Southern Style Bar-B-Q

Quest Log No 67 – Southern Style Bar-B-Q
Decatur, Morgan County

This was on my list for forever, but somehow I never got to go there – had I known how good their BBQ is, I hadn’t waited so long. Maybe it was my dislike of drive-through BBQ places that kept me away – I just hate to juggle a BBQ tray on my knees and spill sweet tea all over the seats. Well, Southern Style Bar-B-Q has some rough wooden benches to sit in front of a window for walk-up orders. But seriously, me sitting on a cool Alabama summer day in 100-degree weather outside, battling flies, heat, and the sun, I don’t think so. So I bit the bullet and ate my pork plate in the car – since it was a rental, I really did not care that much about spills and such.

The meat was very tender, lean and borderline mushy. The flavor was almost perfect, with a very pronounced but not overwhelming smoke aroma. There are huge piles of wood behind the building, so that is clearly where the flavor comes from. It is supported by a no frills basic vinegar-pepper sauce. As sides I had potato salad, which was a bit on the bland side, and baked beans, which were very reminiscent of the stuff you get out of supermarket cans. Nothing special here, but the meat was righteous BBQ pork if ever there was such a thing. All in all a typical southern BBQ place – like the name says.

Moe's Original Bar B Que

Quest Log No 66 – Moe’s Original Bar B Que
Decatur, Morgan County

We already have two Moe’s in Huntsville, and now they also have one in Decatur. And in a very posh location, too – directly adjacent to the wonderful Princess Theatre in the revived downtown area. The restaurant is a place with a very hip atmosphere, with high tables with bar stools, a big cut-out window in the front, a porch with tables, flat screen TVs all over the place and so on. Since the new-ness has not worn off yet, the good people of Decatur are coming out in droves – I arrived there a little after 11 AM, and half an hour later people were desperately looking for a place to sit. By then, I still waited for my hushpuppies, which I was told “were being taken care of”. The pork stuffed potato I had ordered was long gone by then, and son enough so was I  - without ever having seen one hushpuppy.

The pork on the potato was very tender and lean, but clearly not wood-smoked, but kind of slow-cooked. The BBQ sauce they use is kind of funky tasting, a bit sour and not really sweet - it is really hard to describe, but certainly not how I like it. Also, it is kind of pricey there – well, I guess they somehow have to collect enough money to pay for all this posh-ness.

Smokey C's BBQ & Wings

Quest Log No 61 – Smokey C’s BBQ & Wings
Decatur, Morgan County

Do you judge a book by its cover? I must admit, I’ve been doing this once or twice. So what do you expect how a real BBQ place with Killer-Q has to look like? A raggedy old shack with no windows on a lonely country road, a sleek brick house with neon signs in Downtown, a nondescript store with a hand-written menu on a black board in a strip mall, a wooden palace with hunting trophies on the walls on a busy highway, or a burger-chain look-alike in an industrial area? The correct answer is, of course, all of the above. Been there, ate in that. There just is no telling what kind of BBQ you might encounter when you stand before a restaurant – the only way to find out is to go in and try it. I’ve been surprised more than a couple of times, negatively as well as positively, during this quest.

So, what’s so special about Smokey C’s BBQ & Wings in Decatur? The building looks like any given fast-food-chain restaurant in the country. The patrons are mostly recruited from the workers of all those industrial plants on the west side of the town. It is situated next to a gas station at the Alabama Highway 20, which is quite a busy road in this area.  Inside the building, there is not much decoration on the walls, and the reddish-pinkish plastic furniture does not exactly qualify it for a title story in Southern Living.

You order at the counter right next to the entrance, where you have the choice between the usual selection of meats - pork, turkey, ribs, chicken, you know the drill. You can have the meat either on a sandwich, which comes in two sizes, or on a plate with two sides.

Guess what – I chose the large plate with 6 ounces of pulled pork (4 ounces would be the regular size), potato salad and spicy mustard slaw. The plate also came with a piece of cornbread, and together with a fountain drink I forked over just slightly over eight and a half dollars. Very nice price, but what kind of food can you expect for the price of a fast-food-chain burger meal?

As said before, never judge a book by its cover, always sit down and smell the roses. What can I say? I am a fan now.

The meat looked like Killer-Q, with a wonderful pink ring and some serious bark. And the looks did not lie - its flavor was perfectly smoky, with just the right amount of burnt wood flavor to make it special. I rarely had pork that was as juicy and tender and lean all together like this one. Real exquisite stuff.

I was really reluctant to pour any sauce over it, but eventually I did – starting with the hot and spicy one. Big mistake. One bite and my mouth was numb for a minute or so. Definitely too hot for my taste, so I switched to the one labeled BBQ sauce. Oh, well, that was your garden variety sweet’n’sour concoction, thick and red and, ahem, a little sweet and mostly sour. Not bad, but I would have wished for a simple vinegar-pepper sauce to just support the smoky meat flavor without giving it a totally different direction.

The potato salad on the other hand could have used a slight re-direction into a more distinctive aroma. It was not exactly bland, but also not very flavorful. Which cannot be said of the spicy mustard slaw – that thing gave me a kick in the pants, yessir! The mustard aroma was very prominent, and by gosh, spicy it was. But unlike the spicy BBQ sauce, it did not numb my taste buds, but left a very pleasant tingling sensation in my mouth. At the end, I used the excess sauce from the slaw for the pork, instead of the BBQ sauce. And the tiny rest, I scooped up with the cornbread, which had a very bread-like flavor with just a slight hint of sweetness. I’ve had cornbread before that was more like a sweet pound cake than real bread, but not this specimen, and actually that is how I like my cornbread.

All in all, although from the outside and also on the inside, Smokey C’s BBQ & Wings is nothing special, their food is top notch. And next time I’ll bring my wife – she is the wings expert in our family.

Hickory Stick Bar-B-Q

Quest Log No 55 – Hickory Stick Bar-B-Q
Decatur, Morgan County

On the outskirts of Decatur, there is a shop where you can buy an almost life-size metal elephant with a big red Bama-A on it. It does not get any more southern than this. Well, maybe a notch or so more when you step into the BBQ place next to it and have some pulled pork.

The Hickory Stick Bar-B-Q is in an unassuming square building, and the inside too is rather unspectacular. About a dozen or so tables in a big room with black, white, and red chairs, and red or blue tablecloths, with rolls of paper towels on them plus a bottle of vinegar BBQ sauce – the basic necessities are all there, including some BBQ and pork themed wall hangings. This is not the coziest atmosphere, but it will do if the food is good.

And good it is. I had the large pork plate with potato salad and slaw, and a side order of hushpuppies, and together with a sweet tea that set me back a little more than ten bucks.

The pulled pork was moist and lean, although not the most tender meat I ever had. It was not really chewy, but could have been a bit less resistant. The flavor, on the other hand, was beyond any doubt very articulated and had a wonderful hickory aroma. Together with the very basic vinegar-pepper sauce, which was more sour than spicy, it made for a wonderful taste experience.

The slaw was also on the sour side, with the vinegar-based dressing having just enough spices in it to produce a well rounded aroma. The potato salad was very tasty, too, but reminded me of a product I once had bought in a supermarket. No biggy here, not everybody is a potato-salad wizard, and to acknowledge one’s limitations is usually better than trying and bringing an inferior product to the table. Or, if it really was made from scratch, then kudos for achieving a well rounded middle-of-the-road taste.

But now, I have to talk about the hushpuppies. Very crunchy on the outside, just moist enough on the inside to not fall into a gazillion crumbs when cut in half, with a nice corn flavor with only a very subtle sweetness – some of the best hushpuppies I ever had.

So, if you ever drive through Decatur and see an elephant with big red Bama-A’s on its sides, stop and take a picture. And then go a few steps to the side and have some good Q at the Hickory Stick place. It does not get any more authentic then this.

Whitt's Barbecue, Decatur Spring Ave

Quest Log No 54 – Whitt’s Barbecue, Decatur, Spring Ave
Decatur, Morgan County

Now, there is only one Whitt’s Barbecue left on my list. And although they are all very similar, they are not the same. Some have a smoking unit, others have not. Some have (limited) outside seating, others have not. Some are quite picturesque, others not so much. But the quality of the BBQ is uniformly the same, and differs only by nuances.

Whitt’s Barbecue on Decatur’s Spring Ave has a very sizeable parking lot in front of the building, with two red metal benches on it. If you don’t mind to share your meal with some nasty fat black flies, you can sit down there and eat. Otherwise, park your car at the parking lot, or drive home and eat it there.

I chose to try out the fresh-air version, which meant to have one hand constantly hovering over the Styrofoam box to shush away those flies.

As usual, I had the pork plate, which comes with slaw, baked beans, and potato salad by default. With a regular drink, I paid not even nine Dollars, which is a good deal.

The meat was tasty, although not really in a smoky-kind of way. It also was a bit soggy, but tender and lean. With the simple vinegar based peppery sauce that comes with the plate, it was quite good.

The sides were good, too, without being earth-shatteringly outstanding. The rather neutral tasting potato salad and the plain tasting beans are comparable to something you could pick up in a super market. The slaw came with a quite sour vinegar dressing and was the best of the three sides.

I would rank Whitt’s Barbecue as plainly in the middle of the BBQ-road – nothing special here, but good quality Q at a very reasonable price. Or, as I already said before – a better tasting and healthier alternative to your typical burger joint.

Red's BBQ & Diner

Quest Log No48 – Red’s BBQ & Diner
Somerville, Morgan County

Change is the only constant in life. Well, that and death. But let’s not get too depressed here, let’s talk about the ever changing landscape of BBQ places in North Alabama.

One observation that I have made lately is that we are getting more and more chain restaurants here. Lawler’s just opened their sixth satellite station in Madison, Moe’s has expanded into the Village of Providence in Huntsville, and there is even a new franchise in town, Shane’s Rib Shack.

Also, there is also a new non-franchise restaurant on Winchester Road, with the somewhat weird name of Blackjack and Things BBQ.

Special cases are restaurants that just change their name and owner. That, of course, also constitutes a new entry in my list, so my quest is not getting easier, and the list of BBQ places to visit has actually grown again in the last couple of months.

One of the latter category is Red’s BBQ & Diner in Somerville, which was, until October 2012, the Jailhouse BBQ – one of the top restaurants on my list.

I was curious, of course, to find out whether the new owners could maintain the quality of the food, the special atmosphere of the place, and the superb service of their predecessors.

So, I went there today, amidst a few snow flurries, to have a look – and a bite to eat.

The first thing I noticed was that now this place has more consumer-friendly business hours then before. They are open seven days a week, from 11 AM to 9 PM, which is a big improvement over the former, which was only open at some odd hours on weekends.

The second thing that caught my eye was that on the outside, only the sign with the place’s name on it had changed. Also, the dining room was virtually unchanged. They have a little wood fired furnace and some electrical heaters in there now, which came in very handy today with the temperatures hovering around the freezing point. They also have two small flat-screen TVs in the corners now, which takes away a bit of the unique atmosphere the old place had. Who needs that in a BBQ restaurant? If I want to have some entertainment, I just chat with the staff – they usually have more intereting things to say then the TV anyways.

Speaking of the staff, the service was also first class, very friendly and attentive, like in the old restaurant.

So, now on to the food. My suspicion is that they not only bought the place from the old owners, but also their recipes with it. I just read what I wrote about the Jailhouse BBQ’s food, and decided to basically recycle it – with a few minor changes.

I had the large pork plate, with potato salad, baked beans, and slaw on the side.

The pulled pork was utterly flavorful, with a perfect mixture of meat and smoke aromas. Although it had a small amount of visible fat, it nonetheless was very tender and had just the right amount of moisture. Although the meat really did not need any sauce I poured some of their red concoction on it, which was besides a very tasty peppery and sour white sauce, the only sauce available. Fruity aroma, no spiciness, just a good sweet BBQ sauce.

The potato salad, also home made as everything else on the menu, was nothing short of phenomenal and is the best I ever had in a restaurant here. Only my wife and my mother make a better potato salad, but this here came very close. Mayonnaise based with a very refreshing sourness, a hint of mustard and dill.

The slaw did not disappoint me as well, being of the sour-without-sweet variety, but in comparison to the meat and the potato salad, it does not quite play in the same league.

The large plates come with a third side, but the baked beans were nothing special. Without any hint of cinnamon, which is a clear plus, but still with some nice sweetness to them, they could have come out of a can – which would then be a very nicely picked can.

So, is the new place as recommendable as the old one? Definitely. I even have Red’s BBQ and Diner ranked one place higher then the old Jailhouse BBQ – because the potato salad was a tiny bit better, and the meat too. The old owners apparently knew what they did, and so do the new owners. And I am glad to report that, despite the somewhat less than inspiring new name (quite frankly, there are not very many names that could beat Jailhouse BBQ …), they still have a Top 10 address for really good BBQ in Somerville.

 

Big Bob Gibson's Bar-B-Q (Danville Rd)

Quest Log No46 – Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q (Danville Rd)
Decatur, Morgan County

After I visited Big Bob Gibson’s main restaurant on Hwy 31 in Decatur in June 2011, I was very disappointed by the quality and taste of the food, and somewhat taken back by the in-your face display of their national notoriety, and of all the fabulous medals and prizes they have won for their sauces, which have an ingredients list that is as long as the Old Testament.

My conclusion was that we had better places for BBQ here in Northern Alabama. Lots of them.

Well, it took me one and a half years to make it to the other place Big Bob has in Decatur, on Danville Road. And I am glad to report that this visit ended in the partial redemption of this franchise.

First of all, the building does not scream “tourist attraction” from a mile away. It is a rather unassuming barn-style house, with rough wooden walls and a rather sober atmosphere inside. A few framed articles about Big Bob Gibson’s coverage in the media over the years is the only decoration, there are a couple flat screen TVs in the corners, and the rather spacious eating area has some booths and some wooden tables. Nothing fancy here, all very functional, no frills.

You order at a counter and wait there for your food to be prepared. I chose the pork and white chicken meat combo plate, with potato salad and baked beans. No slaw this time, because I still remembered vividly the train wreck that was the slaw at the other place.

My wife took the rib plate, with baked beans and slaw – a decision she regretted as soon as she spotted the alien-green heap of mushy cabbage on her plate.

We both took a small bite of the slaw and almost spit it out – disgusting. The texture was that of mushy grits and the taste was that of raw cabbage with some artificial sweetener in it.

The baked beans on the other hand were quite edible, although we both almost got into an argument out of what can they had come. The potato salad on the other hand was very creamy and had a refreshingly neutral taste. I can live with neutrality in potato salad, as long as it is not totally bland, which it wasn’t. It was creamy.

But now to the most important aspect, which led to a partial redemption of the devastating judgment from 2011.

The pulled pork was very tender and lean, and a bit on the dry side, which I don’t mind. That way, it soaks up the sauce better. And here, they had not only the famous supermarket-tested, award winning, endless ingredients list sporting red and white sauces on the table, but also a somewhat beaten plastic bottle with a simple spicy vinegar and pepper sauce. That stuff had a good kick to it, and was the perfect companion to the real nice smoky taste of the pork. And, it did not contain any of the chemical compounds of the other stuff.

The chicken, all white meat, was also a bit dry, but nevertheless very tender and receptive to the pepper-vinegar sauce. And the skin was just sublime – a heavy smoke taste with some crunch to it.

Also, the ribs my wife had tasted extremely well, with just the right amount of smoke aroma. They were not of the fall-off-the-bone variety, but firm and yet tender and succulent. My wife ranks them within the Top 5 of ribs she had in the last two years.

So, except for the just so-so or even disgusting side items, everything peachy in Big Bob’s Land?

Not quite. Please do yourself a favor and do not chose either the sweet or the unsweet tea for a drink – stick with the stuff that comes out of the soda machine. The tea has a very nasty aftertaste, especially the sweet variety. It kind of tastes as if they brewed it with water from the kitchen sink. Just nasty.

So, while this experience was clearly better than that we had in 2011 at the restaurant on Hwy 31, I still consider many other BBQ places a better choice. If they would fix the side items, and the nasty tea, this judgment might have to be revised. But until then, I think a little redemption is better than nothing.

Dirt Road BBQ & Grill

Quest Log No 38 – Dirt Road BBQ & Grill
Decatur, Morgan County

As I was driving to Dirt Road BBQ & Grill on the Beltline in Decatur today, a strange scene caught my eye. There was a pig and a blonde chick standing by the side of the street, frantically waving at the passing cars.

I stopped and asked, "Where did you get that?"

The pig said, "I won her in a raffle!"

No, this is not an entirely true story, just a very lame blonde joke, based on an actual pig-and-blonde-chick sighting. They were trying to entice drivers to stop at the restaurant for lunch. But besides me, I did not see anybody follow this siren song. Well, since I had planned to eat there anyways, so that does not count either. Bummer.

My wife and I visited the original Dirt Road BBQ in Trinity about nine months ago, and since then a small franchise was born. The newest addition to the Dirt Road BBQ family is this new restaurant on the Beltline in Decatur, which opened in August 2012. Its middle name is “Grill”, which describes the general focus of this establishment pretty well – think “Sports Bar”, and you are not far off. They even have Karaoke nights.

The restaurant is situated at the end of a strip mall, next to some optical shop. The exterior is dominated by a very large sign with the name on it. The interior is your typical family restaurant/sports bar layout, with the exception of about half a dozen booths on side that are made out of raw hewn wood planks. The original location in Trinity has more charm, but as a franchise concept I guess you have to streamline some things.

So I entered one of the booths, got my free sweet tea (they not only have Karaoke nights, but also free tea Fridays …) and ordered a Junk Yard Dog and a Turkey Sandwich.

Wow, wait a second – what happened to pork, potato salad and slaw, you might ask? Well, I invented this new rule that whenever I go to a different restaurant of the same franchise, I have to try something else then before.

Hence, the dog and the sandwich today, because last time I had the pork plate, comprende?

The Junk Yard Dog is a mess. I didn’t even try to eat it using only my hands – I would have looked totally stupid trying to tame the massive amount of stuff piled on that bun. A six inch long sausage with the diameter of a football (okay, that may be an exaggeration …), a very healthy helping of pulled pork, topped of with the special Dirt Road BBQ sauce and two handfuls of shredded cheese. Oh, and two pickle spears that were buried underneath the sausage.

I am not ashamed to testify here that I used a fork to partition this heap of meat, cheese and bread.

It says on the menu that the Junk Yard Dog is the favorite of Jason, the Pit Boss. I can understand this, because it is really good. But you have to make sure that with each bite you get all of the ingredients. The sausage alone is very mildly seasoned and kind of bland. Thankfully, it is also not fatty at all and the texture is surprisingly exquisite. The pulled pork is lean and tender and has a very nice smoke flavor. The cheese is the typical cheddar you find everywhere, and the pickles are … pickles.

The special BBQ sauce is much too sweet for my taste, without any zing to it. But together will all the other stuff, it makes for a very harmonious yet interesting taste. The sweetness of the sauce, the sourness of the pickles, the smokiness of the pork – never thought that this would work so well. Personally, I would probably exchange the cheese for some fried onions – then this Dog would possibly be sensational. As it is, I would rank it as amazing right now.

So, after this heap of food, I was surprised to not being filled up, but that I had some space left for the Turkey Sandwich.

Two thick slices of smoked Gobbler, some slaw and white sauce, all on a standard bun. The turkey was very well smoked, with a superb flavor, but unfortunately a bit on the dry side. The slaw was of the “let’s shred the cabbage into microscopic pieces” variety and has a sweet’n’sour taste, which dominated the whole sandwich, and I really didn’t taste the white sauce at all.

But don’t get me wrong – although the slaw flavor was quite overwhelming, the sandwich was tasty and at the end, when I reached some bites with only the turkey with a little slaw left on it, it was actually very good. The smoky flavor of the turkey came through quite nicely, which was overlaid by the slaw before. A little less of that, and this sandwich would actually have potential.

Well, I am no expert of the restaurant business, but I think we might see the beginning of a success story here. Yesterday Trinity, today Decatur – what’s next? I hear that Birmingham could use some good BBQ restaurant …

Homestyle Bar-B-Que

Quest Log No32 – Homestyle Bar-B-Que
Hartselle, Morgan County

Conventional wisdom, or maybe just wishful thinking, or even only good advertisement, says that Decatur is the BBQ capital of the World. You know, with all the Trophies, TV appearances and the sauces you can buy at your local Kroger store.

Well, not so fast Paula Dean – your buttered-up gravy train obviously never made a stop in Hartselle. Granted, this lovely small town of fourteen-thousand people is just a few miles south-west of the big town, and might look like an outskirt of Decatur from thirty-thousand feet above. But here on the ground, where we mere mortals try to live and survive a certain TV personality’s onslaught of so-called “southern cooking” on TV and in books that uses fat and sugar as its main ingredients, it is a whole different vista.

There are three BBQ places in Hartselle, which gives this town a decent ratio of 1 BBQ per 4700 people (just for comparison, the numbers have been calculated by using data available on the Internet: Huntsville has 1 BBQ per 12800 people; Decatur has 1 BBQ per 6200 people; Madison has 1 BBQ per 5700 people; and Athens has 1 BBQ per 4000 people). What stands out here, though, is the uniformly great quality of the BBQ – all three serve top notch food.

And the third and last place on my list turned out to have the best food of the whole bunch.

Homestyle Bar-B-Que has been in business just next to the Jet-Pep gas station at I-65 Exit 328 since 1996. It is strictly a drive-through establishment, but there is some adjacent space nearby where you can park your car and eat your food in peace and quiet.

As usual with such a typical southern setting, the friendliness and cordiality of the owners is just refreshing every time.

Since I was very hungry, I ordered the large pork plate, and my question about what sides they had to choose from, I got the answer: “Don’t worry, it comes with everything”.

Which meant potato salad, baked beans, slaw, and two rolls. Together with the large portion of pulled pork, it was a huge amount of food. To say it forthright, I was not able to finish all of it, regardless of how badly I wanted, because it was so very good.

My wife also ordered her usual, a slab of ribs, but was told that due to the extra effort of smoking ribs, they would only have them on the weekends. Oh well, then how about a chicken plate? Sorry, dear, the chicken is not ready yet, was the answer (we were kind of early, close to 11 AM). Well, but the turkey is done and is sure is yummy.

So, turkey it was – and of course, it also came with everything described above.

We parked the car in the shade of some trees at a little gravel spot near the BBQ, and dug in.

The pork was lean but succulent, very tender, with a wonderful smoky aroma to the superb pork flavor. That meat clearly ranks very near the top of all pulled pork I’ve ever had. Also, the turkey was of the same mold, and amazingly it was not dry as it happens so often with that meat, but is had a very nice moisture to it.

The potato salad, always a critical piece for my wife and me, because we both come from a tradition of great potato salad makers, was made with yellow potatoes and mayonnaise, with little pieces of egg and pickles. The flavor was wonderfully creamy and balanced, with just a hint of tartness.

The baked beans had meat in them, which is always a good sign, and just the right amount of cinnamon to give it a little kick. They were not very sweet, more on the savory side of the flavor spectrum.

The slaw was very fresh and crunchy and made with just the cabbage, vinegar, salt and pepper. It was straight sour, without any hint of sweetness, and a refreshing change to all those standard sweet-sour slaws.

For the sauce, you have the choice of mild and hot – I opted for the hot one. It was a creamy red concoction with an underlying fruity tomato taste and with some well rounded peppery spiciness. Not too hot, just the right kick in the butt to get the best flavor out of the pork.

My wife had the white sauce with her turkey, which was predominantly on the sour side, and really quite the only part of the meal that did not find our unreserved applause.

Everything else was just outstanding, and for just under twenty-one bucks, with two sweet teas, it was a phenomenal deal.

Surely, we need to come back one weekend to try the ribs. Good thing that Homestyle Bar-B-Que is located just next to the Interstate, which makes it a short thirty minute drive from our home – to the new BBQ capital of … my world. 

Jailhouse BBQ

Quest Log No31 – Jailhouse BBQ
Somerville, Morgan County

From 1819 until 1891, Somerville was the county seat for Morgan County. Back then, it had a cotton gin, a cabinet maker, a law office, two hotels, a college and a male academy.

The old courthouse from 1837 is still standing there, and also the former jail building.

But the cotton gin, shops, hotels, and colleges are long gone and today this little town is home to about 350 people – and one killer BBQ place.

Located in the vicinity of the old jail, in what appears to could have been an annex of the jail back then, it oozes old southern charm and hospitality.

When I arrived there, I could only spot a walk-up window on the porch as the means of getting BBQ. Well, I thought, it surely is a most beautiful spring day, and I would not mind at all taking my lunch on that porch, which has a handful of wooden tables with benches on it.

So I approached the walk up window, where the owner took my order. After I answered his question “for here or to go?” with “for here”, he asked me if I not rather wanted to sit in their dining room. Well, sure, I would be delighted. So, said the man, come around, I meet you half way.

So I left the porch, trotted around the small backside of the building and sure enough, there was a tiny handwritten sign that pointed out that there actually was a dining room.

And what a splendid room that is – all wooden walls on three sides (the fourth side next to the kitchen is of corrugated metal), wooden ceiling, a ceramic tile floor, wooden furniture (about half a dozen tables for four), nicely decorated with old pictures and signs, with some whimsical pieces of BBQ culture (meaning pig sculptures …) sprinkled in.

And the people in there, the owner and his serving help, are just so nice and friendly people that one might think that by entering that dining room, you might step through a door back in time, to those better old days 150 years ago.

I ordered my usual pork plate, with potato salad and slaw on the side and was regaled to an almost perfect BBQ lunch.

The pork was chopped and utterly flavorful, with a perfect mixture of meat and smoke aromas. Although it had a small amount of visible fat, it nonetheless was very tender and had just the right amount of moisture. I probably ate half of it right away, until I remembered that I also probably should try the sauces. Quite frankly, the meat did not need any sauce, so I poured just a tad of the thick brownish-red sauce on it. Fruity aroma, no spiciness, just a good sweet BBQ sauce. The other sauce is based on vinegar, but also with no spiciness worth mentioning it is just sour. Mixed together it provides a very nice conglomerate, but as said before, using this with the formidable meat is not a must at all.

The potato salad, also home made as everything on the menu, was nothing short of phenomenal and ranks in the Top 3 in that category. Mayonnaise based with a very refreshing tartness, it complements the BBQ meat perfectly.

Also on the sour side, the slaw is certainly very tasty as well, but in comparison to the meat and the potato salad, it does not play in the same league.

Usually I shy away from having dessert in BBQ places, because that is generally not their area of expertise. But this time, after the waitress assured me that the lady who makes the pies for them knows what she is doing, I ordered a lemon pie.

Should have ordered two pieces – very fluffy, with distinct lemon flavor, not too sweet, just great.

For all that, including an unlimited supply of sweet tea, I paid a bit over twelve bucks. And another fourteen bucks for one of their T-Shirts (it has a pig behind bars on it … you got to have that if you are a BBQ person …).

So, this place is surely a cut above most of the rest, and the only drawback is that they are only open for business from Friday ‘til Sunday. Well, that and the fact that Somerville is not exactly a place where you could do any other business, recreation or just would hang around for a while, and then go to lunch at the local BBQ. Once you have seen the old courthouse, and maybe the new post office, you are done there and need not come back. But for that kind of BBQ experience, I would travel there for that sole reason. 

Pig Stand Bar-B-Que

Quest Log No30 – Pig Stand Bar-B-Que
Hartselle, Morgan County

When you Google “Hartselle, BBQ”, there are two places that show up. But there is also a third place that somehow does not register with Google – Pig Stand Bar-B-Que. This is rather unfortunate, because this place is way above your average BBQ joint, even by the lofty standards we here in North Alabama are accustomed to.

My wife and I spotted this place when we drove home from a visit to beautiful downtown Hartselle, on Highway 31 towards Decatur just outside of town. And I came back two days later to check it out.

With its red roof that resembles a barn, white windows and brick walls, the building looks very country-esk. Inside, there is a window in the wall where you order, pay and pick up your stuff, and right next to it is a white board where you find the daily specials. The red checkerboard vinyl floor and the red chairs and alternating red and white tables have a distinctive 1950s charm. The dining room furniture seems to be fairly new and everything is well maintained and spotless clean. It is a very nice atmosphere to dine in, brightly lit through the big windows at the sides, and there is space for maybe thirty people to sit.

As usual, I ordered the pork plate – large this time, because I was really hungry – which comes with the three sides of slaw, potato salad and baked beans.

The pulled pork was very lean and tender, a bit on the dry side, but the taste was just wonderful. It was a very well balanced combination of meat flavor and smoke aroma and clearly was one of the best BBQ meats I ever had.

There is really no need to pour sauce over it to enhance the flavor, but since they have them on the table, I just tried them.

The red thick dark red/brownish sauce is very fruity and somewhat spicy. The clear vinegar based pepper sauce is not exactly sour, but tremendously hot. There is clearly more than the standard black pepper in it, and I thought that I saw some red chili flakes in there too. Mixed together, I ended up with a rather spicy conglomerate, which was still very spicy, but was more to my liking than those two sauces by themselves.

As for the sides, the killer here is the BBQ beans. Very savory, not really sweet but with some actual meat in them – that is the way you do beans!

Unfortunately, the potato salad was going in the same direction, with a distinctive bacon taste – not my favorite, I like the sour variety better.

That I had with the slaw, which marinade was vinegar based and quite sour, yet with a strong hint of sweetness.

All together, the mixture of hearty, sour, smoky, and sweet flavors of the meat and the sides works very well together and lets Pig Stand Bar-B-Que stand out of the crowd. Too bad that Google, and so I guess the rest of the world, does not find the place. But take my word for it and drive there when you are in the neighborhood – sometimes, having to share such a great place with the world isn’t necessarily a good thing. 

Southern Hickory Barbecue

Quest Log No29 – Southern Hickory Barbecue
Hartselle, Morgan County

There ain’t no inside seating, just a few old weather beaten benches in a little nook just next to the walk-up window to the side of the building. There is a big spacious drive-up lane that leads to the drive-in window, though. This place, Southern Hickory Barbecue in Hartselle, is clearly geared towards the pick-up crowd.

There are two more Southern Hickories in Arab and in Cullman, and I wonder if they have inside seating there.

But it was such a gorgeous April day that my wife and I thoroughly enjoyed our lunch at the porch. Two months farther along in the year and our enthusiasm might be vanishing a bit on the prospect of having lunch under the baking Alabama summer sun.

As usual, I had a pork plate with slaw, potato salad, and baked beans, and my wife had a slab of ribs with the same sides.

The pulled pork was just great, very tender and very lean and just with the right amount of moisture, and the taste was very hickory-y. There is really no sauce needed to enhance the flavor, but it also don’t hurt if you sprinkle a bit of the peppery vinegar sauce it comes with on the meat, because the added spiciness gives the meat an additional aroma. That is how you do BBQ the right way, let the meat stand on its own merits and make the sauce optional for those of us who need an additional kick in the butt.

My wife’s ribs were also very tender, but not especially lean with some fat on it. Well, the taste was good, but certainly nothing to exchange the pulled pork for it.

We both thought that the baked beans were of the open-a-can-variety, but at least there was no cinnamon in it.

The slaw was sweet and vinegary-sour, whereas the sweetness dominated too much for both our taste. The potato salad was of the yellow-mayonnaise kind and also sweet and sour, but I found it to be deliciously on the sour side, whereas my wife was not really satisfied with the taste, which she found to be too sweet. She generally does not like sweetness in her potato salad – it’s a cultural thing, where she comes from the potato salad is tart and sour and never with even a hint of sweetness.

One very special item was the rib sauce. It was extremely fruity, with a good amount of spiciness and tasted not like anything we ever had in the BBQ sauce area. It seemed to have an Asian influence, and could even have such exotic aromas as Mango or Papaya in it. Anyway, whatever it is, it goes fabulously with the ribs.

A bread bun and a couple of pickle slices complete the plates.

For all this, plus two sweet teas (what else …?!) we paid about twenty one bucks. That is certainly not very cheap for a place with no inside seating, no table service and Styrofoam to-go containers as plates. But the quality of the food justifies the prices, and on a beautiful spring day, there is no better place to have your lunch in Alabama.