Porkey’s Bar-B-Que – Mount Airy, NC

December 22, 2014 / Barbecue Bros / Leave a comment

Name: Porkey’s Bar-B-Que
Date: 12/5/14
Address: 805 W Lebanon St, Mt Airy, NC 27030
Order: Pork barbecue tray
Price: ~$7

Have I ever told you, dear readers, how great Mrs. Monk is? Bear with me a minute, but of all of the restaurants I visit for this blog I drag her to close to 75% of them. And while I think she likes barbecue well enough, I do think she’d prefer to mix in a Mexican or southern restaurant a little more often. But of course, I always try to find a new barbecue restaurant when we travel and she usually obliges my obsession, whether she’s in the mood for barbecue or not.

I mention this because for a short weekend trip to visit Yadkin Valley wineries to celebrate our wedding anniversary, I brought up the possibility of stopping by a wood smoked barbecue joint I had spotted on my NC BBQ Map. And while I don’t think she was exactly thrilled about it, she once again humored her barbecue-obsessed husband.

As we pulled into Porkey’s BBQ on a Friday evening, we first wondered if it was open since there didn’t seem to be much activity in the restaurant or parking lot. This, after passing several other joints that were packed, didn’t leave Mrs. Monk exactly thrilled with our dinner restaurant choice. But with a little convincing we went inside and ordered.

Inside, a bright and colorful diner interior looked as if it hadn’t changed in maybe 40 years (or however long this building had been standing) – my guess is that it probably hadn’t. The menu boards were the old black ones with the white letters and I’m sure there is a bucket of extras somewhere in the back. We’ve been to some posh or yuppie-fied barbecue restaurants in our travels, but this definitely wasn’t one of those.

The main attraction in choosing Porkey’s was the fact they smoke over wood, and that came through in the barbecue. It had the right consistency and was moist and smoky. Being a Lexington-style joint, there was also a nice amount of bark in the pork. The two table sauces were of the thicker variety, and after trying both I’d suggest not using them. Use the table side Texas Pete’s instead.

Porkey’s had some of the smallest hush puppies I’ve seen, but the size didn’t mean they lacked flavor – quite the opposite in fact. They had both a red and white slaw available, and the tangy, crunchy red slaw on my sandwich was a perfect compliment. The fries were fresh out of the fryer and were fine, but unfortunately the mac and cheese was pretty disappointing. Mrs. Monk guessed it was probably velveeta poured on top of the noodles, and she likely wasn’t far off.

Porkey’s BBQ is the only wood smoked joint in the Mount Airy area, and based on this meal I can recommend it if you are visiting wineries in the area (which we enjoyed greatly the following day despite some less than ideal weather). A big thanks to Mrs. Monk for putting up with me and my silly barbecue obsession, and here’s to many more anniversaries and barbecue joints with her…though with maybe with a couple Mexican restaurants thrown in there too.

–Monk

Ratings:
Atmosphere/Ambiance – 4 hogs
Pork – 4 hogs
Sides – 3.5 hogs
Overall – 4 Hogs

The Barbecue Bros Holiday 2014 Gift Guide (updated)

December 17, 2014December 11, 2015 / Barbecue Bros / Leave a comment

With just a little over a week to go, here’s some last minute gift ideas for the barbecue lover in your life. The bolded items are the ones I can personally recommend. Feel free to add any other gift ideas in the comments below.

–Monk

See last year’s gift guide here

Books

Carolina ‘Cue by Our State Magazine (or directly from Our State)
Holy Smoke: The Big Book of North Carolina Barbecue by John Shelton Reed and Dale Volberg Reed
Bob Garner’s Book of Barbecue: North Carolina’s Favorite Food by Bob Garner
The Best Tar Heel Barbecue: From Manteo to Murphy by Jim Early
The Prophets of Smoked Meat: A Journey Through Texas Barbecue by Daniel Vaughn
Barbecue Crossroads: Notes and Recipes from a Southern Odyssey by
Barbecue: The History of an American Institution by Robert Moss
Peace, Love, & Barbecue: Recipes, Secrets, Tall Tales, and Outright Lies from the Legends of Barbecue by Mike Mills

Apparel

Other

Pork Chart Print (not a member of Huckberry? Consider joining via this link)
House of Swank NC BBQ Can Koozie (pictured above with t-shirt)
Butcher’s Coasters
Carolina Cue Tote Bag
Carolina Cue Gift Packs and Gift Certificates
The Great NC BBQ Map (as well as print, stickers, buttons)

521 BBQ and Grill – Tega Cay, SC

December 15, 2014January 26, 2015 / Barbecue Bros / 2 Comments

Name: 521 BBQ and Grill
Date: 11/29/14
Address: 1135 Stonecrest Blvd, Suite 101, Tega Cay, SC 29708
Order: Pork and rib barbecue combo plate (link to menu)
Price: ~$16

Last time I tried to use a Livingsocial coupon for 521 BBQ and Grill, Speedy and I ended up at the wrong location mostly – ok, completely – due to my lack of reading the small print. Well, on the day of expiration Mrs. Monk, the Monkette, and I made a trip back out to Fort Mill specifically to try the other, slightly closer location.

Of the two locations, I think I liked this building slightly more. What it lacks in traditional barbecue shack-iness – though the original is located at the end of a strip mall it looks the part of a shack (this one is also located in a strip mall but has more of a sports bar vibe) – it makes up for in beer and flat screen tv’s with sports (though I didn’t partake of any beer on this particular day).

And as it turns out, the other thing I liked slightly more at this location was the food. The pork had more smoke and some nice bark mixed in (~~again, for a gasser~~ Update: they use a FEC 150 wood pellet smoker). It also wasn’t as dry as the other location, while still being a tad on the drier end of the spectrum. Similar to the other location, I added the vinegar-based sauce and that greatly helped its cause. I didn’t order the ribs last time around but did on this trip. I found that I mostly agreed with Speedy’s take on them – they were meaty and I liked the sauce, though I could take or leave the finishing of them on the grill.

The sides were more or less the same as the other location, with the scratch-made hush puppies again being the highlight. The crinkle cut fries were standard but solid, the beans seemed a little bit like an afterthought and may have been straight out of a can, and the red slaw still had too much ketchup that made it more sweet than tangy.

I didn’t mention it last time, but the combo plate gives you a ton of food, enough for a to-go box and a second meal the next day. So you definitely get a lot of food for the price.

At the Tega Cay location of 521 BBQ and Grill, the food is decent and the service was friendly but I don’t know if I would consider it worth the drive from NoDa. Though for options in Fort Mill, you could probably do a lot worse.

–Monk

Ratings:
Atmosphere/Ambiance – 3 hogs
Pork – 3.5 hogs
Ribs – 3 hogs
Sides – 2.5 hogs
Overall – 3 Hogs

Johnson Family Barbecue – Durham, NC

December 8, 2014December 8, 2014 / Barbecue Bros / Leave a comment

Name: Johnson Family Barbecue
Date: 11/22/14
Address: 5021 Wake Forest Hwy, Durham, NC 27703
Order: Barbecue tray with slaw and hush puppies (link to menu)
Price: $7.50

Johnson Family Barbecue is located at the end of a gas station strip mall, which was a first for me. But a welcome first – in fact, I was excited for this very fact. But there were a couple of other things to be excited about. Their motto is “It’s All About the Wood.” The dining room was about 4 tables covered by the red and white gingham table cloths . The smokehouse, if you can call it that, was an aluminum shed covering a smoker surrounded by a chain link fence. It was all very delightful looking.

Johnson Family cooks over wood (specifically hickory), which is what drew me to it in the first place. Since I had already eaten lunch a few hours earlier and was looking for just a snack, a barbecue tray was the perfect size. A few short minutes later a small tray of barbecue, three hush puppies, and slaw was brought out.

The eastern-style pork had smoke but lacked bark, which of course is normal for eastern-style barbecue. And there was a higher ratio of white meat to dark, which initially led me to believe they might be cooking whole hogs. I later found out that not to be the case, but I suspect there may be more than just the shoulders being smoked. The chop was a little coarser than I prefer, but the pork was moist and flavorful and though it didn’t require the table vinegar sauce, adding it enhanced the pork. The hush puppies were freshly cooked orbs of cornmeal and the slaw was mayo-based. Basically, everything was pretty solid. My buddy who got a takeout plate mostly agreed as well.

Johnson Family Barbecue is on Highway 98 between north Raleigh and Durham, a stretch of highway I had not been down before, and turned out to be quite a nice little find. With the ever-increasing tendency to smoke barbecue over gas or electric, it was nice to find a small, family-owned, self described “hole in the wall” joint that is still putting in the work to create a good product.

–Monk

Ratings:
Atmosphere/Ambiance – 4.5 hogs
Pork – 4 hogs
Sides – 4 hogs
Overall – 4 Hogs