Charlotte

Photos: Southern Sauce BBQ Festival – Charlotte, NC

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Boone’s Bar-B-Que Kitchen

A few weeks back on the last weekend of Summer, Charlotte held the Southern Sauce BBQ Festival in the shadows of BB&T Ballpark. The festival was a first time event combining two previous events – Blues, Brews & BBQ and the Charlotte Beerfest. A small-ish affair, it was mostly confined to Romare Bearden Park (where a stage with blues bands competed for a spot in a Memphis blues competition) and the stretch of Mint Street between the park and the minor league ballpark. There were a couple of the old standby barbecue food trucks – Boone’s (with a cool sign giving us a shout out!), Moe’s, Sauceman’s, Smoke & Go – along with some newer trucks I hadn’t seen before. While it would be unfavorable to compare it to the Q City Charlotte Barbecue Championships (which was held roughly on the same weekend the past couple of years but was a much bigger affair), it definitely was a nice way to spend a few hours on a sunny Saturday afternoon.

–Monk

Linkdown: 9/30/15

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– This year’s 86th Annual Mallard Creek Barbecue will be on Thursday, October 22

– Queen City Q and the Hornets enter into a partnership for the upcoming NBA season

As part of the multi-year agreement, Queen City Q will operate a pair of branded concession stands at Time Warner Cable Arena, one on the lower level and one on the upper level, allowing fans to enjoy some of the area’s best and most popular barbecue while attending events in the building.  Queen City Q products will also be featured on the arena’s suite menus.

– Charlotte Agenda makes one of their bold and click-baity proclamations that “the best barbecue in Charlotte just might be sold by Boy Scouts”

-The second Charlotte-area location of Smoke opens in Stonecrest next week

– Steve Raichlen has some barbecue secrets from Ed Mitchell in the HuffPo

– Marie, Let’s Eat! visits the newer, larger Character’s Famouse BBQ in Adairsville, GA – you might recognize its pitmaster Michael Character from BBQ Pitmasters

– NOLA Smokehouse in New Orleans closes this Saturday

– Johnny Fugitt has 7 recipes he must try from the 12 Bones cookbook

– Robert Moss’ list of the south’s best barbecue beverages rightly includes Cheerwine

– Some details on a pre-Barbecue Festival shindig:

-Speaking of Lexington, Brad Livengood of The Lexington Dispatch has some barbecue history regarding pirates I previously had not come across

Pirates loved to party, and there was nothing like a good pig picking to make a party atmosphere. So they devised a process based upon an apparatus made of green wood. It was a rack of sorts, to hold the pig’s carcass as it was being smoked. The rack was placed over a pit filled with charred embers to slowly simmer the meat. They called the process, the boucan. Its practitioners were soon known as boucaneers. The often used synonym for pirate, buccaneer, comes from this method of cooking barbecue. I don’t know if there was hickory wood involved, but it surely was smoked and pit-cooked. So we lovers of barbecue in Davidson County have something in common with Blackbeard and his ilk, and it’s just a short walk down the pages of history from the tastebuds of some cutthroat pirate to our love of a chopped sandwich today.

– Lucky Peach says there are 14 (!?) styles of american barbecue

Linkdown: 9/16/15

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– Robert Moss’s second part in his Best of Southern BBQ Awards

– On the different styles of Texas barbecue, from Daniel Vaughn

– Washington Post has a job profile on a barbecue pitmaster from the DC area

– According to Charlotte Observer food critic Helen Schwab, the pork sammie from Kyle Fletcher’s is one of the 5 must-eat dishes for newcomers to the Charlotte area

– Elliot Moss of Buxton Hall is participating in The Hangout Oyster Cook-Off & Craft Beer Weekend in Gulf Shores, AL in November

– TMBBQ has some barbecue recommendations for Colbert in NYC (though he’s been filming there for almost 10 years now)

Bill Spoon’s Barbecue – Charlotte, NC (RE-REVIEW)

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Bill Spoon's Barbecue
Name: Bill Spoon’s Barbecue
Date: 8/14/15
Location: 5524 South Boulevard, Charlotte, NC 28217
Order: Combo plate – Pork and ribs; hush puppies, fried Okra, Collards (link to menu)
Bill: $24, including drink (which was not a Cheerwine, which they do not serve)

Speedy: Recently, on a Friday afternoon, my work team decided to grab some barbecue for lunch. As I hadn’t been since our last review over two years ago, I steered the team towards Bill Spoon’s. Heading in, my memory was to expect good pork, great hushpuppies, and weird slaw.

Monk:…what Speedy means here is that Bill Spoon’s has a mustard-based slaw. But hey, at least it isn’t mayo-based.

Speedy: Not sure how that’s different than what I said… Anyhow, I was expecting a pretty standard meal, but I was thrown a bit of a curveball when we arrived and found out Spoon’s added ribs to the menu.  I thought I owed it to the dear readers to give it a try. Fortunately, there was a combo plate, so I could grab some pork as well. Sides of collards and fried okra rounded out my meal.

Monk: And from the looks of it, a pretty pricey combo plate at that.

Speedy: I don’t want to go into too much detail about the pork (good), hushpuppies (great), or other sides (average), as I really don’t have anything to add to our previous review. So instead, I’ll focus on the ribs. This were big, meaty spare ribs smoked with the membrane on (boo) and served with just a bit of glaze. These ribs were the epitome of “fall off the bone ribs”, which, unfortunately is not a good thing. They were definitely overcooked and I was unable to even take a bite without all of the meat falling off. The flavor was OK, but nothing to write home about.

Monk: Interesting that they added ribs to the menu (or maybe we just missed it the first time around?). I wouldn’t have expected good ribs from a traditional-ish Eastern Carolina joint like this (thinking Allen & Son) so I wonder what the demand was that led to it. They do cook whole hog so maybe they have them leftover anyways.

Speedy: Overall, it was a disappointing experience, especially considering the hefty price tag that accompanied the ribs. Next time, I’ll stick to the pork.

Ratings:
Atmosphere/Ambiance – 3 hogs
Chopped Pork – 3.5 hogs
Ribs – 2 hogs
Sides – 3 hogs
Overall – 3 hogs
Bill Spoon's Barbecue Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

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