpile, a promising note:

There was also a large propane tank, which may or not mean the use of propane smokers:

Menu. In addition to barbecue, the restaurant offers hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken and fish. The menu states that the barbecue is cooked over hickory, but this doesn't mean that gas or electricity aren't the primary heat source, with wood being used only for flavor. The waitress, a teenager, professed not to know.

The interior was handsome, with a narrow dining area, booths along each wall, a couple of small tables in the center. The walls were paneled and roofed with 4" boards stained a honey color. Three windows looked onto a second dining room the same size as the primary, but with glass windows and a view of the parking lot. I didn't photograph the interior, not wanting a flash to disturb my fellow diners.

I ordered a large pork plate, with red slaw, fries and hush puppies. It came out in about 10-12 minutes, presumably the time it took to cook the fries and hush puppies.

The barbecue was chopped fine, with no outside brown in evidence, all interior meat, not much of a smoke smell or taste, and in fact the meat was served Lexington-style, with vinegar-based "dip" already poured over the meat before it's brought out. It was properly hot, temperature-wise. The red slaw had been ladled onto the plate with an unslotted spoon, and thus was sitting in a small puddle of vinegar/brine. Normally a slotted spoon is used to ladle slaw onto the plate so as to not risk spillage. The fries were straight-cut and seasoned (they can be ordered seasoned or plain), and it was a a relief from the usual BBQ joint crinkle-cuts, which I rather dislike. The hush puppies were the size of shooter marbles and tasty, just the right size to pop into the mouth. The drink I ordered was diet Pepsi, which comes in cans at BarBee's.

The tables in the restaurant weren't fully stocked with sauces and napkins. The waitress brought sauce to some of the tables while I waited for my food, but not to all of them; mine went without, so I can't comment on the sauces. One of the tables went without napkins, which were a roll of paper towels on an upright spindle.

The customers were seemingly all regulars; at one point a female, presumably the manager, came out to banter with three men at one of the tables; apparently one of the men was fortunate not to be getting his leg amputated. Another man who came in was wearing a stained white t-shirt with prominent dark armpit stains, he went to a table in the outer dining area.

I'll give BarBee's Bar-B-Que of Peachland, NC a 3 on my 5-scale for food quality (average) and a 2 on my 5-scale for service (desultory).

When the Irish Encounter American Barbecue

via Barbecue Brothers.

Restaurant Review: Johnny's Bar B Q, Rockwell, NC

I'd passed by Johnny's Bar-B-Q in Rockwell several times in travels around NC, and finally made a point of going in for some barbecue.

Here's the sign:

Note that barbecue shares pride of place on the sign with seafood and steaks. That's important, and not in a good way.

The outside of the restaurant is attractive:

The requisite pigs are in evidence:

The inside is attractive, too, with plenty of tables and booths, as well as a lunch counter (no pic of the interior, sorry)

Johnny's serves breakfast, lunch and dinner, and the menu is correspondingly extensive, barbecue being just one small aspect of it, with no pride of place. There is no smell of smoke in the restaurant, nor smoke issuing from any chimneys. Not looking good.

I order a plate of chopped barbecue, with red slaw (both white and red is offered, to Johnny's credit), hush puppies, and french fries.

The meat is cold when it arrives. It has no smoke smell whatsoever. So: oven-roasted pork, basically. And cold? Who serves barbecue cold? Johnny's Bar-B-Q of Rockwell, NC, apparently. I didn't ask the waitress, but my guess is that the barbecue is cooked off-site and trucked in; Johnny's might not even make their own, but sub-contract it. It's probably then kept refrigerated and pulled out as necessary, without even going into chafing dishes, warmers or microwaves. Just...cold.

The red slaw is really red. Suspiciously red. "Red" barbecue slaw is typically light brown in color and made with vinegar and a splash of ketchup; any color it gets is from the ketchup. This stuff at Johnny's is so very red that I suspect that red food coloring was used to color it. Taste-wise it is no different than any other red slaw I've eaten. It's just...very red.

The hush puppies are warm, not hot, are properly oblong rather than spherical, and are neutral in taste; no onion or excessive sweetness. The french fries, although advertised on the menu as "home fries," are in fact the standard barbecue joint crinkle cuts.

There are three sauces offered: Eastern-NC-style vinegar sauce, which didn't have much pepper or other ingredients in it, so mostly just vinegar; a red sauce I didn't try; and Texas Pete. The best of the three to perk up this cold, flavorless chopped pork would be the Texas Pete, if you happen to wander into Johnny's and are unwise enough to desire the barbecue, rather than simply driving past it entirely and eating at Wink's King of Barbecue or M&K's, both in Granite Quarry, just a short drive up US 52.

It appears that Johnny's Bar-B-Q is really more of a steak-and-seafood place (deco in the restaurant includes fishing nets on the walls) and offers barbecue simply because they got a lot of requests for it. Rockwell isn't a large town by any stretch of the imagination, and Johnny's likely serves as a regular watering hole/eating establishment for the locals, where they can get eggs and bacon for breakfast, a burger or other sandwich for lunch, and a steak or plate of seafood for dinner. Barbecue is just another menu item here, not the reason that the restaurant exists. Bear that in mind in your travels. If a place doesn't focus on barbecue, then likely the barbecue will only be mediocre, if not worse.

Service was reasonably attentive, tending toward desultory. I'll give Johnny's Bar-B-Q a 2 on my five-scale of restaurant ratings: 2 out of 5: edible, but no effort to impress; staff/management going through motions.

Restaurant Review: Queen City Q, Matthews, NC

Ate at Queen City Q's new Matthews location for dinner, along with me was George "Mad Ogre" Hill. Got there at 5, before the dinner crowd arrived. We both ordered combo platters: mine was pulled pork, brisket, and ribs; George had pulled pork, brisket and sausage.

The pulled pork was a bit dry, but had a good flavor, and with six different sauces offered, it didn't stay dry. They had Lexington-style dip, Eastern NC-style sauce, South Carolina mustard-style sauce, a rib sauce, and a proprietary tomato-based sauce. All were good, particularly the Lexington dip and the Eastern NC-style sauce, which was appropriately hot and vinegary. (we tested the sauces out on the hush puppies, which were round and golf-ball sized, properly fried, just a little bland.)

The brisket was a bit tough and looked like steak slices, since it was cut incorrectly across the grain. It was okay rather than good.

The ribs were served properly dry (no sauce), had plenty of flavor, and were properly cooked so that they didn't fall off the bone, but didn't have to be gnawed off, either.

George said that the sausage closely resembled Carolina Pride hot sausage that is found in area groceries.

Side items were mac-n-cheese and bbq beans (George) and sweet potato fries and "corn maque choux" (me). George pronounced the mac-n-cheese ordinary, and the beans probably from a can. Sweet potato fries were rather blah, I only ate a few of them, and the corn maque choux was similar to creamed corn, with the corn itself probably from a can, but overall rather tasty.

Service was rather indifferent, could have been more attentive, as drinks weren't readily refilled and George had to ask for his credit card back as we waited to leave.

Rating: I'll give Queen City Q a 3 on my 5-scale of restaurants: 3 out of 5: average; reasonably good food, moderate effort by staff/management.

The place was hopping as we left, most tables and the bar were occupied. High noise level due to reflective ceilings and a single large room. Good ventilation, so no smell of smoke or BBQ - - a minus, in my opinion, at least for a BBQ restaurant. A few TV's were placed in the corners, but sound turned down too low to hear.

Pics:

Discovery of the Ur-Pit

That would be barbecue pit, as in Beck's Barbecue of Lexington, North Carolina, the capital of North Carolina Barbecue:

Workers got a sweet taste of the past while doing renovations at the city manager’s office in Lexington, North Carolina.

They came across barbecue pits believed to date back to the town’s first barbecue joint, Beck’s Barbecue, from the 1940s and 1950s, WFMY-TV reported.

Lexington City Manager Alan Carson said restaurant owner Alton Beck previously worked for Sid Weaver, founder of the city’s now-famous barbecue scene.

While officials and longtime residents knew Beck’s was located near where city hall stands today, they didn’t know about the existence of the barbecue pits.

“To the heritage of Lexington, it’s a big find,” Carson told the Triad Business Journal. “It’s something that nobody, I think, knew was there, and something that people seem to be interested in seeing.”

The pits were discovered in the modern-day conference room of the building, and are believed to have been covered up since the 1980s. As renovations move forward, officials are trying to find a way to make these symbols of the past a representation of the future.

*Sigh* Nothing Stays the Same, I Know

"Sonny’s unveils its all-new look."

That would be Sonny's BBQ, my hometown barbecue joint. Hometown as in Gainesville, Florida. Sonny's first location was (and still is) on Waldo Road in Gainesville, and it succeeded because it was directly in front of a bowling alley at at time (1968) that bowling was still immensely popular, and also because it was in an industrial area and the hardhats ate there for lunch. Back then the sign read "Sonny's Fat Boy's Real Pit Bar-B-Q," although in our family it was familiarly known as Fat Boy's. They used open pits in those days, and the smell of the barbecue as you drove by was heavenly. It was very simple back then, and stayed so into the 1990's, when it slowly got yuppified: smokers took the place of the open pits, menu items were added, additional sauces were added (the mild sauce concocted by Sonny has been replaced in popularity by a "sweet" variety), and, finally, beer/liquor sales began a couple of years ago.

Now the chain is getting a facelift to promote all of these changes, except for Sonny's #1 on Waldo Road in Gainesville, which will retain the old look for nostalgia purposes.

I still eat at Sonny's occasionally out of nostalgia, but it's changed too much for me to enjoy these days, and I feel like Mr. Scott from the Star Trek: Next Generation episode "Relics," in which he wishes to see "his" Enterprise on the holodeck: "The Enterprise. NCC-1701, no bloody 'A,' 'B,' 'C,' or 'D.'"

Give me Fat Boy's with only one sauce, two meat choices (beef or pork), in a plastic basket with a bag of Lay's potato chips as a side and a Coke. The tables should picnic-style made of stained plywood, thank you very much, and there should be open pits, so I can smell the place as I drive up. While I'm at it I want the blond hair I had in 1968.

Just Down the Road!

"Queen City Q plans to open a second location, at Plantation Market Shopping Center in Matthews, in early summer. The original opened in uptown nearly three years ago, and began selling barbecue at the Knights' ballpark last season. The new location will seat about 120, including space on a covered patio. Queen City Q smokes pork, brisket, ribs, chicken and sausage."

I think that's the spot currently used by Mario's Pizza, a long-time resident of the shopping center that is moving to a stand-alone restaurant site a few blocks away. Another nearby BBQ choice is good, hope it succeeds.

Chicken Mull

A type of BBQ stew I have never heard of.

Apparently it's a Georgia thing.

NC BBQ Doyen Bob Garner Has New Book Out

Story.

The book is called Foods That Make You Say Mmm-mmm, and appears to be based on the weekly restaurant reviews he does for UNC-TV:

It should be good. Garner will be appearing in Charlotte on the 25th.

Best Description Of NC Barbecue EVER

"The pork is absolutely perfect. It’s not smoked by man – it’s smoked by God through man."

The Barbecue Bros. visit Lexington BBQ #1, AKA "Monk's Place."

I last ate there back in 2010.

Arrival

The Great NC BBQ Map:

The map features over 400 NC BBQ restaurants, with addresses, phone numbers and hours of operation. Also a calendar of NC BBQ events and other NC BBQ facts. There's even a graph showing the differences between Eastern-style and Lexington-style BBQ, for those of you who didn't know that there was such a distinction.

Get yours here.

Two Reviews...

...of Charlotte's own Midwood Smokehouse barbecue restaurant:

100 Best Barbecue Restaurants In America.

Barbecue Brothers.

More Whole Hog

This from the Skylight Inn in Ayden, NC. Just look for the restaurant with the US Capitol dome on the roof.




h/t Barbecue Bros.

I'll Take the Pulled Pork and the Family-Sized Side of Hash Puppies, Please *wink wink*

In Gastonia, NC, the police busted a family for selling pot out of their barbecue restaurant.

Charlotte's Own Bill Spoon's BBQ Makes USA Today

Story.

Bill Spoon's has been here in Charlotte for almost as long as I've been alive, they opened in 1963 (I was born in '61). They are an anomaly in the Piedmont, an eastern-NC-style BBQ joint that cooks the whole hog, rather than the shoulders typically cooked in Lexington-style BBQ. They also utilize eastern-style vinegar sauce, which is made with vinegar, peppers, and little else. This vinegar sauce is the least popular of all BBQ sauce styles in the USA; the majority of Americans like their sauce red, tomato-ey, and sweet.

I've eaten at Spoon's fairly often, I like the age and tradition of the place, with no compromise with modernity. They don't even have a soft drink dispenser; if you order a Coke or other soft drink, you are brought a can cold from the refrigerator. Like most family-run BBQ places, alcohol isn't sold in Spoon's.

Anyway, it's a good article, give it a look.

h/t Barbecue Bros.

Kickstarter For NC Barbecue Map

They plan to publish a road map-style folding map listing over 250 NC barbecue restaurants, with details such as Lexington or Eastern-style, pork shoulders only or whole hog, and how the 'cue is cooked: over wood, in gas or electric smokers.

If you wish to contribute to the Kickstarter campaign, the website is here. As of this writing, they have achieved $3104.00 of their $10,000.00 goal, and have until March 27th to meet it. I've already pledged enough for 1 map, myself.

Maurice Bessinger, 1930-2014: R.I.P.

One of South Carolina's most famous BBQ men, famous both for his mustard-based SC barbecue sauce and his unreconstructed Confederate leanings.

His sauce used to be sold locally here in Charlotte in Harris Teeter stores, but got pulled out of political correctness during the period when SC was embroiled in the Confederate Flag controversy. I've eaten at one of his Piggy Park restaurants, found it to be rather mediocre. The mustard-based sauce he is famous for is bright yellow and tasty - - not just on pork barbecue, but also on grilled hamburgers.

Baseball and BBQ

Joined at Charlotte's new uptown baseball stadium.

h/t BBQ Brothers.