Monk: In January, Trey’s Chow Down will be visiting Lockhart, Texas with episodes from four historic smokehouses. Here’s a trailer for those upcoming episodes.
Description: Trey’s Chow Down Road Trip’in the USA for Texas BBQ deliciousness.
This month in January stay tuned for all the HISTORIC TEXAS BBQ information and deliciousness from our trip to LOCKHART, TEXAS
👉 Smitty’s Market
👉 Black’s Barbecue
👉 Kreuz Market
👉 Terry Black’s BBQ
Monk: RIP to John Brotherton of Brotherton’s Black Iron Barbecue of Plugerville, TX (north of Austin) who passed away on Monday at the age of 49. His son posted the update on the restaurant’s Facebook page:
I never got the chance to try the man’s food, but the outpouring of heartbreak and love on social media for the man over the past few weeks signifies that he was certainly a highly regarded pitmaster and most importantly, man. My thoughts go out to his family.
Just a few of the many tributes posted online:
Name: The Original Ridgewood Barbecue
Date: 12/2/23
Address: 900 Elizabethton Hwy, Bluff City, TN 37618
Order: BBQ pork sandwich with fries and blue cheese appetizer (link to menu)
Pricing: $
Monk: I’ve mentioned a few times on this blog, but the parents and brothers of Monk have all relocated to Northeast Tennessee within the past few years so I’ve found myself in a part of the country just a few hours away from where I grew up that I had spent no time in my previous 40 years. It was only recently that I put together that The Original Ridgewood Barbecue, a joint I first read about on Marie, Let’s Eat!, was about 15 minutes north of my family’s houses on a mountain road which leads to Bristol Motor Speedway. One of my brothers had recently become a fan, so the extended Monk family arrived right at 11am on a Saturday to try and get in before the rush. And apparently there’s always a rush.
Before we got to the barbecue, the extended Monk family promptly ordered the blue cheese bowl appetizer. Its a house made blue cheese that is served overflowing in a bowl with packets of saltine crackers for dipping. It’s a little thinner than a traditional blue cheese, but its now a must order for me anytime I visit in the future. The blue cheese also works really well with their awesome hand cut potato fries if you can hold off finishing it until you get your fries with your meal.
Ridgewood’s barbecue is famously just the hams of a hog that are smoked over hickory (cut from the nearby family farm) for 8 hours before being chilled overnight with spices. The next day, the barbecue that is served from the hams is thinly sliced, warmed on a flat top grill, and dressed with their famous, sweet sauce and a mayo-based slaw. It’s unique for the area and the state, but its a good kind of unique.
While I didn’t have a full serving, I also tried some of the barbecue beef from my brother’s sandwich. The beef is taken from top round and sliced and prepared in much the same way as the pork barbecue, and I found it to hold the smokiness from the hickory smoke a little better than the hams. I might be tempted to go for that next time I visit.
After my visit, I grew to appreciate the family and the restaurant even more after reading “The Proffitts of Ridgewood: An Appalachian Family’s Life in Barbecue” about the Proffitt family which now has its third generation working at the restaurant. While it may be a completely unique style of barbecue unlike what I normally eat, The Original Ridgewood Barbecue is certainly worth seeking out. Its a northeast Tennessee institution that has been open for over 75 years.
For more on The Original Ridgewood Barbecue:
Serious Eats (2020)
Marie, Let’s Eat! (2014)
Southern Foodways Alliance (2009)
Ratings:
Atmosphere – 4 hogs
Pork – 4 hogs
Sides – 4 hogs
Overall – 4 hogs
Monk: 2023 added a few new barbecue experiences for me, namely trying barbecue places in Alabama, Maine, Tennessee, and South Carolina. But of course, I made sure to hit the big hitters and classics closer to home. My top 10 favorite barbecue meals of the year was split 60/40 between new-to-me places and revisits of favorites.
Looking at the list, nearly each one could be considered a traditional take on barbecue versus the fusion that’s become so prevalent these days in the world of barbecue (not that that’s a bad thing). Without further ado, here are my 10 favorite barbecue dishes of 2023.
Wilson County Barbecue (review) smokes legitimate eastern North Carolina-inspired whole hog barbecue in a place with no discernible barbecue tradition – Portland, Maine. Despite its location, it has been True ‘Cue certified by friend of the blog John Tanner and has barbecue bonafides. Owner/operator Spencer Brantley’s family originally hails from Wilson County, NC (hence the name) and they’ve even got a “Grady’s passed-down sauce” dressing their whole hog barbecue (from the legendary Grady’s Barbecue joint in Dudley).
I ended up visiting Longleaf Swine (review) three times this year and had their whole hog each time, which is always a good sign for a brand new joint that’s been open just a little over a year,
Firehawk Brewpub (review) is a new wood-smoked barbecue joint that is also part brewery. They’ve made a splash in the competitive Charlotte beer scene, but they also made this year’s Barbecue Bros Charlotte Top 5 as the only newcomer. Their menu is a mix of a Gaston County fish camp and southern barbecue joint, and their ribs are cooked a little different than most joints. They smoke the ribs like normal but then finish individual bones on an open fire to give them a nice char.
Rodney Scott’s (review) whole hog remains legendary but don’t sleep on his ribs, which are meaty spares. And not too far away in Charleston, John Lewis’ Rancho Lewis (review) specializes in the cuisines of far west Texas, New Mexico, and Chihuahua, Mexico but they’ve got some great mesquite-smoked beef back ribs available while they last.
I hit a couple of classics this year in Lexington’s Barbecue Center (post) and Shelby’s Red Bridges Barbecue Lodge (review), and as is to be expected neither let me down.
While mountain barbecue in these parts typically refers to dried out pork covered in a sticky, sweet sauce, on one trip I had a couple of fantastic examples of barbecue joints that just happen to be located in the mountains. The Original Ridgewood Barbecue is an east Tennessee barbecue institution since 1948 and serves their unique style of hickory-smoked hams sliced thin and covered with slaw and their signature sauce. And The Old Hampton Store is about an hour away in Linville, NC but sells wood smoked barbecue in a restaurant connected to a mountain general store.
Then of course there’s Jon G’s Barbecue, which topped the most recent edition of the Charlotte Top 5 published last month. Longtime readers don’t need to be told too much more about Jon G’s but all I can say is that my first time out to Peachland in a year and half led to a fun time tailgating in line as well as their consistently great barbecue. Don’t forget to get some kolaches – either sweet or savory – which are fresh baked and sold out of the food trailer out front before the restaurant opens at 11.