Charlotte

Best Barbecue in the Charlotte Area: Final Four

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In the first round, Bobbee O’s beating Queen City Q was a travesty. Midwood, Red Bridges, and Spoon’s all stayed in the mix. And a bowling alley got past a traditional barbecue restaurant.

In the Elite 8, Bobbee O’s managed to somehow advance again in a tournament concerned with good barbecue. The bowling alley finally lost, Bridges eked past Midwood in an apparent squeaker (would have liked to see those two not in a match up this early), and Spoon’s topped Sauceman’s in a battle for South Charlotte. Now it’s down to the final four.

Reader voting has ended and the rest will be decided by a panel of judges, with the semifinalists and winner announced next week.

-Monk

Best Barbecue in the Charlotte Area: Final Four

Vote Now: Best Barbecue in the Charlotte area?

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For the first time in the Observer Tournament of Food’s six-year history, we’ve seeded the bracket completely randomly.

Why? Because we’re doing barbecue, and when you’re talking ’cue, all logical divisions – and all bets – are off.

“Barbecue” – as one reader chided me, it’s “Yankee” to specify pulled pork – brings out people’s passionate preferences more than any other single foodstuff I’ve written about. More than fried chicken, more than mac ’n cheese, more than Mom’s apple pie. That’s due to two powerful points, I’ve come to believe:

1. What you grew up with matters. If you got used to crushed-red-pepper-flecked-vinegar sauce on whole-hog ’cue, that’s the only thing that feels true. If you grew up with a sweeter red sauce on coarse-chopped shoulder meat, that’s what’s right, and everyone and everything else is wrong. Vehemently wrong. Peruse my blog posts about ’cue and you find one place’s product called ambrosial and slop by consecutive commenters. “I wouldn’t feed that trash to feral hogs” is one of my favorite slams, while “the only ’cue in Charlotte worth discussing” has been said (or written) to me about an astonishing number of very different restaurants.

2. The fact that barbecue pit-cooked over wood is a dwindling method matters. Traditionalists insist this is the only way to do it, and that’s one reason Michelle Obama was so roundly scoffed at when she said Charlotte had great barbecue. (Some folks mistakenly think it’s illegal now to cook over only wood in these parts; it’s not illegal but safety restrictions make it a more expensive method than most are willing to pursue. And even when they are, the price of wood and labor and maintenance are noteworthy.)

The local Charlotte paper is doing a barbecue bracket, and a few Barbecue Bros faves are in the running. Read about all 16 contestants here and vote now!
-Monk

Vote Now: Best Barbecue in the Charlotte area?

Queen City Q Makes Best New Restaurants list for Charlotte

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Queen City Q makes Charlotte Magazine’s Best New Restaurants for 2012, which is no surprise to us since we are big fans of the place. 

The casual eatery is a partnership between veteran restaurateur J. D. Duncan (who also owns Bonterra Dining & Wine Room) and husband-and-wife team Bryan Meredith and Sue Johnston. The trio brought in pitmaster Dan “Boone” Gibson to supervise the smoker. He takes a classic approach: the barbecue here is hand pulled, mixing fatty and lean cuts. The dishes are all based on Gibson’s family recipes, which he hasn’t modified much—and the result is a restaurant that serves up tender, smoky barbecue (unsauced), along with home-style Southern sides such as a peppery green bean casserole (Gibson’s mother’s recipe), thick mac and cheese, collard greens, and three kinds of slaw.

Additionally, the description of the renovated bowling alley 10 Park Lanes also struck me as interesting

Yes, 10 Park Lanes is a restaurant inside a bowling alley. But what it isn’t—and this is a big point of distinction—is a bowling alley restaurant. You won’t find stale nachos and rubbery cheese here.

Instead, the reinvented Park Lanes is a happy mix of fun and comfort food. The space’s new look preserves and enhances the mod style of the original 1960s George Pappas bowling alley (think Mad Men mixed with a touch of futuristic styling à la The Jetsons). The menu has an emphasis on barbecue, including St. Louis–style ribs, chicken, pulled Boston butt, smoked sausages, and brisket-style prime rib. Tender and unsauced, it’s all ready to be drenched (or dotted) with the restaurant’s house-made barbecue sauces, including sweet and tangy Double Honeycomb, vinegary Piedmont Blond, smoky and spicy Coffee Jalapeno, and the mustard-based Chipotle Apricot.

I wasn’t aware of its barbecue focus, so Speedy and I will have to huddle and see if this could be blog-worthy.

Speedy edit: I’ve had the smoke sausage before and was pretty impressed. The menu has lots of stuff in addition to ‘cue, but it’s probably worth further inspection.

Queen City Q Makes Best New Restaurants list for Charlotte

City Smoke – Charlotte, NC

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Name: City Smoke
Date: 12/7/12
Location: 100 N. Tryon St., Charlotte, NC, 28202
Order: ‘Cue Combo (brisket, pulled pork, Memphis, Kansas City, and Texas dry rubbed ribs
Bill: $26

Speedy: Well Monk, I hate to say I told you so, but I definitely told you so.

Monk: Speedy – you LOVE saying I told you so. This is the one time it happens to be true.

Speedy: So this past Friday night, Monk and I decided it was time to try a new barbecue restaurant, as it had been a while. Monk had never been to City Smoke, the latest of several modern, trendy barbecue restaurants to open in Charlotte. As the restaurant is in the bottom of the building I work in, I actually did check it out for lunch one day the first week it was open, which was about six months ago. My experience wasn’t good then, but I thought six months probation was enough.

Monk: Well Speedy – apparently you thought wrong. Before we even ordered any barbecue, I was at least struck by the impressive whiskey list (well over 50) which included bourbon, Tennessee, craft rye, Irish, and Scotch. And for the beer lovers, there was a good sized craft beer list on tap.

Speedy: Now all of our readers may be thinking,“Hey, that all sounds pretty good. Why are you guys dumping on this place so much?” Well, I’ll tell you. It’s because of the food.

Monk: Which we always say is a pretty crucial element when judging a restaurant. As is our M.O., we ordered the sampler which had pulled pork, brisket, and three types of ribs as well as your choice of two sides. We’ll start with the pork. You may be wondering how they got a smoker at the bottom of the tallest building between Atlanta and Philadelphia. Well wonder no more, because based on the lack of smokiness in the meat they definitely didn’t. The pork lacked any discernible smoke or flavor. We tried each of the three sauces on the table (one of which basically tasted like A1 steak sauce), but ultimately we didn’t even bother finishing our portion.

Speedy: And the brisket was even worse than the pork! It was rubbery and tasted like it had been reheated. Honestly, it reminded me of grocery store pre-packaged roast beef.

Monk: The ribs were at least better than either the pork or brisket. We got three types of ribs as part of the sampler – Memphis, Kansas City, and Texas Dry. They were tender enough and the saucing and flavor was actually pretty decent. However, once again there was no smoke. Also, we did get shafted by only getting one bone of the Texas dry flavor as opposed to two.

Speedy: I will say this. The sides we had were pretty good. I thought the slaw was great. It was legitimate Lexington-style red slaw. Probably the best I’ve had outside of the great city of Lexington. The collards were good as well. They had bacon bits in them, but the bacon flavor (unfortunately) wasn’t noticeable. City Smoke does have a bin of free peanuts that you can get while you order – probably the only thing in the restaurant worth what you spend on it.

Monk: As you can gather, we were not fans of City Smoke whatsoever (and apparently not a lot of other people are either since it was more or less empty on a Friday night). When the best things about the meal were the sides and the free peanuts, that is never a good thing.

Actually, since we were still hungry we decided to finish our beer and walk a few blocks for some actual good smoked meat in the form of the chipotle apricot wings from Queen City Q. And that’s all you really need to know about our City Smoke experience – we finished our meal at another barbecue restaurant. In fact, City Smoke was so bad that I feel confident in saying that the only reason I can see myself ever returning to City Smoke will not be because of the barbecue but instead to drink some bourbon at the bar.

Ratings:
Atmosphere/Ambiance: 3 hogs
Pork – 1.5 hogs
Brisket – 1 hog
Ribs – 2 hogs
Sides – 3 hogs
Overall – 1.5 hogs

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