barbecue

Henry’s Smokehouse – Greenville, SC

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Name: Henry’s Smokehouse
Date: 9/26/15
Address: 1842 Woodruff Rd, Greenville, SC 29607
Order: Pulled pork and rib combo, fries (link to menu)
Price: $10

Speedy: Long ago, in my pre-Barbecue Bros days, I used to do quite a bit of work in Greenville, SC – a very fine city. One of my go-to lunch spots was Henry’s Smokehouse on Wade Hampton Blvd. Despite being a classic SC joint, I remembered it fondly, so when I stumbled upon the Woodruff Road location, I knew I had to try it.

Monk: Like Speedy, I too had spent a fair amount of my pre-Barbecue Bros days in Greenville but sadly had not checked out Henry’s. I’m sure I was never very far from either location, since I spent a lot of time on or near both Wade Hampton and Woodruff Road.

Speedy: This location looks quite different than the Wade Hampton locale. And by that I mean it looks clean and modern. Maybe that takes away some of the mystique for some but overall, I liked this location better.

I remember loving Henry’s ribs while not being too enamored with the pork, but a $10 combo meal made the choice to get both pretty easy. And because I didn’t feel like even pretending to be healthy, I just went with a double portion of fries.

Well, turns out the pork was even better than I remembered. Tender with nice spots bits of brown thrown in, I did add a little bit of sauce for flavor (they have both mustard and a spicy vinegar/tomato sauce; I obviously went with the latter). I was definitely glad I ordered it again, and would recommend it. It’s not the best I’ve ever had but it was good, especially for South Carolina (burn).

Monk: …sick burn. So the pork was dry with optional table sauces? How does the spicy vinegar tomato compare to a NC sauce?

Speedy: Not dry really – I just wanted a little more flavor. And the sauce is a little spicier and sweeter, but lacks the tang that I like.

The ribs were what I thought they were, which is a good thing. Meaty and perfectly seasoned. My only complaint is that this batch was a tad overdone, but not so much as to ruin them – the bone did not fall out. They’re served wet, but not overly sauced. Henry’s is definitely a great place for ribs.

Monk: Speedy, Mrs. Monk, and I almost went to Henry’s on our way back from Atlanta a few months ago before ultimately deciding not to. Based on Speedy’s review, I hope to make it to either location next time.

Speedy: Overall, Henry’s Smokehouse is a solid old-timey joint. You pretty much know what you’re getting coming in and I’d recommend it to anyone passing through.

Ratings:
Atmosphere – 3 hogs
Pork – 3 hogs
Ribs – 3.5 hogs
Sides – N/A
Overall – 3.5 hogs
Henry's Smokehouse Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

Linkdown: 10/7/15

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-Buxton Hall is now open 7 days a week for lunch and dinner

– Wilmington’s got a new eastern, whole hog barbecue food cart that hopes to turn into a brick and mortar place

– Queen City Q remains busy – in addition to their Matthews location opening up in the summer and announcing a partnership for the Hornets, they are eyeing a third location in Concord

– An article on food trucks in Gaston County features Ranucci’s Big Butt BBQ

– John Mueller’s barbecue pit was stolen

– In what I hope becomes a new trend, Melvin’s Barbecue in Charleston returns to all wood smoking

– The Simpsons did it: a barbecue episode (they apparently did their homework too)

Kings Restaurant – Kinston, NC

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Name: Kings Restaurant
Date: 9/7/15
Address: 405 East New Bern Road, Kinston, NC 28504
Order: Pig-in-a-Puppy combo with fries, slaw, and a drink (link to menu)
Price: $8

As it turns out, the last barbecue I tried on Labor Day weekend ended up being the best of the bunch. To be honest, after a weekend of eating and drinking, barbecue was kind of the last thing I wanted to have on our 7 hour drive back home. Nevertheless, I try to be a team player when I can (many times much to my wife’s chagrin), so we stopped at King’s Restaurant in Kinston.

Outside of Wilber’s in Goldsboro, the other barbecue restaurant I’ve heard come up the most in the region was King’s. People tend to speak fondly of it with memories of how they would stop there on the way to and from the beach growing up. Plus, they have a barbecue sandwich in a giant hush puppy. I repeat: a barbecue sandwich in a giant hush puppy. This is not a drill, people.

Even without the novelty of the sandwich – the hushpuppy “bun” was kind of weird but I got over it pretty quickly – the pork was nicely smoked and more than held up on its own. After I finished my combo, I snuck some away from my daughter’s kid’s meal (not that she was eating much of it anyways) because I found it to be that good. Or maybe it was in comparison to the lackluster barbecue I had eaten earlier in the weekend. 

I wrote in an earlier review for McCall’s that next time I would rather just go to Wilber’s (particularly since they are 0.5 miles apart) and while Wilber’s does edge out King’s by a bit, they are separated by 22 miles on highway 70. Depending on which way I’m headed to or from the beach in this theoretical example, I could see myself going with either and being quite content.

–Monk

Ratings:
Atmosphere – N/A
Pork – 3 hogs
Sides – 3 hogs
Overall – 3 hogs
King's Restaurant Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

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Linkdown: 9/30/15

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– This year’s 86th Annual Mallard Creek Barbecue will be on Thursday, October 22

– Queen City Q and the Hornets enter into a partnership for the upcoming NBA season

As part of the multi-year agreement, Queen City Q will operate a pair of branded concession stands at Time Warner Cable Arena, one on the lower level and one on the upper level, allowing fans to enjoy some of the area’s best and most popular barbecue while attending events in the building.  Queen City Q products will also be featured on the arena’s suite menus.

– Charlotte Agenda makes one of their bold and click-baity proclamations that “the best barbecue in Charlotte just might be sold by Boy Scouts”

-The second Charlotte-area location of Smoke opens in Stonecrest next week

– Steve Raichlen has some barbecue secrets from Ed Mitchell in the HuffPo

– Marie, Let’s Eat! visits the newer, larger Character’s Famouse BBQ in Adairsville, GA – you might recognize its pitmaster Michael Character from BBQ Pitmasters

– NOLA Smokehouse in New Orleans closes this Saturday

– Johnny Fugitt has 7 recipes he must try from the 12 Bones cookbook

– Robert Moss’ list of the south’s best barbecue beverages rightly includes Cheerwine

– Some details on a pre-Barbecue Festival shindig:

-Speaking of Lexington, Brad Livengood of The Lexington Dispatch has some barbecue history regarding pirates I previously had not come across

Pirates loved to party, and there was nothing like a good pig picking to make a party atmosphere. So they devised a process based upon an apparatus made of green wood. It was a rack of sorts, to hold the pig’s carcass as it was being smoked. The rack was placed over a pit filled with charred embers to slowly simmer the meat. They called the process, the boucan. Its practitioners were soon known as boucaneers. The often used synonym for pirate, buccaneer, comes from this method of cooking barbecue. I don’t know if there was hickory wood involved, but it surely was smoked and pit-cooked. So we lovers of barbecue in Davidson County have something in common with Blackbeard and his ilk, and it’s just a short walk down the pages of history from the tastebuds of some cutthroat pirate to our love of a chopped sandwich today.

– Lucky Peach says there are 14 (!?) styles of american barbecue