The Greatest North Carolina BBQ Webpage Ever

From Rob Lott: An interactive trail map from the NC Barbecue Society.

It looks like a noble plan, but it is weighted toward variety and not vinegar (that's another link from Rob). Truthfully, I quest to find non-standard, rural, Eastern joints, where the dip is nothing but vinegar and peppers.

Skylight Inn is amazing (I wear their t-shirt a lot). Wilbur's is pretty good. B's was closed when I went. In order for Eastern North Carolina BBQ to be a true tradition, it must be served at more than three places.

Almost all family-run BBQ joints are closed Sundays, so we have a Friday, a Saturday, and part of a Monday to eat as much as we can.

Vantage Point for Long Night Exposure of Mill

Asheboro, NC. Curving railroad tracks will reflect light from the mill. Bridges between buildings are visible in satellite photo. Location scouted while lost on way to physics conference last summer.


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NCBBQII

May 30-June 2.

We may have the chance to get these shots.

JR's Barbeque, Culver City, CA

JR's in Culver City, which is surrounded by LA, was so good that I went back a second night and got the exact same entree again. Thin-sliced, well-smoked brisket, delightfully greasy beef hot links laden with garlic, and above average sides (dug the beans, potato salad, mac 'n cheese). Their meats may be "tender as a mother's love," but their mud-black and mud-thick hot sauce will sting your ass numb like daddy's belt.

Food shot below.

Brisket, Hot Links, and Hot Sauce

JR's BBQ. Culver City, CA.

STAMEY'S

That reddish-orange stuff is the best western-style bbq dip I've tasted: perhaps half ketchup and half vinegar. Only the chicken gets it; the pork is average ketchupy stuff. The curly things are what hush puppies are supposed to look like. Greensboro, NC.

Follow up to "Return to Aeroworld:" What is White Sauce BBQ?

Smoked meat with mayonnaise-based sauce. Creamy, sometimes fluffy, white sauce containing loads of black pepper. In other words, disgusting.

I won't name the place we went to, since the pork and chicken both had a strong, acrid taste that caused suspicion of liquid smoke.

Even my Italian sub the next day contained a boatload of mayo, on top of which vinaigrette was poured. "Dude, it's the South," my colleague said.

RB on the job in Reidsville, NC

Images by/courtesy of Leo Wiegman.

YAYAYAYAY

Stamey's for lunch, Short Sugar's for dinner.

BBQ, The Great Unifier, at work in Denver

Last night I dined at Wolfe's Barbecue in Denver, right across from the state capitol in a neighborhood that seemed unusually seedy. Wolfe's is like the dingy Chinese restaurant of the barbecue world, a one-man operation in a small storefront. [Read all about it here.] I had the address written down and walked right past the place on my first attempt.

Wolfe himself seems like a real character. He's a short, white-bearded dude in an apron. He charges $.50 for use of a credit card, $2 to make change for non-customers, and he gets free web hosting out of his Sam's Club business membership.

His BBQ, however, cuts no corners. To attain surprisingly authentic flavor, he uses a hickory/charcoal combo to smoke his meat. I tried the three-course dinner: brisket, pork, and beef sausage were my meat selections. The brisket was thin-sliced and a little dry, with a faint, smoky flavor. The edges were also a bit fatty. The pork turned out to be big, delicious, and smoky chunks--not pulled or chopped, and thus dippable in Wolfe's sauce. The sausage was the real surprise. The "all beef" links had the perfect blend of flavor and heat.

"It's made for me, using my own recipe," Wolfe told me. "No nitrites or preservatives."

For my two sides, I chose BBQ beans and slaw. The slaw was tasty, though not extremely fresh. The beans were delicious--probably store-bought, then doctored with ketchup, spice, and pork. I went up for seconds. Wolfe said I could pay "a buck or a buck and a nickel." I gave him a ten dollar bill, and he scoffed, audibly, at having to make change.

As I doused my dinner roll in hot, house recipe barbecue sauce, over-under-dressed hipsters with bad tattoos ordered bbq tofu sandwiches and discussed having their bands play together. State house types in suits came in and got some cue to power them through a boring night of research. And proprietors of other East Colfax businesses also came in to pick up dinner.

An anomaly like this deserves to last. I only wish I had heard about the lemon pie before leaving town.

Last Week in BBQ, Part II: Uncle Pete's Hickory Ribs, Revere, MA

When Seth gmailed that he had found a few barbecue joints in Revere--an urban "blue collar suburb" and Coney Island/Gravesend analogue that I happen to love--I knew we had to get out there.

Last Saturday, he and I ventured to Mass Hwy 60, Squire Road. On a two-block stretch of this sprawlofare, one can find both The Big Lou (no website) and Uncle Pete's Hickory Ribs. The latter's website announced unexpected entrees of the Thai kind, so we decide to explore this weirdness.

This photoset on Flickr explains the outcome.

Worth checking out are the amazingly well-smoked beef ribs and the surprisingly different, Asianized Buffalo tenders.

Seth and I will be planning a trip to the Big Lou and perhaps a follow-up trip to Uncle Pete's soon.