I had lunch this afternoon with some cohorts from work at the shiny new Brickhouse BBQ. Results:
1) Pulled pork sandwiches were good. I'd prefer mine to have the slaw on the side next time instead of on the samich itself.
2) One friend had the beef brisket/Brickhouse rib combo plate with black-eyed pea succotash and collard greens. He thought the succotash had a paucity of black-eyed peas and that there wasn't enough pork fat in the greens. Worse, the brisket didn't taste like it had been smoked while the ribs were, in his estimation, from yesterday with sauce slathered on to hide it.
3) My mac & cheese was mediocre. The sauce needed salt but wasn't bad otherwise. However, someone there needs to figure out how to cook pasta al dente because the noodles were mush.
4) I asked for hot sauce and was given Sriracha. Why was I given Thai hot sauce at a BBQ joint instead of Tabasco or some other cayenne-based sauce?
5) The BBQ sauces were more tangy than sweet and so get high marks from me. The vinegar sauce was especially tasty.
I'll likely be sticking to Smokey Jon's or Papa Bear's.
ADDENDUM: The place only serves sweet tea. My buddy ordered an iced tea and got sweet tea. Furthermore, he was told they do not have unsweetened tea. Unfortunately, the waitress did not inform him of this.
My barbecue benchmark is the pulled pork sandwich. Slaw served on the sandwich is a perfectly orthodox move, as is slaw on the side. I'll check this place out, but if I've learned anything as an expat Southerner, it's that the Northern Southern barbecue experience is generally disappointing. Your tea tale is a case in point. In the South it would be extremely gauche not to serve both sweetened and unsweetened iced tea, or, as they're known in the parlance, sweet and unsweet. (No need to say tea.) "Do you have sweet?" "No, just unsweet." "Then I'll have a Coke." "What kind?" "Sprite."
ReplyDeleteI didn't mean to say that slaw on the sandwich was unorthodox - simply an issue of preference.
ReplyDeleteWhen I spent time in the South I was always asked if I wanted sweet tea or unsweet.
As soon as I wrote that I regretted my tone. I didn't mean to come off so pedantic. Sorry.
ReplyDeleteOh, no worries. I expect a Southerner to be pedantic when it comes to Southern food. I'm sure I'd be pedantic to someone from the South when it comes to brats. :)
ReplyDeletePlease let me know the results of your visit.