I’ve got a few quibbles with Charlotte Agenda’s 5 best barbecue spots in Charlotte; specifically 6 of the 10 barbecue spots mentioned between the top 5 and the honorable mentions
His barbecue spot on Freedom Drive just opened, but Chef Jim Noble is just getting started on his plot there. Coming up next: Suffolk Punch Blendery and his latest restaurant concept, Bossy Beulah’s Chicken Shack. We now have details on these projects: https://t.co/jrJWQADf0i
A summer NC barbecue bracket pitting western/Lexington-style versus eastern; you can place your votes over at the Carolina Hurricanes blog Canes Country
We kick off the first round of the CC Barbecue Wars today, and ketchup is the order of the day in the opening round of our attempt to identify North Carolina’s best barbecue. Vote for your favorite western barbecue now! https://t.co/yn7CvNPKqG
This isn’t barbecue related (despite the photo below), but is highly recommended 8 minute read, particularly if you have lived in Charlotte in the past 20 years
I wrote about The Penguin and what Charlotte was and what it is now. https://t.co/ckdeAUfNar
Name: Pig Beach Date: 7/21/19 Address: 480 Union St, Brooklyn, NY 11231 Order: Sampler platter with ¼ rack of ribs, ¼ lb of pork shoulder, brisket, and turkey each; 2 links of Yankee red hot sausages (link to menu) Pricing: $$
Monk: To say I’ve had a mixed history with Brooklyn barbecue would be an understatement. On one hand there was my introduction to Brooklyn barbecue at the now-closed The Smoke Joint in Fort Greene, which may be the single worst barbecue restaurant I’ve ever been to. Then, there’s the ridiculously good, 4.5 hog Hometown Bar-B-Que in Red Hook, expertly run by Billy Durney. If those are the two ends of the spectrum, just where would Pig Beach in Gowanus fall?
Despite the fact that the weekend that Mrs. Monk, the eldest Monkette, and I were in New York was during a heatwave, we opted to go to the beer garden locale of Pig Beach because in addition to having a decent reputation for barbecue it looked like a cool spot and surely there would be some shade right? The restaurant is located just off the Gowanus Canal, but thankfully we didn’t have any issues with any smells from the canal wafting into the beer garden area. In the back corner of the property behind an outdoor bar was a smokehouse comprised of a number of Ole Hickorys, which are gas-assisted wood smokers.
What we got from those Ole Hickory pits was a bit of a mixed bag. The two best meats on this day by a good margin were the brisket, which had a nice peppery bark and was well-smoked, and the “Yankee Red Hot Sausage” which is stuffed with the unique combination of provolone and hot cherry peppers. I’m no sausage expert but I definitely had not seen provolone in a sausage before. Unorthodox or not, it worked for me.
A notch below was the smoked turkey, a meat I don’t usually order at barbecue restaurants. I probably won’t start ordering it on the regular but if other restaurant’s turkey is smokey and moist along the same lines of Pig Beach, then that’s a decent option.
The pork was bland and forgettable and the rIbs may have been holdovers from the previous day based on how chewy I found them. Both were very forgettable on this day.
For sides we picked coleslaw, mac and cheese (dusted with goldfish crumbs nonetheless), and cucumber salad. All were well executed and above average.
Pig Beach has a great setting that would have been even more pleasant had it not been in the middle of a heat wave in late July. They’ve also got no shortage of drink options from local beers to cocktails, so you can definitely stick around for awhile after you finish your meal. On the Brooklyn Barbecue Spectrum (trademark pending), they are definitely more Hometown than Smoke Joint for sure.
The Free Times profiles three Columbia-area pitmasters who are doing different styles of barbecue
A Free Times Cover Story: Bach Pham spent time with barbecue masters @CityLimitsQ, Big T's BBQ and Julio Salomon Esqueda and took a look at how they conjure their 'cue.https://t.co/ila77ctei0
— Post and Courier Columbia (@PCColumbia) July 17, 2019
🏖 We are very thankful to our employees for their hard work and dedication this year! We hope everyone has a restful vacation. We will reopen on Friday, August 9th 🏖. – Stacy and Aaron pic.twitter.com/hPFbmv0iHb
Instapot ribs: “The meat was tender and juicy, albeit a pallid gray color. Never mind, slap some sauce on those ribs and throw them in the hot oven until the sugars caramelize. They turned gloriously glossy with meat you could slurp off like a cartoon dog eating a chicken leg.“
Name: Little Pigs BBQ Date: 7/5/19 Address: 384 McDowell Street, Asheville, N.C. 28803 Order: Regular BBQ plate with slaw and beans, broasted chicken thigh (link to menu) Pricing: $
Monk: Back in the 1960’s, the Memphis-based Little Pigs Barbecue of America chain of restaurants had nearly 100 franchises throughout the southeast. The corporation went bankrupt by 1967, but you can still find independently run locations still open here and there; in NC there are locations in Newton and Statesville and I know Columbia, SC still has one open that Marie, Let’s Eat! loved.
And of course there’s this Asheville one. It wasn’t my original plan to try a new Asheville barbecue restaurant on this trip, but Buxton Hall was unexpectedly closed for lunch that day due to some hood system issues so I quickly changed our coordinates towards Little Pigs.
This Asheville location opened in 1963 (the only year that Little Pigs of America apparently turned a profit before shuttering) in an old gas station just north of the Biltmore Estate. It was owned by a husband and wife duo Joe and Peggy Swicegood (from my understanding, not related to Jess Swicegood who helped create the Lexington style of barbecue) until Joe’s death in 2014 at the age of 91. For more of a profile of them, I can’t recommend this Our State article from Jeremy Markovich enough.
With all that history at Little Pigs BBQ, it’s unfortunate that I found my barbecue to be fairly average. Behind the registers at the front counters sit old brick ovens that used to cook the meat but Little Pigs currently uses a gas-assisted wood smoker. You can still get some good product out of gassers, but I didn’t get a lot of smoke in the barbecue, or much flavor to honest. Until I mixed in some slaw and Texas Pete, I found my chopped pork to be quite bland.
The sides of mayo-based coleslaw, baked beans, and three hush puppies were all standard and not noteworthy in the least.
Little Pigs BBQ is by far the oldest barbecue restaurant in Asheville and for that, its worth a visit but only once you’ve eaten at Buxton Hall or 12 Bones or Luella’s. Try the barbecue but be prepared to get some broasted chicken.
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