Durham

Linkdown: 2/11/15

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– Our State ruminates on the barbecue sandwich, deconstructed

– In this week’s blog for The Daily South, Robert Moss profiles a NASA scientist by day, and whole hog barbecue pitmaster by night

A career in engineering took Howard Conyers a long way from Paxville: to an undergraduate degree at North Carolina A&T followed by a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering and materials science from Duke, and then to Louisiana. “I finished my Ph.D. and took my first job at Stennis,” Conyers says. “I lived in Slidell for a year and then moved to New Orleans.” Somewhere along the way, he started to miss his family’s style of whole hog barbecue. “I realized I had left something back home that is unique and special,” he says.

– Tyson Ho writes about the importance of mentors – barbecue and otherwise – in his latest blog for Serious Eats; he also spills the beans on the origins of the name Arrogant Swine

(If you’re wondering, the name came about when we were trying to find a pig-based url for my website. A whole hog joint needs a pig name, and url squatters had most of them. I tried every color pig.com, every variant spelling of hog, all to no luck. Then one day I walked past a poster for a beer called the “Arrogant Bastard Ale.” I wondered if Arrogant Swine was available, and it was, so that became my name.)

– Smoke Modern Barbeque is a new barbecue restaurant in Huntersville from Charlotte restaurateur Dennis Thompson, who is involved in Firebirds Wood Fire Grill and Bad Daddy’s Burger Bar; it opened on Monday

– …aaaand they already have a second location planned, slated to open in July in Ballantyne

– In more expansion news, Queen City Q is opening a second location in Matthews

– Sad news out of DC, as barbecue legend Mr. P (originally from NC) was taken off of life support earlier this week

– TMBBQ goes deep on best naner pudding in Texas, though I disagree with their assertion on NC naner pudding – its been served cold everywhere I’ve ever been

First, though, let’s talk about what unifies banana pudding in Texas. That’s temperature. If you venture over to North Carolina, it’ll come piping hot and covered in meringue, but in Texas it’s served straight from the fridge.

– JC Reid from the Houston Chronicle talks about the importance of wood and smoke (via TMBBQ)

– In other Texas barbecue news, The Dallas Observer is looking for a barbecue writer

– Smoky Oak Taproom, a Charleston barbecue restaurant with an impressive tap list, to open a location in Florence, SC

– Want to win a $100 gift card to The Pit Durham?

Johnson Family Barbecue – Durham, NC

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Name: Johnson Family Barbecue
Date: 11/22/14
Address: 5021 Wake Forest Hwy, Durham, NC 27703
Order: Barbecue tray with slaw and hush puppies (link to menu)
Price: $7.50

Johnson Family Barbecue is located at the end of a gas station strip mall, which was a first for me. But a welcome first – in fact, I was excited for this very fact. But there were a couple of other things to be excited about. Their motto is “It’s All About the Wood.” The dining room was about 4 tables covered by the red and white gingham table cloths . The smokehouse, if you can call it that, was an aluminum shed covering a smoker surrounded by a chain link fence. It was all very delightful looking.

Johnson Family cooks over wood (specifically hickory), which is what drew me to it in the first place. Since I had already eaten lunch a few hours earlier and was looking for just a snack, a barbecue tray was the perfect size. A few short minutes later a small tray of barbecue, three hush puppies, and slaw was brought out.

The eastern-style pork had smoke but lacked bark, which of course is normal for eastern-style barbecue. And there was a higher ratio of white meat to dark, which initially led me to believe they might be cooking whole hogs. I later found out that not to be the case, but I suspect there may be more than just the shoulders being smoked. The chop was a little coarser than I prefer, but the pork was moist and flavorful and though it didn’t require the table vinegar sauce, adding it enhanced the pork. The hush puppies were freshly cooked orbs of cornmeal and the slaw was mayo-based. Basically, everything was pretty solid. My buddy who got a takeout plate mostly agreed as well.

Johnson Family Barbecue is on Highway 98 between north Raleigh and Durham, a stretch of highway I had not been down before, and turned out to be quite a nice little find. With the ever-increasing tendency to smoke barbecue over gas or electric, it was nice to find a small, family-owned, self described “hole in the wall” joint that is still putting in the work to create a good product.

–Monk

Ratings:
Atmosphere/Ambiance – 4.5 hogs
Pork – 4 hogs
Sides – 4 hogs
Overall – 4 Hogs
Johnson Family Barbeque on Urbanspoon
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Linkdown: 11/26/14

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– The Pit beats out NC State University in The Triangle Business Journal’s Battle of the Brands for Reader’s Choice

– Downtown Charleston is getting yet another barbecue joint, this time with Irish pub Egan & Sons coming back as a barbecue restaurant (under a new name) complete with a new smokehouse to be built out back

– I missed this back in the summer, but Home Team BBQ (currently with Sullivan’s Island and West Ashley locations) is also expanding to downtown Charleston

– Billy Durney, pitmaster of Hometown Barbecue in New York, to consult on a Los Angeles barbecue restaurant for Mendocino Farms

– Boone’s Bar-B-Que sauces are now available at Savory Spice Shop in Charlotte

– Ohio-based barbecue chain City Barbeque plans to open another triangle location; in addition to their Cary location they are opening a location at Southpoint Mall in Durham

– Jim ‘N Nicks and Dinosaur Bar-B-Que are forming a partnership for the purest of barbecue ideals – “to leverage their buying power, consolidate labor costs and grow both companies”

– A flattering review of the Flat Rock Wood Room, just outside of Asheville

As for what comes out of that 250-degree wood-fired pit, well, I can only gush. Ordering a half rack of their St. Louis style ribs, I carefully narrowed my sides down to wood-smoked mac and cheese and collard greens. While the mac and cheese was plenty cheesy, it proved to be fairly standard with minimal wood smoke. The collards, on the other hand, had plenty of flavor and a slight sweetness.

– Barbecue Rankings recounts his “barbecue odyssey” in Feast Magazine

I began my barbecue odyssey on October 22, 2013, at Pappy’s Smokehouse in St. Louis.  I was nervous as I met owner Mike Emerson and tried to act as if I knew something about barbecue.  I have always considered myself a casual barbecue fan, but the truth is that I knew very little about regional nuances, barbecue history, smoking practices and the way restaurants work before setting out on this project.  I didn’t prepare much before setting off on my journey – I wanted to learn from the people working the pits day in and day out, not the so-called experts.

– Christmas is right around the corner

Ed Mitchell’s Que – Durham (RE-REVIEW)

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Name: Ed Mitchell’s Que
Date: 9/4/14
Address: 359 Blackwell St, Durham, NC 27701
Order: Speedy: Carolina Baby Back Ribs platter with fries, collards, and Pork Slap Farmhouse Ale; Monk: Chopped whole hog BBQ platter with collards, mac and cheese, and Mother Earth Weeping Willow (link to menu)
Price: $45

Monk: Ever since Speedy checked out Ed Mitchell’s Que back in May, I’ve been looking for excuses to make it to Durham myself. Our annual trip to the Hopscotch Music Festival afforded a great opportunity to do exactly that on our way into Raleigh (you may recall we had previously checked out Allen & Son, The Pit Raleigh, and Hursey’s during Hopscotches past).

Speedy: As this was my second trip, I knew what to expect when walking in, but I did get a pleasant surprise when the man Ed Mitchell himself was sitting at the bar. Honestly, I was a bit awe struck, so Monk and I let the man be for a bit while we got down to business.

Monk: I knew that I had to try the whole hog barbecue, Ed Mitchell’s speciality, so that was a no brainer. In his lone wolf review of Que, Speedy let it slip out that he actually likes eastern style just as much as Lexington style. At the time I found it to be a little blasphemous, but tasting Ed Mitchell’s whole hog barbecue has definitely changed my thinking that much more. It was perfectly moist and had just a hint of spiciness. Not a ton of bark, which is to be expected in whole hog barbecue, but the pork was really smoked to perfection.

Speedy: I can’t say much about the whole hog that I didn’t say before except to say that it was just as good this time around. Consistency can be difficult to achieve in the barbecue world, but with a pro like Ed Mitchell, it was a non-issue.

Monk: I think the takeaway here is that when you have a master working his craft – be it at Wayne Monk at Lexington Barbecue, Rodney Scott at Scott’s Bar-B-Que, Aaron Franklin at Franklin Barbecue or John Lewis at la Barbecue – regional styles shouldn’t get in the way. Just sit back and enjoy the deliciousness – and I certainly did on this trip.

Speedy: I didn’t have the ribs last time I was at Que and noticed they’ve since been renamed “Throwdown ribs” to pay homage to Ed Mitchell’s smack down of Bobby Flay. The ribs came out with a light glaze of sweet western style sauce and were seriously meaty. They were cooked too well – tender enough to come off the bone easily, but not so tender that you can’t get a good bite. The flavor was quite good. If I had one complaint, it’s that the western style sauce is slightly sweet for my taste, but it didn’t stop my from cleaning off my share of bones.

Monk: Speedy and I went splitsies with our meals since they don’t do combo plates, and these were the largest baby back ribs I’d ever seen at a restaurant. And as Speedy said, they were quite tender. The sides were scratch made in house and I didn’t taste anything wrong with either my collards or my mac and cheese. The collards were fresh and perfectly cooked while the mac and cheese was great. At this point, I haven’t tasted anything wrong with Ed Mitchell’s Que.

Speedy: I agree, Monk. Sometimes, as a world-renowned blogger (we are that, aren’t we?), I feel the need to find something negative to say about any place that I eat, but when treated to an amazing meal, sometimes its best to just sit back and enjoy it.

Monk: On his first visit, Speedy initially toyed with a 5 hog rating before eventually backing off to a 4.5 hog rating. We were having a very similar conversation as we wrapped up our meal this time around too. As we got our check, Ed Mitchell himself came around to check to see how things were and to make sure we enjoyed our food. Naturally, we took the opportunity to snap a quick photo with the legend (posing with his portrait and “The Pitmaster” from the back wall in the background at his insistence). And I must say, Ed was extremely gracious and kind, thanking us for coming in. In the car, Speedy and I discussed more and decided that Ed himself was reason enough to go with a 5 hog rating. Because if that kind of hospitality from the owner and pitmaster (in addition to his amazing food) isn’t reason enough to up the overall rating, I don’t know what is.

Ratings:
Atmosphere/Ambiance – 4.5 hogs
Pork – 5 hogs
Ribs – 4.5 hogs
Sides – 4 hogs
Overall – 5 Hogs

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