Charlotte

JJR’s BBQ Shack – Charlotte, NC

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Name: JJR’s BBQ Shack
Date: 12/22/13
Address: Bank of America Stadium, 800 S Mint St, Charlotte, NC 28202
Order: Pulled pork sandwich
Price: $8

Monk: Speedy and I are in the second year of being Carolina Panthers season ticket holders, so I figured we should at least check out the lone barbecue option at the stadium even if expectations weren’t very high going in. So for the last home game of the regular season, we decided to finally check out JJR’s BBQ Shack, named in honor of Jerry Richardson, founder/owner of the Carolina Panthers. And it came out about as expected. The pork, while it did have a good texture to it, lacked moisture and smoke, even in the bark. It absolutely required additional sauce from the condiments area of the concourse, which I neglected to add before heading to my seat. Speedy, I know you don’t have much more to add, but what say you?

Speedy: For my order, I initially asked what the “double stack” was, assuming it was a combo brisket-pork sandwich. I was told by the guy up front just to order it, only to find out that it was really just a pulled pork sandwich with extra pork, bacon, and nacho cheese. Due to my intolerance of dairy, my desire to avoid cardiac arrest, and the fact that it looked disgusting, I quickly backtracked from the order and switched to the normal pulled pork sandwich. Monk’s description above is spot on – there’s not much more to say about it. I did have a bite of Papa Speedy’s brisket sandwich, which I thought was slightly better. It came sliced and lightly sauced, which I think was the difference. Still though, I won’t be rushing back to try it again.

In fact, I think for the PLAYOFFS…

Monk: PLAYOFFS?!?!

Speedy: …Monk and I might just have to make our own ‘cue. Until then, keep pounding!

Ratings:
Atmosphere/Ambiance – N/A
Pork – 2 hogs
Sides – N/A
Overall – 2 Hogs

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Bubba’s Barbecue – Charlotte, NC

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Name: Bubba’s Barbecue
Date: 12/13/13
Address: 4400 Sunset Rd, Charlotte, NC 28216
Order: Speedy: Rib plate with slaw, fries, hush puppies, and Cheerwine; Monk: “Hungry plate” – chopped pork plate with slaw, bbq beans, hush puppies, and Cheerwine (link to menu)
Price: Speedy: ~$22; Monk: ~$14

Monk: In a 2011 reader’s poll, Bubba’s Barbecue was named the third best barbecue joint in NC by Southern Living Reader’s. This was a mistake. But first, a little history. Similar to Bill Spoon’s, Bubba’s Barbecue cooks whole hog eastern NC barbecue in a town smack in the middle of the Piedmont. And this is no coincidence – according to Bob Garner’s Big Book of Barbecue, “[n]ot long after banker turned restaurateur [sic] Ralph Miller bought the venerable Spoon’s Barbecue on Charlotte’s South Boulevard in 1986, he changed the name to Bubba’s. In 1994, Miller moved Bubba’s to the present location on Sunset Road.” While Bubba’s cooks eastern NC-style barbecue, you won’t find a fire pit out back. That’s because Bubba’s cooks their whole hogs in two electric pits. And in light of recently taking the True ‘Cue Pledge, I must proclaim it to be faux ‘cue. FAUX ‘CUE I SAY!

Speedy: Yes. This really just shows that the readers of Southern Living magazine cannot be trusted. In fact, I did a little research (by which I mean looked on wikipedia) and found out that Southern Living magazine is published in Alabama – a state that’s only famous in barbecue terms for producing the most disgusting barbecue sauce on the planet.

I did like the first thing the waitress said to us when she came to take our order – “barbecue or ribs?” So of course Monk and I ordered both. The food came out relatively shortly and the plates were rather large portions.

Monk: I guess that’s what happen when you order a “Hungry plate” portion (for pork at least). The pork was chopped fairly fine – almost minced – and had a decent texture but very little smoke to it. Which is probably as expected when we are talking about barbecue cooked in an electric smoker.

Speedy: The ribs were huge and meaty; however, a lot of that was because the fat was not properly rendered out of the rib and the ribs weren’t trimmed at all. Call me a diva if you want, but a good rib bone has been trimmed of the cartilage and is cooked to pull (but not fall) clean off the bone. When I finish a rib, I don’t want to see anything left on the rib. This was not the case here. Also, while I appreciate a good rib sauce, I prefer a lighter sauce and a nice rub, which I think allows the flavors of the meat to come through more. The rib at Bubba’s was all about the sauce – it came dripping and the ribs tasted as if no rub was used at all. Overall, it was a very disappointing rib experience.

Monk: Hush puppies came in a tray for the table and you could get more if you wanted – we never did (not a good sign). The slaw was mustard-based a la Spoon’s and the barbecue beans were nothing special. In fact, “nothing special” pretty much sums up our trip to Bubba’s Barbecue. In fact, the best thing about it was probably the joint feel of the dining room and the decorative pigs out front.

Speedy: Monk and I like to try lots of different barbecue joints, but I think both of us going in knew that Bubba’s wasn’t going to stack up against some of our favorites. In the end, I think we really made a mistake going there. Barbecue is one of my favorite things on the planet, but when it’s done wrong, it just makes me sad. There aren’t enough meals in this life to waste on mediocre ‘cue.

Ratings:
Atmosphere/Ambiance – 3 hogs
Pork – 2.5 hogs
Ribs – 2 hogs
Sides – 2 Hogs
Overall – 2 Hogs

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Bubba's Barbecue on Urbanspoon

Bubba's Barbecue on Foodio54

Linkdown: 12/18/13

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 – This month’s featured barbecue photographer on TMBBQ is Denny Culbert from Lafayette, Louisiana, who has some great photos from his Barbecue Bus project featuring Stamey’s, Scott’s, Skylight Inn, and more NC joints

– Here’s what TMBBQ had to say about the new Texas/Carolina barbecue joint Curly’s Carolina, TX 

A big vertical smoker uses pecan for the pork shoulders and ribs. It’s all cooked with wood, but there are no coals. We love our smokers here in Texas, but in the Carolinas the pork shoulders and whole hogs are cooked directly over hickory coals. It creates a flavor similar to the Texas Hill Country style of cooking, but doesn’t taste much like slow smoked pork. I questioned Jay and John about this and Jay hoped to have a direct-heat cooker operational soon and even hinted that whole hogs could be on the horizon. Until then, the meat won’t have much Carolina flavor until you squeeze on the vinegar sauce.

– Although this article has a somewhat unfortunate title – “Private school students start barbecue business” – it’s a cool story about high school kids in Thomasville (just outside the Barbecue Bros hometown of High Point) starting their own barbecue business; check out more on Butch Cassidy Barbecue here (via)

– Fervent Foodie has a review on Elwood’s Barbecue & Burger Bar in Ballantyne

– Ever wonder what it’s like to cook a whole hog with Rodney Scott? Well this gives you a better idea:

It’s nine p.m. at Charles Towne Landing, a six-hundred-acre park just outside of Charleston, South Carolina, and Steven Green is holding a blowtorch to an opening in a repurposed oil drum that is filled to the top with damp pieces of oak. Flecks of rain fall across two cleaned, beheaded, and butterflied pigs sitting on a sheet-metal barbecue pit nearby. Tomorrow, the pigs will feed hundreds of Garden & Gun readers who are in town for the first Jubileefestival. Right now, Green and his boss, pit master Rodney Scott, are just trying to get the fire going.

Linkdown: 12/10/13

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(image via)

– Our State Magazine has been profiling a NC barbecue restaurant a month and this month they turn their attention to Midwood Smokehouse, currently #1 on the Barbecue Bros Charlotte big board

Frank Scibelli just comes right out and says it: If you want good barbecue in Charlotte, you don’t have a lot of options.

But Charlotte is growing, you say. There are more cooks cooking more food, and more varieties of it, than ever before.

“Still not good barbecue,” he says.

Maybe it’s got to do with the smoker. You have to have a smoker, he says. Not many barbecue places in Charlotte have one. He does. He mentions it over and over again. He asks if I’ve seen inside it, where at least one piece of hickory is burning 24 hours a day. He makes sure I know the only thing that powers his smoker is wood.

– The final report on the unfortunate Sandy Plains Baptist Church salmonella outbreak in Shelby in September confirms it was salmonella

– A look inside last weekend’s Garden and Gun Jubilee Made in the South Weekend, in which Rodney Scott had a pig roast on Sunday that had to have been amazing

– Old Carolina Barbecue set to open in Cleveland and appears to be trying to do it the right way

Before entering the business, Schafer toured the Carolinas and visited dozens of eateries to ensure his menu would be as genuine as possible.

“We didn’t invent barbecue, we just wanted to do it right,” he said. “There’s authenticity behind the recipes.”

Key to the barbecued items are large on-site smokers.

– For the uninitiated, a great primer on NC Barbecue (mostly eastern) from a man who clearly knows what he is talking about, Bob Garner (via, tambien en espanol)

– Finally, yet another plug to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter