Non-Quest BBQ No 44 – Harry & Larry’s Bar-B-Que
Winter Garden, Florida
During my occasional travels, I
try to sample BBQ at those near and far away places outside the Quest area. I
just really, really like that stuff ...
My experience after now three years of working on the Quest
is that BBQ places in North Alabama are on
average better than anywhere else I go. Once in a while you find a jewel also
in other areas, but they are few and far between. Because my job involves
frequent trips to Orlando,
I had the opportunity to try many BBQ restaurants there over the years. I found
many that are easy to forget, and only two that are up to par with the best
ones at home - Yellow Dog Eats in Windermere, and Bubbalou’s Bodacious Bar-B-Que
in Orlando.
Today, this short list received a new entrance - Larry & Harry's Bar-B-Que in
Winter Garden.
A hole in a wall – seldomly has this expression described
the actual situation better than with Harry & Larry’s. Winter Garden is a
town of about 35000 people some fifteen miles northwest of Orlando. The historic downtown has been
beautifully restored and today contains an assortment of restaurants, shops,
and cafés, a couple of museums and a performing arts venue. And, of course, a
BBQ place, which you might miss driving by, because it is hidden behind a big
old tree that covers almost the entire front. Immediately after you enter the
place, you stand in front of a counter where you exchange your money for a card
out of a poker deck that is sitting in a metal base. This you carry to your
table and place it there, so that the server can identify who gets what. The
dining room itself is a long narrow tube with five simple red wooden booths on
each side. The decoration consists of several old signs for food and drink
products from an era long gone, a large print of the place’s name, and some odd
wooden birds. It is one the most cozy atmospheres I ever found in a BBQ place.
Also, the staff is extremely friendly and nice, and if you want to, you can
even sit outside on the boardwalk on a couple of iron garden tables and eat
your Q.
Although it was 86 degrees in the middle of December, I
chose to dine inside. As usual, I had the pork plate, which came with two sides
– baked beans and fries in my case – and a slice of Texas toast. Unfortunately, they did not
have potato salad, but I do not hold that against them, because nobody is
perfect.
Nevertheless, the baked beans were almost perfect. There
were two kinds of beans in it, Pinto and Red Kidney, with a good helping of
smoked meat. Top notch. Very savory - maybe a bit more sweetness could have
improved the taste - and with a smoke aroma you would not believe. That of
course came directly from the meat – the pulled pork had a very distinctive
smoke aroma, a perfect pink ring and an intensive BBQ taste straight out of the
BBQ bible. Marvelous. The pork was pulled, but came in big chunky pieces, and I
had a lot of very tasty bark on it. It was very tender and juicy, without being
mushy. Unfortunately I also found a few pieces of fat, but due to the coarse
cut of the meat, it was easy to spot and remove them. A little bit more
diligence when pulling the meat would have prevented that.
They have five sauces there, of which four are of the thick
red variety, in different stages of hotness. Nothing special there. But the
fifth sauce is something else. It is mustard based and has just the right
spiciness to make your mouth tingle when eaten on the Texas toast. Together with the smoked pork
it is just BBQ heaven.
All this wonderful food has its price, though – over
thirteen bucks for the plate with a fountain drink is not cheap. But it was
surely worth every cent.
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