Lawler’s Barbecue Express #1 (Whitesburg Drive)

Quest Log No 45 – Lawler’s Barbecue Express #1 (Whitesburg Drive)
Huntsville, Madison County

The last Lawler’s on the list of BBQ places in the Huntsville-Decatur Combined Statistical Area that I hadn’t visited yet is the one with the 1 as the sequence number.

It is located right next to a gas station, in a small building that it shares with the gas station’s office.

It has a drive through, and also a small but relatively cozy space to sit inside with about half a dozen tables. The furniture is wooden, the walls are decorated with some fishing related posters and plaques, and everything is in good shape and the whole place is very clean, with a health score of 99 out of 100.

Of course, after already visiting the other four Lawler’s Express Barbecue restaurants, the menu has no surprises for me anymore. The only item I did not try yet was the ham plate. And with that I chose the BBQ beans and the potato salad as sides, just because I didn’t feel like going with green beans and chips.

Unfortunately, my order was screwed up a little, and instead I got a combo plate with pork and turkey, plus a cup of ham on the side when the mistake was discovered.

Well, that was a lot of meat and really more than I had intended to eat.

And so I only ate some pork and some ham, and just a little bit of the turkey.

The ham did not taste real smoky, and it did not have even a remote BBQ aroma. It was just baked ham, very tender and kind of mushy, but also very sweet. I like the savory version of ham better, and I kind of expected the flavor to go in this direction, because of the hickory smoke it should have been smoked in.

Alas, it was just so sweet that I had to pour a mixture of the hot and the mild vinegar sauce over it to make it tolerable.

Also, the pork and the turkey seemed to have been of lesser quality than I remembered it. Here too I could not detect a real smoky aroma – I had better at other Lawler’s.

So, that concludes the Lawler’s part of the Quest – until they open Number 6 at the new Madison Hospital sometime in the next few weeks.

Whitt's Barbecue (Marion St)

Quest Log No 40 – Whitt’s Barbecue (Marion Street)
Athens, Limestone County

There are two Whitt’s Barbecue places in Athens, and after visiting the one on Elm Street, my wife decided that we should go to the other one, on Marion Street, as long as we were in the city. That was fine by me, for I can eat BBQ more than once a day without any problem. Her motivation to go to the second place was pure scientific curiosity – would they have the same quality?

Well, when we pulled up in the parking lot, that question was answered immediately – since the place on Marion Street does not have a pit of its own, they apparently get their meat from the place on Elm Street, which has a pit.

So much for the quality comparison then.

We decided to get a sandwich there anyway. I took a Turkey sandwich, and my wife had a Beef sandwich – with all the fixins’, lettuce, pickles, mayonnaise.

Additionally, my wife had half a pint of potato salad, because she only got a few scoops before on Elm Street, and she really liked it.

My Turkey sandwich was not bad, but it also was not a real BBQ sandwich. If there was any smoky flavor to the turkey, it was overlaid by the taste of the pickles and the mayonnaise. Don’t get me wrong, it was still a very good sandwich, but not really a very good BBQ sandwich. Maybe a white sauce instead of the mayonnaise, or less pickles, or both would do the trick.

And my wife was downright disappointed by her Beef sandwich – slow cooked, she said. No BBW flavor, plus the dominance of the mayonnaise and the pickles. A very good sandwich, but not if you expect at least some BBQ flavor.

Anyway, if I had the choice between a Burger joint and Whitt’s, the latter would win most of the time. And since there seem to be no other halfway decent lunch places around in the Marion Street area, I can absolutely understand that this place was overrun by people when we were there.

But again, as with the place on Elm Street – no way I would drive there 30 miles in a snowstorm.

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 …

Moe's Original Bar B Que - Providence Village

Quest Log No 33 – Moe’s Original Bar B Que
Huntsville (Village of Providence), Madison County

All Moe’s are created equal. We now have two of those in Huntsville, but if you know one, you already know the other, too.

The one in Providence Village is brand new, just opened two weeks ago or so, and has the same general layout as the other one – a sports bar where you can eat BBQ. Flat screen TVs in every corner, bar stools along the windows, loud music from the 1960s to the 1980s, metal frame tables and chairs, unpainted wood columns for decoration – you get the picture. Only at this here in the swank new Village, they don’t go overboard with the Tide paraphernalia.

Since we already had their pulled pork and ribs the last time we visited a Moe’s, and since all Moe’s should pretty much adhere to the same quality standard, my wife and I decided to go poultry this time.

So, we had the chicken and the turkey, with baked beans each, potato salad for me and Brunswick stew for her as second sides.

Wait a minute – Brunswick what??! Yes, stew. Hmm, although it was very tasty, with lots of meat and potatoes in it and some very laid back spiciness, I couldn’t help but wonder if my lovely spouse would not be stricken down by a bolt of lightning at any moment. Brunswick stew after April 1^st … that is almost as sacrilegious as putting white sauce on ribs.

Well, the BBQ gods exacted their revenge swift and promptly, by letting us choose the turkey. Which came sliced, drenched in sauce, with a very prominent layer of fat on the outside and virtually no taste at all. Cardboard. Okay, tender cardboard. Still, no taste. Even the sauce did not help much here, although by itself this condiment is one tasty conglomerate.

They just shouldn’t pour it over my meat without asking me first.

And of course, the chicken came drenched in it, too.

It was half a bird, squeezed into one of their little cardboard trays, which made it a pure mess to eat.

However, it was very succulent and tender, with a very nice smoky flavor. We just shared it and left the turkey untouched after the first initial bites.

Good thing that we did not have to share the beans, too, because those were also very tasty. Lots of meat in it, with a very well rounded sweet aroma, and no discernable cinnamon in it.

The mayonnaise based potato salad was as neutral tasting as the last time, with lots of fresh, raw veggies like onions and celery in it.

With each plate, you also get a slice of rather dense cornbread, which tasted okay to me, but my wife did not like the sour aftertaste. That sourness did not appear in my piece, so I am guessing that the cornbread-making process lacks some homogeneity.

Just for kicks, we also had fried pickles as starters – which arrived after the lunch plates were already at our table. Although the taste was fine, we only could eat just the top layer, which was crunchy and firm, whereas the bottom layers got more soggy and spongy the deeper we dug.

For all that and two drinks, we paid almost twenty seven bucks, which is not cheap and also not a good deal if you take the quality of the food into account. I guess it serves us right – having Brunswick stew on April 27^th just has to provoke some negative cosmic effect.

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. 

306 Barbecue

Quest Log No20 – 306 Barbecue  
Athens, Madison County

When a friend of mine told me that there is a new BBQ place on Highway 72, just outside of Athens, I was thrilled. I had noticed some activity lately in the old building, but always thought that was more or less in preparation to tear it down.

Well, now it hosts Madison County’s newest BBQ restaurant, so naturally I had to go there as soon as possible.

The 306 Barbecue is open now for about a month and it all began like so many BBQ businesses around here – a few friends regularly did BBQ at local High School football games for a few years, then they entered their first competition and did well there, next they put the big new smoker they purchased for the competition to good use at a local car show, and ultimately the idea to open a restaurant of their own was kind of stuck in their minds.

Good thing that due to the shaky economic environment empty floor space around here is easy to find and cheap to have. I really do not know exactly what business had been in the building before, but a withered street sign in one corner of the premises could give you the idea that it was some kind of antique mall or novelty shop.

The 306 has its own big and colorful street sign up, and that is also necessary, because the building alone would not reveal its new purpose. As inconspicuous as it is on the outside, it is also very unassuming inside. Everything is spotless clean, but it has no atmosphere whatsoever. The walls are empty, except for a few TV screens in the corners, there are no pictures, license plates, sports banners, or anything which would give the place a “face”.

The furniture is folding chairs and folding tables, and only the counter seems to be custom made and has a little bit originality with its front out of corrugated metal.

But I am willing to overlook many flaws in the interior design department, if the food is special.

Because I was very hungry, I ordered the 2-meat combo, with turkey and pulled pork, and with potato salad and slaw on the side. My wife had the ribs, and because they were out of baked beans, decided for the slaw and the squash instead.

When the meal was served, I was shocked – the turkey came in slices! Are we in Orlando here, or what?! I made a mental note to call the State BBQ police later …

But the pork was pulled, and it was delightful. They obviously know exactly what they are doing when it comes to smoking pork. It had a very rustic smoke flavor, with a hint of sweetness that I had not tasted anywhere else before. Together with the quite tangy and somewhat sour sauce, it was just the perfect combination. For this, I would come back here anytime.

Alas, there was also the turkey. Not only was it sliced, but it tasted predominantly salty and was an utter disappointment. Also, my wife’s ribs were very fatty and the taste was merely average, but at least they were of the so-tender-it-falls-off-the-bone variety.

The sides were also a mixed bag. The slaw was actually tangy and fresh tasting, with a sour note and a very nice crunch. And although the potato salad was not bad, it was also not more than average tasting. However, the squash, which was actually a concoction made with egg and cheese, was wonderful.

So was the red sauce – they have only that one at the table, plus a very good white sauce, as well.

As I stated before, very seldom have I encountered a sauce that complements the pulled pork so perfectly as this one.

Prices are in the normal range for BBQ in this area, we paid twenty-four bucks for everything, including our drinks, which is okay also for the amount of food we got.

The meals are served on those compartmentalized Styrofoam plates, with plastic forks and Styrofoam cups.

We also noticed that the sweet tea was not brewed fresh, but was replenished by those gallon plastic jugs you can buy at your local supermarket.

All that, and the lack of adornment on the walls, makes the eating experience there a somewhat ambivalent affair. This restaurant, through its great location on one of the busiest Highways around here, and their undeniable expertise and mastership of pork smoking, could be a raving success. But the lack of atmosphere and the comparatively lower quality of the rest of the food they serve prevents it to rise to my Top 10 list for now.

But they are doing this only for a month now, and the learning curve is certainly steep. And those flaws are easily fixable, so we will be back some time to check on their progress. Even if nothing changes, at least I know that I will get fantastic pulled pork there.

Whitt's Barbecue (Decatur)

Quest Log No9 – Whitt’s Barbecue (Decatur)
Hwy 31, Decatur, Morgan County

Besides the well known Gibson Empire of Big Bob and his family, there is another dynasty around here that could lay claim to the title “BBQ Barons of Northern Bama”.

Several branches of the extended Whitt family own restaurants in Decatur, Athens, Moulton, and Ardmore since 1966. Non-Whitt-family owned franchise-restaurants are also found nowadays in Tennessee and Kentucky, but even those are family owned, by branches of the Dean family.

All of those Whitt’s Barbecue places are drive-through only, which is kind of a novel idea for a BBQ restaurant, because this kind of cooking is not usually associated with fast food here in the south, and even all those ubiquitous Burger joints let you sit inside to eat their chow. I don’t mind eating in my car once in a while, but quite frankly this is not my preferred method of food intake.

One of the main ingredients of BBQ is the wood that is used for cooking the meat. Hickory seems to be the almost unanimous choice around here, and Whitt’s also uses it. Another very important factor is how long the meat is cooked, and here recipes vary from a few hours to several days. At Whitt’s they do it for 24 hours, and they claim that by “Using a special basting sauce, the succulent juices are cooked into the meat”.

I can vouch that at least for their turkey, this is a true statement.

The Turkey Sandwich I had was the best of that variety ever – very succulent meat, with nice hickory flavor, topped with quite sour, vinegar based slaw and some mayonnaise. Great taste, very nice texture, just awesome in one word.

It came in their just-under-seven-Dollar-with-taxes lunch box, together with a small cup of potato salad, a small cup of baked beans, a giant cookie and a large soda, which I think is a very fair deal.

As good as the Turkey Sandwich was, they lost a lot of style points for the sides. The potato salad tasted somehow moldy, and baked beans were of the rip-open-the-can-and-throw-it-in-the-microwave variety. I ate all the beans, but absolutely could not bring it over me to have more than a couple of bites of the potato salad.

The oatmeal raisin cookie on the other hand was quite good and a very completion to the meal.

Well, if I ever crave Turkey again, I now know where to go. And since they have quite a few restaurants strewn over this area, there will certainly be an opportunity in the future to try out their pork plate, too. I just hope that I can substitute the potato salad with chips, because that is the only other potato based side they have on their menu. And because I would have to eat in my car again, or drive at least 15 miles to eat it at home, I will probably only try a Whitt’s once more - unless their pork is as succulent and tasty as their turkey.