barbecue

Lexington Style Trimmings – Lexington, NC

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Name: Lexington Style Trimmings
Order: Large chopped tray with red slaw, hush puppies, and Cheerwine (link to menu)
Pricing: $

Monk: Since last fall, it has been my pet project to finish trying every Lexington area barbecue restaurant. As of February, I was making good progress and had just one or two more to try…before COVID 19 hit and shut the country down. Like a lot of things, my quest fell by the wayside.

As North Carolina entered phase 2 in late May and restaurants were slowly allowed to reopen with reduced capacity, I knew that it didn’t have to be too long before I was able to try the next restaurant on my list: Lexington Style Trimmings (although they closed for about a month between mid-June and mid-July due to a kitchen fire). Other than the name, I didn’t know too much about LST and even after doing research afterwards detail are a bit hard to come by other than it is a “longtime” barbecue restaurant at the same exit as the Bob Timberlake Gallery exit in Lexington.

Regardless, on first glance, Lexington Style Trimmings fits the bill of a Lexington joint. It sits at the end of a small strip mall, has car hop service (even pre-pandemic), and is a diner-style restaurant that serves barbecue in addition to other southern foods in two small, no-frills dining rooms.

However, the barbecue didn’t live up to Lexington standards. The chopped pork was mushy and had a rather unappealing texture. Not to mention a disappointing lack of smoke. For one of the last joints on my Lexington barbecue quest, this was quite a letdown and only made me want to revisit the better joints on the list post haste.

The red slaw was standard and while the hush puppies were a bit overdone and perhaps a tad too crispy, they were slightly sweet and by far the best part of the meal.

There is now one more joint to try – the newly discovered Blazin’ BBQ and Kickin’ Chicken in downtown Lexington – and there are some joints I need to revisit in my Tier 1 of Lexington joints (like Speedy’s and Smiley’s, which I last visited in 2012), so I’ve still got just a little more work to do. As for Lexington Style Trimmings, now that I’ve punched this one on my card I think I’m good.

Ratings:
Atmosphere – 2.5 hogs
Pork – 1.5 hogs
Sides – 3 hogs
Overall – 1.5 Hogs

Barbecue Bros Book Club: “Tar Heel Traveler Eats” by Scott Mason

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Not that we’re anywhere close to being qualified enough to evaluate books but more so as a public service announcement we will periodically discuss barbecue and barbecue-related books.

Monk: “Tar Heel Traveler Eats” by Scott Mason is equal parts travelogue, memoir, and in-depth description of the journalistic process for a local feature newscaster. Mason has been doing “Tar Heel Traveler” segments for WRAL in Raleigh since the early 2000’s after working his way up through local news stations around the country. Mason has a folksy tone to his writing that is easy to read and the book goes by pretty quickly. While Mason’s writing is easy to read, all photos in the book are stills from the WRAL telecasts of his “Tar Heel Traveler” segment. I certainly get the practical reasons why, but it seems like such a missed opportunity given the number and breadth of the places he visited.

Subtitled “Food Journeys Across North Carolina,” his journey starts with profiles of hot dog restaurants before moving on to hamburgers then barbecue and finally ending with sweets and desserts. Along the way, he visits many of the iconic North Carolina institutions that should be on everyone’s list – barbecue or otherwise. But of course, what I was most interested in were the chapters on barbecue.

After a chapter where he acknowledges how much of a no-win situation writing about barbecue is in North Carolina (what with the east vs west/Lexington rivalry), Mason nevertheless delved into barbecue restaurants after getting his fill of the hot dog and hamburger joints. Despite being born in North Carolina he is apparently not a huge fan of barbecue and would almost always prefer a juicy cheeseburger or two mustard dogs over it. I’ll just assume that’s because he moved to Massachusetts shortly after he was born.

In any case, the barbecue restaurants he writes about his visits to are Bill’s Barbecue (Wilson), Parker’s (Wilson), B’s Barbecue (Greenville), Pik N Pig (Carthage), Wilber’s Barbecue (Goldsboro), and Clyde Cooper’s (Raleigh). Certainly not a comprehensive list, and more a list of easy-to-drive-to places from Raleigh. Each chapter deals with the circumstances that led him to that town or restaurant from his newscaster perspective and how he obtained the footage for the feature story, whether it was interviewing the owner of the restaurant or by going table to table to get sound bites from willing customers. Mason usually has an interesting anecdote or two before reflecting on his experience at the restaurant and closing out the chapter. It’s certainly a different reading experience from other books that might offer more of a profile of each barbecue restaurant, but not an unwelcome one.

If you’re interested in not only North Carolina barbecue restaurants, but classic southern ones, read “Tarheel Traveler Eats” and keep a pen and paper handy so you can jot down all the places you should visit across the state.

Available at Amazon or wherever you buy books

Friday Find: “Here’s Why Wood is the Unsung Hero of Texas Barbecue”

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJnv7kV5i1U

Monk: Zagat travels from New York to Lockhart, Texas to understand why post oak is so instrumental to that style of barbecue. Post oak – so named because it grows straight enough to make fence posts – is native to central Texas and in this video is referred to as “wholesomely sweet” and the “terroir of Texas barbecue.” The host even spends time with the hardworking laborers who have cut down and split it for Kreuz Market since 1975 before treating them to a meal there (a nice touch).

(h/t The Smoke Sheet)

Description:
Texas’ Hill Country is known as the center of American barbecue culture thanks to an abundance of amazing local ingredients. And while most people recognize cattle as the secret to the state’s legendary cuisine, it’s Texas Post Oak that helps put everything in motion. The wood is so popular that restaurants like New York City’s Hill Country Barbecue Market won’t use anything else, even if it means having it shipped over 1,700 miles every week. Zagat traveled to Texas’ famed Kreuz Market in Lockhart to discover what makes this regional wood a favorite amongst pitmasters – and why making that beloved brisket is a lot more dangerous than we think.

Product Review: Low Country BBQ Rub from Fire of Coals

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Fire of Coals is a Charlotte-based small batch and hand crafted barbecue rub and sauce company run by Lawrence Heath, who is active in the community barbecue scene, regularly helping out the Charlotte Rescue Mission, churches, and local boyscout troops using his NC-made BQ whole hog trailer. I’ve been following the Fire of Coals Instagram account for a few years now and as it turns out, Lawrence is actually a neighbor of mine.

I found this out when I bought a used burn barrel off a NC barbecue Facebook group and lo and behold, the seller was Lawrence and he lived not a quarter mile from me in south Charlotte. Once we got to talking barbecue it wasn’t too long that we figured out that we followed each other. Small world.

Along with the burn barrel, I also purchased a bag of his “Lowcountry BBQ Rub” which is an all natural ingredient rub made with assorted spices, brown sugar (there is a no sugar variant as well), and curiously enough, coffee grounds from Charlotte-based Enderly Coffee. The packaging states that it is gluten free and works with pork, poultry, beef, and seafood. Over the next couple of weeks I gave the rub a spin on a few different pork items – ribs, a small pork butt, and a pork tenderloin – as well as chicken wings from Joyce Farms and was generally more than pleased with the results.

The ribs were the most successful of the pork items. I’ve gotten into ribs a bit more recently and twice I used the Lowcountry BBQ rub as the base rub before finishing with a couple of different barbecue sauces (Rufus Teague Honey BBQ and Lillie’s Q Memphis). Whether it was due to a new technique, the rub, the sauces, or (more than likely) a combination of each, these were the best ribs I’ve smoked in my life. As in, not even close between these ribs and previous racks I’ve smoked that were overdone and dry.

As for a pork butt, I’ve become really accustomed to simply using salt on them a la Lexington Barbecue. This time around with the Lowcountry Rub on a 5.5 lb smaller pork butt cooking at a higher temp, the pork butt came out well but all things considered I might prefer just salt. Certainly no shots at the Fire of Coals rub, but I might just be getting stuck in my ways.

Finally, I tried the rub on a pork tenderloin cooked in a pan on the oven as well as some smoked wings on my Weber, both to great results. Based on the results of each of these meats, I can see myself continuing to reach for it on future cooks, perhaps giving it a try on some seafood or some beef.

The story behind Fire of Coals is detailed on the rub packaging, stating how Lawrence’s family is originally from “the Cape Fear River Basin area of eastern Carolina and cooked farm raised pork, chicken, beef, wild game, seafood and garden fresh produce for community gatherings on the Heath family farm.” It’s a pretty cool backstory to the company and a reminder that buying from Fire of Coals is supporting local (and in my case, hyper local).

Order the “Lowcountry BBQ Rub” online at Fire of Coals