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Also, I am making small tweaks to the site here and there, so feel free to weigh in on any changes you like or don’t like in the comments to this post .
-Monk
barbecue
Moe’s Original Bar-B-Que – Matthews, NC
Name: Moe’s Original Bar-B-Que
Date: 6/19/13
Location: 111 Matthews Station St., Matthews, NC 28105
Order: Pulled pork platter with a drink, cornbread, collard greens, and mac and cheese (link to menu)
Bill: $10.25 (beer not included)
In a sense, it was to be expected. Moe’s Original Bar-B-Que is an Alabama-style barbecue chain restaurant based out of Colorado (not exactly a barbecue capital), and the Barbecue Bros don’t usually have high hopes for chains for a reason. Still, I was going to give it a shot since it had just opened last week and my current client is down the street. So this past week a few folks from my company decided to have a small work happy hour there.
Moe’s moved into a building vacated by Pure Taqueria earlier this year and took a few months to fit it to their needs (more taps, smoker, etc). The building is modeled after an historic Matthews gas station and has garage doors that can be opened to give it an open air feel – oddly they weren’t open on this warm late spring night. As you walk in, you order your food and drink at the bar and take a number before they eventually bring it out to you which I have to say is kind of a weird set up, especially if you plan on having a couple of beers and have to keep going back to the bar to order. Speaking of beers, Moe’s does do a great job of keeping local beers on draft (I had a Olde Hickory Jade IPA and a Birdsong Red House Wheat and I believe NoDa Brewing, Triple C, and Old Meck were all represented) but charges $5 a beer with no beer specials anywhere to be found.
At the bar (again, still weird to me), I ordered the pulled pork platter which came with a drink (non-alcoholic), cornbread, and two sides (collard greens and mac and cheese for me). The price for the platter was $10.25, which strikes me as a little on the pricey side. The food came out shortly after ordering and I quickly noted the relatively small portion sizes for the price and compared with other barbecue restaurants. However, none of that other stuff really matters if the barbecue is of high quality.
Which is to say, sadly it was not. The consistency of the pork was fine, but overall it was dry and lacked smoke. There was a tangy reddish-brown sauce on the pork which somewhat helped with the dryness of the coarsely pulled chunks (another knock), but it wasn’t my jam. Since Moe’s is an Alabama barbecue restaurant there is the option to get an Alabama white sauce with your pork. Needless to say, I stayed far away from that mess.
All of the sides were fine – the collards came with bits of sausage and bacon, the mac and cheese was baked, and the cornbread had some nice sweetness (but it really just ended up making me wish hush puppies were on the menu).
So yea, Moe’s Original Bar-B-Que ended up being more or less as I expected. I won’t pitch a fit if folks want to go there in the future, but it just likely won’t be my idea.
-Monk
Ratings
Atmosphere/Ambiance – 3 hogs
Pulled pork – 2.5 hogs
Sides – 2.5 hogs
Overall – 2.5 hogs
John T Edge-Daniel Vaughn quote
You’re better than that, kind sir. Knowing you’re in the midst of a grand barbecue world tour, and knowing that you have had the chance to eat ’cue from the likes of Skylight Inn in Ayden, North Carolina, on that tour, I know you know better. Please tell me that your editors forced this untenable position on you and yours. In my experience, that’s where the problems usually start. With editors. Please tell me that’s so.
John T. Edge, from an open letter to Daniel Vaughn, Barbecue Editor of Texas Monthly on naming the Top 50 Barbecue Joints in Texas as the best in the world.
To which Daniel has responded by inviting John to a “thorough guided barbecue road trip” of Texas (which John has accepted), but not by really addressing his original query. To be fair, I guess it wasn’t likely that Vaughn would have walked back from his comments.
-Monk
In Defense of Gassers : TMBBQ
The article defends gassers to a certain extent but ends on the point that still, smoking over a wood fire is preferable. Where it gets interesting is in the shots fired at Daniel Vaughn (TMBBQ editor) and to a certain extent Aaron Franklin on both this article on TMBBQ and a duplicate post on Texas Monthly, the parent site (the dual posting with separate comments seems peculiar to me).
Finally, Daniel, I’m a bit skeptical about your ability to tell the difference, a) because having someone use a tool new to them is no kind of basis for comparison, and b) because Franklin wraps their BBQ which itself is going to make it soggy. I asked for untrimmed brisket (which, annoyingly, ended up being a shock and ordeal for them to go get a fresh brisket) and it had a lot of caramely bark. Was it comparable to a place like Black’s or Kreuz? No. But it was comparable to other good BBQ joints that use all wood.
At this point, you’re really making pains to say something is true because you want it to be true more than because it is true, I think. I understand the nostalgia and the aesthetic, but even you and Aaron, who are both obviously quite prejudiced, are having to stretch the bounds of rationality to separate the two in substantive ways.
Another one:
Good gosh, Mr. Vaughn, you ought to do a little research before you post whatever the young Mr. Franklin tells you. He is a purist and he obviously knows a great deal about cooking good barbecue with indirect smoke. He does not know all there is to know about gas assisted units.
I’ll be interested to see if there is a direct response from Vaughn.
-Monk