Burlington

Linkdown: 7/16/14

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– Our State’s latest in the barbecue profile series Carolina ‘Cue is Hursey’s Bar-B-Q in Burlington (our review here)

Hursey’s Bar-B-Q in Burlington has a tale like this to tell. In the mid-’40s, patriarch Sylvester Hursey and a good friend were engaged in a night of bacchanalian revelry — they had a little party that got out of hand — and at some point it seemed like a good idea to find a pig and cook it, so that’s what they did. I imagine them in the still heat of a Carolina summer’s night, climbing over a splintered wooden fence and into the pigpen. The moonlight broke through the limbs of the giant oak and shone on the chosen pig, as big as any pig there ever was, and the two of them wrestled with it into the night, coming this close to losing their own lives in the process, but finally emerging victorious. They had their pig, and then they dragged it halfway across Alamance County and fired up the pit and cooked it.

– Indy Week reviews Ed Mitchell’s Que, saying it “lives up to the hype”

– Durham restaurant Piedmont is hosting a whole hog barbecue dinner next Thursday (h/t bbqboard)

– Eater guide to where to eat barbecue around Atlanta

– Also, some Eater photos from Heirloom Market on a Wednesday at 11:35am

– The latest update on The Great NC BBQ Map states that the maps will mail out the week of 7/28-8/1 to all Kickstarter backers; also, they have a new logo

– Really hate that I missed the first SC-TX BBQ Invitational because it sounds like it was legendary; no seriously it looked epic

Rodney Scott we love you and your pulled pork, but we must concede the star of yesterday’s SC-TX BBQ Invitational was clearly John Lewis of Austin, Texas’ La Barbecue. The man’s beef brisket was O-face-inducingly good (I saw more than one pair of eyes roll back into eaters’ heads). And the pit master’s presence was all thanks to the members of Charleston Brown Water Society (CBWS), whose Holy City Brewing hoedown came off smokingly well, despite intermittent rain threats.

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Linkdown: 4/16/14

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– The Charlotte Observer has a list of various road trips for Spring (including one for beer), and here is a 10-stop NC barbecue tour which includes some not-so-obvious choices

– Speaking of road trips, the latest reviews from Marie, Let’s Eat!’s NC barbecue roadtrip: The Barbecue Center in Lexington, Allen & Son Barbeque in Chapel Hill, Hursey’s in Burlington, and Short Sugar’s in Reidsville

– Bar-B-Q King in Charlotte is included as part of the history of Wilkinson Boulevard from the March 2014 issue of Charlotte Magazine

Few places are more familiar on Wilkinson than Bar-B-Q King. Follow the curved arrow of its sign, and most days you’ll see a lot full of cars. Behind the counter, a static buzz fills the room as co-owner Gus Karapanos flips on the speaker system.

“Same one we’ve had for 40 years,” he says. “People love to hear it.”  The sign, too, has been the same since Karapanos’s uncles opened the place back in 1959. Except for a few days after Hurricane Hugo knocked it down in 1989, that sign and the billboard–sized, ice-cream-eating Inuit at Dairy Queen next door have remained constants in a changing neighborhood. 

– Ed Mitchell, Sam Jones, and Rodney Scott are the pitmasters from the Carolinas in this year’s Big Apple Barbecue Block party in June

– I think I’ve seen a version of this list before, but in case you missed it Lexington comes in at #4 in this list of 10 best barbecue cities (h/t Rudy)

4. Lexington, North Carolina

Pork is the game in Lexington, a small town just an hour’s drive northeast of Charlotte, where a regional favorite is the wood-smoked pork shoulder, coarsely chopped and topped by a mostly vinegar based sauce -0 those who know their way around a Lexington grill often order it with some outside brown, which means more flavorful extra bark from the meat) and sometimes extra dip, which is just the word for the thinner sauce. Another Lexington trademark is red slaw, coleslaw that’s swapped out the mayo for BBQ sauce. There’s a lot to the Lexington scene, which is why the city throws the annual Barbecue Festival to celebrate it. For the regular season, Lexington Barbecue #1, established in 1962 and better known by locals as the Honeymonk, is the quintessential Lexington joint, widely hailed as the best in the business, always happy to help a diner out with a big plate of pork and some Cheerwine.

– Speaking of Lexington, this year’s BBQ Capital Cook-Off is April 25-26

– The Charlotte Smokeoff at Unknown Brewing is this Saturday in Charlotte:

Hursey’s Bar-B-Q – Burlington, NC

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Name: Hursey’s Bar-B-Q
Date: 9/5/13
Address: 1834 South Church St., Burlington, NC 27215
Order: BBQ & Chicken combo platter with slaw, hush puppies, fries (link to menu)
Price: $6.70

My latest stop on the Historic NC Barbecue Trail was Hursey’s Bar-B-Q in Burlington, NC, a town familiar to anyone who regularly drives between Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill and Greensboro or Charlotte. Not to be confused with the fast food version of this restaurant in Graham off I-85/I-40 (housed in what I believe is an old Hardee’s), this joint is off Church Street near downtown Burlington in a brick building where it has resided since 1960.

Burlington is located in the piedmont between Greensboro and Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill but Hursey’s cooks open pit eastern NC style barbecue with a slight kick to its vinegar sauce. It has a nice chop and moistness to it, but lacked a little smoke. The table side dip was nice, if not essential. I ordered the BBQ & chicken combo since it was the special of the day and lo and behold received a thigh and drum of fried chicken. Which was actually pretty good, just not exactly what I was expecting. I should have clarified with the waitress before ordering or just gotten only barbecue in the first place.

The hush puppies were little orbs cooked to golden brown perfection but what really set it off was that they were served with honey butter (!!). If you have ever had perfect hush puppies with honey butter, then you know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t – well man, you just haven’t lived. The slaw was mayo based and average – not much to write about it. The fries were fries.

In keeping with the eastern NC theme, my wife got the BBQ & brunswick stew combo and found the brunswick stew to be disappointingly bad cooked with what tasted like store-bought vegetables. Which was unfortunate since for the most part we enjoyed our visit there.

Hursey’s is just a few minutes off the highway and worth checking out if you are heading from the Research Triangle towards Greensboro or Charlotte. Just don’t mess with the brunswick stew.

-Monk

Ratings:
Atmosphere/Ambiance – 3.5 Hogs
Pork – 3.5 Hogs
Sides – 2.5 Hogs
Overall – 3 Hogs
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Hursey's Bar-B-Q on Urbanspoon