Monk: We previously featured Food YouTuber Mark Wiens when he traveled to Lexington and Pitt County in eastern NC. For this video, he stops outside of Charleston, SC for a backyard barbecue featuring chicken, pork, ribs, collards, and hash, a South Carolina specialty dish.
Description: CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA – We’re just outside Charleston, South Carolina, and on Sunday, I was invited over to my friend John Haney’s (alveronbbqco8462) house for a real deal southern barbecue. It was an incredible experience, watching John and bbq and all of his side dishes including collard greens and the greatest bbq mac n cheese you’ll ever have.
Additionally, in South Carolina is the only place you’ll find hash, a mixture of all the pig bits including the face made into a stew. There’s ketchup based hash and mustard based hash, and we had a full lesson on South Carolina hash.
John Haney (Alveron BBQ) makes the best bbq grills in the United States all hand made – so definitely hit him up: (alveronbbqco8462) and he also one of the greatest legends of American bbq.
Huge thank you to John and his family for hosting my family and I on this amazing Sunday meal.
Monk: Sam Jones and his pitmaster Lindsay Bortle – who can cook a hog just as good as Sam, according to him – take Eater’s Smoke Point through the process at his Sam Jones BBQ restaurant in Raleigh.
Description: Carolina barbecue legend Sam Jones comes from a long legacy of cooking a whole hog, with his grandfather, father, and uncle all coming before him. At his no-frills restaurant, Sam Jones BBQ, he and his team preserve their tradition of cooking whole hog, chicken, turkey, and more.
Name: Seoul Food Meat Company Mill District Date: 10/7/23 Address: 421 E 26th St, Charlotte, NC 28205 Order: Hickory pulled pork, brisket, beef rib bao bun slider, baked ram and cheese, doenjang collard greens, fries (link to menu) Pricing: $$$
Monk: Seoul Food Meat Company opened their second Charlotte location in the “Mill District” near NoDa and Optimist Park roughly one year ago in October 2022. That location in a former industrial part of town allows them to spread out a little more than their original South End spot, and they’ve taken advantage with a huge patio that includes a splash pad, playground, and dog park in addition to their large restaurant that includes 5 karaoke rooms.
On a nice day, its certainly a destination-type place where families, dog owners, and childless millennials and zoomers can spend multiple hours. That is certainly the hopes of the owners, between Seoul Food and the Urban District Market food hall just across the greenway.
In terms of the barbecue, I found both my pulled pork and the brisket lacking. The pork had some smoke on it but did not taste fresh. But even with its shortcomings, it was far more palatable than the brisket.
The brisket was covered in a ton of their house barbecue sauce, which I would describe as an Asian fusion barbecue sauce. This covers up the poor trim job of the brisket, and if you flip over the slices of meat you’ll see that a good portion of each slice is unrendered fat. Quite unappetizing.
The Asian fusion dishes I tried were more successful than the barbecue. The beef rib bao bun slider was again slathered with the house barbecue sauce but was a satisfying bite. The baked ram n’ cheese is a ramen noodle take on mac n’ cheese and while the youngest Monkette did not take to it (no huge surprise there) I ate it up.
The collards were labeled as “doenjang” which apparently is “a type of fermented bean paste made entirely of soybean and brine.” That did not come through in the bland, nearly flavorless collards.
If I’m back at Seoul Food Meat Company Mill District enjoying a nice day on their patio, I’ll be leaving the barbecue dishes alone and exploring more of the Asian fusion in the forms of the bao buns, Korean fried wings, or tacos.
Monk: I recently stopped by The Barbecue Center in Lexington for the first time in a few years for a lunch with the Monk clan. Here was my experience in photos.
The barbecue tray with red slaw is the classic order.
A basket of fresh hush puppies comes with every tray or plate order (the plate comes with fries as well).
I wandered around the building to check out their wood pile for the first time, and this was just a couple of the piles of wood right off the smokehouse.
Another view of the stacked pile against the building.
There’s a couple different styles of signs on the property, and this is one at the far end of the parking lot along N. Main Street.
The Barbecue Center is my second favorite barbecue restaurant in town behind Lexington Barbecue and this was yet another great lunch. For my full rankings, check here.
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