Monk: YouTuber and horse racing announcer Jason Beem documented his road trip from Richmond down to Ayden, NC to visit both Skylight Inn and Sam Jones BBQ.
Description: I took the short drive from Richmond to Ayden, North Carolina to try a few famous barbecue places I wanted to try.
Monk: While my hunch is that I had roughly as much barbecue as last year, I suspect the ratio of mediocre barbecue to great barbecue was higher than in past years. There’s always highlights to pick out, but let’s hope next year is a more favorable ratio.
In alphabetical order:
Beef rib, brisket, pork ribs, Cheerwine hot link from Jon G’s Barbecue – Peachland, NC
Chopped pork sandwich from Noble Smoke – Charlotte, NC
Some of the meats at Noble Smoke can be a little hit or miss for me, but the Lexington-style chopped barbecue sandwich is ever reliable.
Ribs and wings from Peg Leg Porker – Nashville, TN (link to review)
Speedy has said he often thinks the ribs at Peg Leg Porker are the best in the state of Tennessee, and who am I to argue? The full wings are also a must-order.
Randy’s ribs are a sub-regional variety with a sauce that I understand is found primarily in the Savannah area. It expanded my framework as to what barbecue is in different parts of the US.
Jones Family Original BBQ Tray from Sam Jones BBQ – Raleigh, NC (link to review)
Life-changing whole hog. So far I’ve only made it to Sam Jones’ outpost in Raleigh but I can’t wait to try this same tray at Skylight Inn this spring.
Sausage, wings, hash and rice, ribs, brisket, and turkey from Sweet Lew’s BBQ – Charlotte, NC (link to post)
Between the house-made sausage, the barbecue hash, and Lewis Donald’s ever-constant tweaking of his main meats, Sweet Lew’s continues to evolve, and I’m here for the the journey.
Chopped pork tray takeout from Whispering Pines – Albemarle, NC (link to review)
It’s a shame that Whispering Pines was takeout only but I’ll make the hour drive to Albemarle again I’m sure. Great Lexington-style barbecue.
Monk: The Barbecue Bros are going to take the rest of 2021 off to come back strong in 2022. As we close the book on the rollercoaster that was 2021, let’s first look back at the past year.
We posted 21 new reviews across 6 states, most of them predictably in the southeast. Maybe 2022 will allow for more barbecue travels, and I’m in particular looking forward to finally spending some time in eastern NC in spring 2022.
The breakdown of reviews by state were as follows:
12 North Carolina
3 South Carolina
2 Georgia
2 Tennessee
1 Florida
1 Missouri
In addition to our usual cadence of restaurant reviews, linkdowns, and Friday Finds, I tried to branch out when to came to original content.
Notably, over the summer I took a break from collecting news for the weekly linkdowns to instead do weekly recaps of “BBQ Brawl” Season 2 from June until August, complete with screencaps. After that experience, I gotta say I don’t envy those that have to recap TV for a living but it was a fun diversion from the usual. I might even consider doing again if there’s a season 3.
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