Reviews

Lewis Barbecue – Charleston, SC

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Name: Lewis Barbecue
Date: 5/23/17
Address: 464 N Nassau St, Charleston, SC 29403
Order: ½ lb pork, 2 slices of brisket, 2 links Texas hot guts, corn pudding, potato salad (link to menu)
Price: $49 (for 2 adults and a toddler)

Monk: Back in December, when I had a week off from work between Christmas and New Year’s I contemplated taking a day trip to Charleston specifically for Lewis Barbecue. I had the plan set in my mind: drop off at daycare, drive the 3 hours to Charleston, hit up Lewis Barbecue (and maybe one or two others), and turn around and head right back just in time for dinner. Sadly, real life intervened and I just couldn’t make it happen. So to say this was my most anticipated barbecue visit of our vacation week in Charleston would be a slight understatement. Okay, maybe this and Rodney Scott’s BBQ were 1 and 1a, but still – anticipation was high.

Unlike Rudy, I hadn’t had the pleasure of trying La Barbecue in Austin back when John Lewis was the pitmaster and they were often mentioned in the same breath at the joint Lewis helped start, Franklin Barbecue. In fact, Rudy prefers La Barbecue over Franklin in his Austin rankings largely in part because the barbecue was of similar quality but the line was so much more manageable. That was back before John Lewis made the move to Charleston to open his own barbecue restaurant last summer, spreading his beef gospel to the pork-loving Carolinas.

To that end, the brisket at Lewis Barbecue was quite possibly the best I’ve had. One day I hope to spend more time in Texas but until that point this will be the standard bearer. Much as you would expect from a Texas joint, customers order by the pound and two slices weighed in at nearly ⅔ of a pound at $21/lb. Moist and peppery, each chunk of fatty beef melted in my mouth.

I’ve had sausage plenty of times but safe to say I haven’t had hot guts like John Lewis’s before. The beef had a nice kick and weren’t dry while the hog casing had a good snap to it. I don’t have a point of comparison, but in any case I loved everything about the hot guts.

I knew not to expect NC style pork (either eastern or Lexington) and the coarsely pork was definitely the least successful of the meats I tried that day. I didn’t regret ordering but next time I’ll try the ribs – either pork or the beef rib if I’m there on a Saturday – in lieu of the pulled pork.

Rudy: I have had La Barbecue as much or more than any other place here and I’ve had it both with John and without. Honestly, I can’t tell that much of a difference though I will say that I did not like the hot guts the 2 times I had them. I thought they had too much beef in them and seemed dry. I also thought the ribs were amazing, so you should definitely try them next time.

Monk: Duly noted, Rudy. When it comes to sides, neither Mrs. Monk nor I could get enough of the corn pudding. We definitely could have eaten another piece or two of that slightly sweet corn casserole. The potato salad was just fine.

Atmosphere-wise, Lewis Barbecue has knocked it out of the park. The inside is tastefully done with nods to Texas heritage. They have a bar that’s strategically positioned for folks in line to be able to grab a beer if the line is long enough. And they have a couple of outdoor spaces including a beer garden under a sprawling oak. Had we more time and slightly better weather, I could have easily spent a few hours in that beer garden drinking more Shiner.

Speaking of lines, Lewis Barbecue has made a commitment to cook enough meat to consistently stay open from 11am until 10pm six days per week (they are closed on Mondays). So while they may occasionally have long lines (they didn’t on this Tuesday for lunch), selling out of meat for the day and closing early isn’t something that’s likely to happen.

One thing I do have to acknowledge is the prices at Lewis. This is partly due to the Charleston effect (I noticed barbecue prices were 20-30% higher at each place I ate at that week) but that’s also due to how high beef prices have become.

Rudy: This would be my biggest complaint on the difference between Texas and North Carolina barbecue. If I go to lunch and get a barbecue sandwich, side, and drink, it will be in the $17-20 range. Brisket is so much more expensive than pulled pork. That is one of the reasons I have not eaten as much. The second is that it is so rich and fatty, I normally feel gross and have meat sweats even after a small portion.

Monk: Lewis Barbecue had top notch barbecue and a great space and was my favorite restaurant of the week, just barely edging out the place we tried the next day. More on that next week.

Ratings:
Atmosphere – 4.5 hogs
Pork – 3.5 hogs
Brisket – 4.5 hogs
Sausage – 5 hogs
Sides – 3.5 hogs
Overall – 4.5 hogs

Lewis Barbecue Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

Hite’s BBQ – West Columbia, SC

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Name: Hite’s BBQ
Date: 5/20/17
Address: 240 Dreher Rd, West Columbia, SC 29169
Order: Barbecue plate with hash and rice, slaw, and roll (link to menu)
Price: $8

Monk: Back in early 2015, John T. Edge’s article about Hite’s BBQ in Garden & Gun Magazine initially put the joint on my radar. Due to the fact that I don’t make it down to Columbia all that often plus the fact that Hite’s is only open Fridays and Saturdays meant that it would still be over 2+ years before I would be able to finally check it out. Not that I hadn’t tried before unsuccessfully, making the trek down the day before this past New Year’s Eve specifically to check out Hite’s only to find out they were closed. Hite’s is a family operation so I definitely couldn’t begrudge them for not being open before a holiday, but it meant that I would have to wait another 6 months before eventually checking them out.

Hite’s is a takeout only joint run out of a simple cinder block building but does have a few picnic tables overlooking a small lake on the property which apparently has 3 generations of Hite’s living on it.

The menu is very simple, with choice of sandwiches, plates or takeaway pounds of either whole hog, ribs, or chicken. The pork was a tad dry on this day and though mustard will never be my favorite style of barbecue sauce with pork it was still quite good.

Hash and rice comes standard with each plate and was my favorite part of the meal. Not that it’s quite as good as the hash a mile and a half down the road at True BBQ, but it’s still pretty dang good nonetheless.

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There was nothing special about the slaw, which I didn’t feel the need to finish. The rolls that came standard with each plate were fine but in the interest of saving my stomach from the carbs, I saved them for my daughter to have at the beach later that week.

After my meal, I snapped a few photos around the property, including the Hite St sign and the huge stacks of split logs behind the joint before current owner David Hite (grandson of original owner John D. Hite) was kind enough to invite me to check out the pit room. At that point, all of the hogs were off the pits so it was just chicken, so I quickly snapped a few shots when he revealed the pit. I spoke with him for just a few minutes about the family operation behind Hite’s and the requests he sometimes gets from various news outlets (which he isn’t always to accommodate due to the joint’s limited schedule). I certainly appreciated David taking some time to chat with me.

Hite’s BBQ wasn’t necessarily my favorite barbecue of the vacation week (more on that in the coming weeks) but I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it for folks passing through Columbia looking for a taste of true midlands SC-style barbecue.

For more reviews of Hite’s BBQ, check out:
Marie, Let’s Eat!

Ratings:
Atmosphere – 3 hogs
Pork – 3.5 hogs
Sides – 3.5 hogs
Overall – 3.5 hogs
Hite's Bar B Que Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

City Barbeque – Charlotte, NC

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Name: City Barbeque
Date: 5/6/17
Address: 11212 Providence Rd W, Charlotte, NC 28277
Order: Judge’s Sampler (pulled pork, brisket, 1/2 slab ribs, and 1/4 chicken) with mac and cheese, collard greens, hush puppies, and two beers (link to menu)
Price: $12 (the $26.99 judges platter was covered but did not affect my review in any way)

Monk: City Barbeque is an Ohio-based chain that in the past 2 years has begun to make inroads into NC and even more recently, Charlotte. The Ballantyne location was the first in the area to open in 2016, and since then a Matthews location has opened with a University location on the way later this year. Speedy had previously checked out the Cary location a few years back and came away fairly impressed, so I knew to expect a fast casual set up with decent barbecue from a gas-assisted wood smoker and scratch made sides. 

For the first Charlotte location, I was invited to check it out and provided a gift card for a free Judge’s Sampler which allowed me to check out 4 of the meats. Mrs. Monk and I got an extra side of hush puppies and a couple of beers on top of it, plus a kids meal for the Monk-ette. All in all, the amount of food we got ended up providing more than enough for 3 total adult meals, so the portion sizes are nice.

The pork and brisket were in small portions next to each other on the tray and were so hard to distinguish between each other that at first glance to the point where I wasn’t sure that we had gotten any brisket at all (we were initially missing our order of hush puppies so it wasn’t too far fetched). Though I will say the folks at City Barbeque were nice enough to provide us extra brisket even though clearly it was a mistake on our end. As for the meat, both were decently smokey. The pork was moist and was nicely accentuated by the spicy vinegar sauce on the table. The brisket was haphazardly sliced and came across as chopped in texture – which led to our mistake in the first place – but was tasty nonetheless.

I found the half slab of ribs to be the best meat of the meal. The heavily-applied rub created a dark, flavorful bark on the ribs and the meat pulled away from the bone nicely. I would go for these ribs here again for sure.

Chicken is not a smoked meat I normally go for (and I didn’t think to substitute it out on this visit) but I will say that it was pretty good. You could do a lot worse if that is the meat you prefer at a barbecue restaurant.

Mrs. Monk was disappointed that the mac and cheese was not baked (she’s a bit of a snob that way) and while I didn’t mind that fact as much as she did, I could see her point. The collards had plenty of pulled pork and were pretty good. The corn bread and Texas toast that came with the sampler were actually quite good but the hush puppies were the best sides we had. Needless to say, we were fine on carbs for the rest of the day (and weekend for that matter).

When it opens, the University location will be pretty convenient to my work and I wouldn’t have to be convinced too hard to go there for lunch. In terms of chains I’ve had, City Barbeque are on par with Jim ‘N Nick’s and way above Moe’s Bar-B-Que.

Ratings:
Atmosphere – 3 hogs
Pork – 3.5 hogs
Brisket – 3.5 hogs
Ribs – 3.5 hogs
Chicken – 3 hogs
Sides – 3 hogs
Overall – 3.5 hogs

City Barbeque – Charlotte, NC
City Barbeque – Charlotte, NC
City Barbeque – Charlotte, NC
City Barbeque – Charlotte, NC
City Barbeque – Charlotte, NC
City Barbeque – Charlotte, NC
City Barbeque – Charlotte, NC
City Barbeque – Charlotte, NC
City Barbeque – Charlotte, NC

Dan Good Que (food truck) – Charlotte, NC

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Name: Dan Good Que
Date: 4/21/17
Order: Pulled pork barbecue plate with coleslaw and baked beans (link to menu)
Price: $9.50

Monk: When we started this blog almost 5 years ago, the original intent for me and Speedy (when he was still living in town) was to find the best barbecue in Charlotte once we realized we were each too much of a barbecue snob to depend on suggestions from Yelp. In the time since, I’ve had some very good barbecue in Charlotte and I’ve had some that is not so good – all in the name of being as exhaustive and thorough as possible.

I do try to be as positive as possible when reviewing barbecue, focusing on other more positive aspects to the experience (plus, Speedy is better at being snarky than I am). Our friend Grant at Marie, Let’s Eat! is a really good example of focusing on the positive, but then again his posts aren’t reviews as much as they are chapters within a larger, ever-continuing story.

Dan Good Que is a new-ish food truck that’s begun popping up in Charlotte and I tried it at the same weekly food truck festival where I tried Rocky Top BBQ Company a few weeks earlier. I may have been a bit harsh on Rocky Top and in the spirit of continuous improvement, let me simply say that I was disappointed in the lack of smoke in the chopped pork on this day from Dan Good Que. The cole slaw and baked beans were middling and while this may seem a little bit of a backhanded compliment, I imagine mixing all 3 would have created a perfectly acceptable barbecue sundae.

I am open to giving Dan Good Que another try at a later date but will be sure to give them enough time to work out the kinks. Here’s hoping they do.

Ratings:
Atmosphere – N/A
Pork – 1 hog
Sides – 2 hogs
Overall – 1.5 hogs

Dan Good Que
Dan Good Que
Dan Good Que