Hazel Green Bar-B-Q

Quest Log No 59 – Hazel Green Bar-B-Q
Hazel Green, Madison County

Although BBQ is a serious affair here in the south, usually there is also some mild eccentricity involved. Typically, the quirkiness revolves around pigs, with all kinds of statues, posters, photos, metal and neon signs displayed in the restaurant.

But if there is a ten foot long smoker in the backyard that has pig’s ears, nose and eyes out of metal attached to it - that is the definition of eccentric quirkiness.

And that is what I found outside of the Hazel Green Bar-B-Q. It actually fits very well the rustic atmosphere of the restaurant, which is built in a kind of pseudo-log cabin style. Inside, there is a big room with only four tables with two chairs each, which are metal patio furniture out of the home improvement store. The window we were sitting at had just a fly-net and no glass in it, the ceiling was covered with old tin plates, and the floor looked like the victory circle of a NASCAR speedway, with black stains all over it. Most of the business, from Friday to Sunday only, is done as carry-out, so I guess there is no need for more places to sit down, or better furniture, or a non-stained floor. So, it is very rustic, but also very clean.

As usual, I had the pork plate with three sides, potato salad, baked beans, and slaw, and my wife had the brisket with baked beans and slaw. The plates come with a slice of white untoasted toast bread, and we both had sweet tea, which comes in 16oz plastic bottles from Milos. For all that, we only paid about twenty bucks, which is a very fair deal in regards of the amount of food you get.

The quality, however, was no reason for jubilation.

They claim that all sides are home made, and I truly believe that. But that in itself is no guarantee that the taste is something special. In this case, the potato salad and the baked beans were rather pedestrian, taste-wise. Not bad, don’t get me wrong, but if it says “homemade” my expectations are a bit more demanding. The slaw, on the other hand, was kind of sweet, but with a spicy note in it. Very interesting, very tasty.

The pork was a bit oily, and had some fat in it, but it was very tender and had a deliciously smoky aroma. While one sauce comes with the plate, I allowed myself the luxury to add a second kind of sauce for a small amount of money. I chose the mustard based Sweet’n’Spicy and the tomato based Kansas City BBQ Sweet. They also have a white sauce and a vinegar based Hot and Spicy sauce.

I must admit that I have a soft spot for mustard based sauces. Mustard and pig just naturally belongs together in my culinary world, and while this variety here was not bad at all, the mustard aroma was too strong for my taste. Give the sauce a hint of mustard, make it the key note in the aroma, but don’t let it take over the show. It was just too much, almost like pure mustard. And the Kansas City style sauce was just boring, a concoction with no outstanding features besides its sweetness.

My wife’s brisket also had a very nice smoke flavor and was very tender, too. But about half of it was pure fat, and while fat certainly is a carrier of flavor, it is also not very healthy and too much of it should be avoided. She had the white sauce with it, which we will deny vehemently if the BBQ police ever get wind of this sacrilege. The sauce is a thin mayonnaise and vinegar based concoction with, again, no outstanding features.

In summation, I liked the rustic but very clean environment, and also the price was very good. The food had some highlights in the slaw and the flavor of the meat, but also had too much fat in it, and the other sides and the sauces could use some re-work. No bad BBQ here, but also certainly not one of my go-to places.

O'le Dads Barbeque

Quest Log No 37 – O’le Dads Barbeque
Hazel Green, Madison County

The Alabama Mountain Lakes Tourist Association publishes a guide called “North Alabama Barbecue Trail”. Of the 16 BBQ place featured in there, I have visited only seven. Well, I might need to expand my coverage beyond the three counties of Madison, Morgan, and Limestone eventually. But do I really need to travel to Cherokee or Boaz for good BBQ? We have about sixty BBQ places in those three counties mentioned above, and I am struggling to visit each of them – which is still my goal - as it is. And quite frankly, there aren’t many BBQ restaurants outside this area that are really worth driving two hours for. We are truly blessed not only with a fairly high density of BBQ joints here, but also with some of the best BBQ one can imagine. The quality at the top is just amazing, and even the average restaurants are usually better than what you can find elsewhere.

So then, the seventh of those restaurants mentioned in the brochure, which I visited during my quest was O’le Dads Barbeque in Hazel Green.

My large pork plate came with three sides – potato salad, vinegar slaw, and baked beans. Also, you have the choice between a roll and three hushpuppies. Well, what choice? Exactly.

The meat was tender, with a very distinctive but not overbearing smoke flavor. It was also quite moist, which lets me think that maybe a liquid of some kind was added to keep it from drying out. Thankfully, it was not oil, which would have given me the cramps (see The Main Dish for reference). I am not a great purist, and since the pork was very tasty and the meat, while more moist than it probably should have been, was not soggy or flabby, I don’t want to make a big fuzz out of it.

The baked beans had some meat in them and were not sweet at all – very good.

The potato salad, on the other hand, was a bit blah, basically your standard on the sour side tasting mayonnaise-based concoction without any outstanding features.

And the slaw was of the sweet variety, which I personally don’t fancy that much. All sides together, however, with the meat and the hot sauce on it, generated an amazing taste experience. Sweet, sour, peppery, smoky, plus the different textures – amazing.

Oh, and the hot sauce is really hot. It is a simple vinegar based pepper sauce with some kick – and a very attractive orange color. It might even glow in the dark.

The mild sauce is just a standard thick brownish-reddish sweet’n’spicy sauce – you can grab one of those at the next supermarket.

So then, we come to the absolute highlight of the meal – hushpuppies. Three of them, fresh out of the fryer, each the size of two golf balls.

In my humble opinion, and in my wife’s expert opinion, these are the best hushpuppies on this planet (sorry Greenbrier Restaurant, you just lost that title …).

Crunchy on the outside, fluffy yet firm on the inside, with a perfect golden color and not too sweet - just the way hushpuppies were intended to be.

Dip them into the remnants of the baked beans sauce and this is better than any dessert.

For all of that, times two because my wife had the same meal, plus a large cup of sweet tea and a can of soda, we paid just under sixteen bucks - which is a more than good deal in my mind.

Of course, there is the drawback that for this you have to drive out to Hazel Green, the well known center of the universe. But the place is very easy to find, it sits right at the very busy US Highway 431/231. Most people get their BBQ as carry-out, which clearly has its reason in the fact that the dining area of O’le Dads Barbeque is half a dozen tables in a screened porch at the front of the building. The porch has no air condition, but features the lovely background soundtrack of speeding eighteen wheelers, ambulance sirens, and general heavy traffic.

It is not the homiest place you can imagine, but surely one of the most authentic you can find. And the food more than compensates for that little nuisance.