Cracker Barrel

Non-Quest BBQ No 4 – Cracker Barrel
Madison, AL

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 ... 

I know, I know – Cracker Barrel ain’t a BBQ place. And that’s why I list them under the Non-Quest topic, to be fair. But they are serving a BBQ brisket plate there, so of course I needed to check that out, right?!

Everybody here in the South knows Cracker Barrel, of course. It is a big restaurant chain that serves you good southern cooking on a mainstream level, but nevertheless, while it may not be the original finger lickin’ home cooking of your great-aunt Bobbie Sue, it is still in a different league than those ubiquitous Burger joints and “Family Sports Bar Restaurant” thingies.

They also have a store in each restaurant, where you can purchase all kinds of neat stuff, like John Deere Christmas ornaments, College Football Team memorabilia (Roll Tide!), Quilts, Candy and Condiments.

So, there I was, having a Country Brisket Plate at Cracker Barrel – “…slow cooked hickory smoked beef brisket slices on Texas toast. Comes with a side of sweet BBQ sauce, thick cut steak fries … and a sampling of cole slaw …”.

Well, it wasn’t bad at all, and for a mainstream restaurant, it was downright exceptional. The brisket was very juicy and tender, and it had a real nice hickory taste, and just a small amount of fat. I would not rank this at the top of the crop, but it was clearly much better than I had expected.

And in combination with the very garlicky Texas toast, it actually soared to culinary heights never reached by such a mainstream joint before. You really do not need the BBQ sauce with it, which is a good thing, because the sauce is not as sweet as advertised, but rather on the sour side. And that does not complement the brisket on the toast too well for my taste. Don’t get me wrong – the sauce in itself is not bad, but for this particular brisket I would have chosen a more sweet and tangy concoction.

As for the sides – the slaw is a bit watery in all its mayonnaisy glory, but I certainly had worse and though it would not hold a candle to the top dogs in a stand-alone competition, it certainly complements the brisket real well.

And the fries are just that – fries.

So, was it worth the ten bucks with a drink (take the raspberry lemonade, if they have it …)? Although the portion itself was not very generous, the quality of the food was real good, so I guess that is a fair deal. Another bonus is, that in being a chain restaurant, certain sanitary standards apply – no flies on the window sills, for instance. On the other hand, the big dining room is not the least bit cozy or authentic. But the food is served on real china, with actual metal silverware – a far cry from the Styrofoam plates and plastic utensils in most real BBQ joints. But that, a real BBQ joint, Cracker Barrel ain’t – and the very decent brisket plate they serve ain’t gonna change that anytime soon, too.

Chuck Wagon BBQ

Quest Log No17 – Chuck Wagon BBQ
Madison Boulevard, Madison, Madison County

Chuck Wagon BBQ in Madison is a bit different, in many ways.

First of all, it is Texas style BBQ. Yes, they have pork, but their specialty is brisket and sausage. You order at a carving station, where the owner will carve the meat before your very eyes, measures the weight on a scale that has a very visible sticker “Made in the USA” on it, then puts it on a plate and gives it to the guy who puts the sides on it. In the meantime, the owner has discarded the excess juices from carving the meat into the bowl with the BBQ beans. Yeah! That’s how they freakin’ do it in Texas!

Needless to say that the BBQ beans are the very best I ever had – not only does the meat juice go in there, but there are also real big chunks of beef in it, too. Yeah! Or Yippieh, or Yeehaw, or whatever they do in Texas when something is really outstanding.

And that is true for the potato salad, which is, of course, home made, too. It is of the mayonnaisy variety, but has a nice sour note to it. Oh, and one more thing about the beans, which are the owner’s great-grandfather’s recipe and are cooked campfire-style over the wood fired grill – unlike many around here, these do not have this overwhelming cinnamon taste, but have a very strong meaty flavor instead. Yeah! Yippieh! Yeehaw!

But enough of the sides - although those alone would make it worthwhile to go there. But if you decide to pay a visit, arrive early. They open at 11 AM and usually by that time a line has already formed that wraps around the place two or three times.

The restaurant itself is rather small, it holds maybe half a doyen tables for four in the main room and maybe a few more tables in the adjacent expansion room. That room was apparently attached after the word about the beans got around and the place was overrun by the masses.

The interior decoration is very authentic for such a joint. Wooden tables and chairs, a few very small booth-style tables in the back, plastic table cloths, wooden walls and floor, a few Western-style decorative items – nothing fancy, nothing special, just homey and kind of snuggly.

Outside of the building there is a big trailer - it looks like one of them horse trailers – where the meat is smoked, Texas style. That means that the fire never touches the meat, so that only the smoke cooks the meat. Which is, kind of, the way we all do it here in Bama anyway … any other way would be just uncivilized and not real BBQ, am I right?! Thought so.

Usually, I would have pulled pork, but this time I decided to go with the brisket instead. It just looked so fantastic when the owner prepared it for the lady in front of me, and plus it is really their staple, so I decided to break with tradition.

Didn’t regret it for a second.

The meat was moist, very tender, extremely tasty, with a hint of mesquite wood, and with just a little fat on it. There is really no need to pour sauce on it at all. But if you must, they have two kinds – mild and hot, which are of the dark red, thick, tomato-fruity variety. The hot sauce is a bit more spicy than the mild sauce, but it is really not that hot at all, it just has a nice kick to it, that’s all.

You have to grab a small cup and fill it with sauce when you get your plate after it is loaded up with the sides, so no sauce drowning orgies at the table here. Which is okay, because - really, trust me - you don’t need the sauce. Well, maybe to dunk the toast that comes with the plate in it.

There is also the special Chuck Wagon Sandwich that is not on the menu – just ask for it. This comes with two meats of your choice, and whatever your second meat might be, let the first meat be the smoked sausage. I heard that there are people who came back several times to try out any possible combination with the sausage.

With a drink – you can buy a can of Soda, no glasses or cups here – the brisket plate cost me about thirteen bucks. Not really on the cheap side, but the quality of the food, the fantastic taste, the BBQ beans (Yeah! Yippieh! Yeehaw!), and the really nice atmosphere at the Chuck Wagon BBQ makes this a very fair deal.

Remark (23 April 2013): The now also have a killer white sauce, a killer vinegar-pepper sauce and a über-killer mustard based sauce. If this is not heaven ...

Floyd's Barbeque

Quest Log No16 – Floyd’s Barbeque
Pulaski Pike, Huntsville, Madison County

The food is dirt cheap at Floyd’s Barbeque on Pulaski Pike in Huntsville, my small pulled pork plate with two sides was a bit over five Dollars. And the folks there are friendly.

Right now, after mentioning all the good things there, I should probably stop. Because unfortunately from now on, it ain’t gonna be pretty anymore.

Floyd’s is a drive-through/walk-up joint only. There is a rather bumpy and worn out driveway from the main street, which wraps around the equally worn out blue building, leading to the window where you order, pay and get your goods.

The menu is typical southern BBQ stuff, pork and turkey, slaw and potato salad, baked beans and sandwiches, and all is real cheap, too.

So is the quality of the food. The meat was soggy and mushy, with lots of fat in it and although the taste was not even too bad, I only had a few bites before my stomach would raise the white flag.

Each plate comes with some yellowish concoction that rather mysteriously is called “cole slaw”: That; it definitely ain’t. It tastes like nothing else I ever tasted and not at all in a good way. I refuse to even try to describe the taste, because the memory of that small bite I took is still painful.

It was probably a good thing that they were out of potato salad, so I chose two helpings of baked beans as sides instead. Those were of the out-of-the-tin-can variety and thus the least revolting thing on that plate.

No, I stand corrected – the toast that came with the plate was actually not too bad, either. So, this can end now on a positive note after all.

Hickory Barn Bar-B-Que

Quest Log No15 – Hickory Barn Bar-B-Que
Highway 72, Between Athens and Rogersville, Limestone County

If you happen to drive on Highway 72 between Muscle Shoals and Huntsville, go there. Well, even if you are somewhere on I-65, near exit 351, go there. In fact, when you are on I-65 in Mobile, drive to that exit near Athens, and go there. Heck, if you are on the Jersey Turnpike, turn around and go there. Just go there, where ever you are.

Because “there” is, where Bill Davis cooks. No, he is not the caped superhero BBQ-Man, nor is he the fat bellied demi-god of serene BBQ, and he is also not the winner of the last installment of American BBQ Idol. He is just an ordinary guy who won the Jack Daniels “Shade-Tree cook-off” Grand Championship in 2006, and now owns a little BBQ joint at Highway 72, like there are so many in this neck of the woods.

He calls it Hickory Barn Bar-B-Que, I call it the Big Rock Candy Mountain BBQ.

It is not a big place, with sitting accommodations for maybe forty people or so – if those people don’t mind to share their personal space with other folks.

The furniture consists of a few of those combined wooden picnic table/bank units, with red and white plaid plastic tablecloths that have oversized ants printed on it. The sauces are stored in old soft drink six-pack containers, and the plastic tableware is in a small tin box on the table, where you will also find a roll of kitchen paper towels.

Sounds rustic? You bet.

This rustic atmosphere is even more amplified by the wall decoration, which consists mainly of old car license plates. My wife liked the one that says “SAMPLE” the best, I thought that the plates with “BBQ” in some form on it were the most interesting.

Other tings you might spot on the walls and on the ceiling are old Coke vending machines, a plush armadillo, campaign signs of local sheriffs, and all kinds of other stuff one might pick up at garage sale or two.

Nevertheless, the place is spotless clean – they got 97 points out of a possible 100 at their last health inspection. No dead flies on the window sills here, and yet the authenticity of this place and the wonderful atmosphere it exudes, intensified by the background music of classic Country and Western, Blues, Southern Rock, and the Englishsouthern redneck language that is spoken there is unmatched.

And then there is the food. Let me pause for a minute to pray to thank the good Lord for pork, fire and spices, and that he put people on this Earth who know what to do with it. 

The pulled pork I got there was nothing short of sublime – lean, but juicy and tender, with a fine hickory taste, some bark and a wonderfully defined pink smoke ring. The sheer quality of the meat just blew me away before my brain even started to process the firework of information the taste buds were sending out.

The ribs my wife had where equally fantastic. Although there was a little fat, this only contributed to the overall superb taste. You can buy the dry rub used on those ribs in a jar there for five bucks, which would be an investment with infinite dividends for every serious home BBQ event. The meat was extremely tender, it fell off the bone easily and it also had a crunchy bark that was saturated with the dry rub. And don’t you even think of pouring sauce over the ribs – this would be a sacrilege of the first magnitude.

On the other hand, not drenching everything on your plate with one of the four home made, original sauces on the table would probably be an even bigger sin.

There is the mild sauce, which is a thick red tomaty-fruity not-too-sour-not-too-sweet-but-way-better-than-ketchup concoction. The hot sauce is essentially the mild sauce plus dominantly pepper, which provides a certain spicy tang but does not make it real hot and gives it a very nice and balanced taste. Then there is the ubiquitous white sauce, which is on the vinegary side and also with a peppery undertone. And then – to the sound of a lonely harmonica - comes Cortez the Killer, disguised as a mustard based BBQ sauce.

There are not very many places that serve this variety and that is truly a shame. If it is done right, this kind of sauce is the perfect match with pulled pork – and done right it is at Hickory Barn. There are many layers to this sauce – first comes the mustardy basement, then the structure of pepper and other spices, and on top a certain, very light sweetness. You can buy this sauce in a very home made looking jar and take it home with you. Or you can just come back to the restaurant over and over again and enjoy it with the perfect meat they serve there.

Well, and they also have sides that are exceptional. The potato salad is made of a rather compact type of potato, with some yellowish mayonnaise and just a minimum of spices. At first I found it to be a bit bland by itself, but than I discovered that the salad is in total harmony with the meat and the sauces.

The slaw on the other hand kicks your behind. It is quite peppery with a hint of vinegar and sugar, and with some crunch to it, too. The BBQ beans my wife had with the rib plate had little pieces of ham in it and there was no trace of cinnamon, which usually spoils baked beans more than it does any good.

My pork plate came with a roll, which was very nice for scooping up the excess sauce, and a pickle spear, the rib plate had only the spear.

We paid twenty-five bucks with taxes and drinks, which is not actually cheap, but the portions we got for this were more than adequate, and the quality was … well, see above.

My only gripe with this place is that it is only open from Thursday through Saturday. And of course, those 25 miles I have to drive from where I live to get there is something I need to complain about - a satellite station across the street would be nothing short of my personal Nirvana.

David Gibson Bar-B-Q

Quest Log No14 – David Gibson Bar-B-Q
Bob Wallace Avenue, Huntsville, Madison County

There is one philosophical question I am pondering now for quite a while - do dead flies on window sills contribute to the authenticity of a BBQ place?

They certainly have a negative effect on overall cleanliness of a place, but is this merely disgusting or is it rather oozing a special southern charisma? Well, ultimately everyone has to decide for themselves where their threshold is when it comes to mummified insects in the general vicinity of their pulled pork.

So, another Friday, another Gibson – you can’t swing a dead cat over your head without hittin’ a Gibson’s BBQ around here. This is the fourth different BBQ place I went to in the last few months that carries this identifier in its name. However, the good people at David Gibson Bar-B-Q in Huntsville make it abundantly clear to you on their menu card that they are not in any kind affiliated to all those other Gibson’s businesses around here, and that they only have this one location to serve us.

But of course there is a family relationship to the aristocracy of North Alabamian BBQ.

In 1939, Mr. and Mrs. David S. Gibson began their business with David’s father – the famous Big Bob – in Decatur. In 1956, they moved to Huntsville and in 1960 they opened the restaurant at the corner of Bob Wallace Avenue and Jordan Lane. Today, it is owned by their son.

Not very much seems to have changed from those good ole times, judged by the dated furniture that shows clear signs of extensive use, by the sparse decoration of a few pictures on the wooden walls, and the worn out everything-else in this place.

Up until now, I always thought that Styrofoam plates are at the lowest end of the plate pecking order. Not anymore. Disposable Styrofoam school-lunch trays have just taken that spot. You know, those compartmentalized yellowish rectangles with the embossed work MILK in one of the compartments and embossed slogans like DON’T DO DRUGS, or EAT YOU VEGGIES on one of the inner walls. Unbelievable. They are probably dirt cheap and yes, they fulfill the intended purpose, and they are certainly unique, but classy they ain’t.

Any one part of all this alone would make the place just tacky and, figuring in the flies, also kind of yucky. All together however, this forms kind of an organic entity that oozes the genuine charm of unpretentious authenticity. So, to answer the question from above, I guess dead flies are a necessary part of the décor in those places.

And don’t fret, since they are already dead none of them will hop into your pulled pork. Although, if they did they might be resurrected at the spot, because the meat is just divine.

Very tender and succulent, with a very distinct hickory taste to it, it is to die for (sorry flies, for the disrespect). I had quite a bit of bark in my portion of pulled pork, too, which is of course the best part of the whole thing.

As for the sauce, they keep it very simple – a vinegar based pepper sauce that is only mildly hot, a wonderfully creamy sour white sauce and ketchup. Here, I mixed a bit of the ketchup with lots of the mild pepper sauce and out came a very agreeable BBQ sauce. The white sauce on the other hand is just the perfect match for their hushpuppies, which you can have instead of rolls. The puppies are not sweet but well seasoned, and they taste great although being a bit on the compact side and not of the more fluffy kind.

And then there is the potato salad, which has a mustardy sour and tangy taste to it – one of the best there is, really top notch. But this is all topped by the slaw. A hint of spiciness permeates the fresh cut pieces that are dipped in just enough vinegar to moisten the cabbage without drowning it in sourness. This is really the most outstanding slaw I had so far. Oh, they also give you baked beans with the meal. Those are okay. But the slaw … and the meat … utterly delightful.

Also very positive are the civil prices – for a large and a small pork plate, each with a drink, we paid under twenty-two Dollars.

The amount of food, though, is a bit disproportional. My large pork plate, which was three Dollars more, had distinctively more meat on it than the regular pork plate my wife had. But since she had the better view at the dead flies on the window sill, I guess we’re even.

Gibson's Bar-B-Q (Memorial Pkwy)

Quest Log No13 –Gibson’s Bar-B-Q
Memorial Parkway, Huntsville, Madison County

How often does it happen that you a greeted and seated by a hostess in a BBQ joint?

They also serve the meals on actual chinaware, with metal silverware. This has to be like the crown jewel standard of BBQ restaurants. No Styrofoam, no plastic (except for the drinking cups …), no butcher paper for a plate – I was impressed.

A few months back, I already went to the other restaurant of the Gibson’s Bar-B-Q mini-chain in Huntsville on Whitesburg Drive (there are only those two places), and found the atmosphere to be … well, underwhelming.

Not so in their Memorial Parkway location, which is their main base and it clearly shows.

The dining hall is spacious, bright and very clean. On the menu, they claim that they are here since 1956, and that is about the vintage of the current furniture, too.

It is all wooden, with noticeable bumps and bruises in its dark colored surfaces, but very well maintained and you won’t find quick fixes by duct tape anywhere. It has clearly aged in style and it contributes quite nicely to the overall homey and friendly atmosphere of the place.

The service is also very friendly and also quick and responsive. So, while the external conditions are quite favorable, what about the food then? At least I do not usually go to a BBQ place to delight myself on the view, but to have some good stuff to eat.

Well, do not fret, it’s all here. As usual, I had the large pork plate with slaw and potato salad. They also serve hushpuppies with the meal, and I got four of those. And they are not exactly skimpy with the meat, either, so the amount of food was thus very gratifying for the fifteen bucks I had to pay for it.

Same goes for the quality – excellent!

The pulled pork had a distinctive but not overpowering smoke flavor to it, with a nice pink ring and some seriously tasty bark on top. It was more on the dry side, not as moist and succulent as in other places, but it was also very tender and very lean and had no pockets of fat in it, as I had to experience at another joint, also with Gibson in its name, not so long ago.

I have to admit, I like it when the meat is a bit more on the dry side – gives me an excuse to pour lots and lots of sauce over it.

You have the choice between two original sauces, a run-of-the-mill bottled hot sauce and the ubiquitous ketchup. The first sauce is thick and red, and although there actually is some sweetness to it, it has also a good amount of spiciness, It is not too hot, though, and would not leave a tingling impression in your mouth. For that, they have the second sauce, which has bit more thrust in that direction. It looks like a vinegar/oil basis with some ground chili and other peppers in it.

Mixed together in the correct ratio, it comes quite near to what I would call the perfect BBQ sauce.

They also have a white sauce on the table that is kind of vinegary/sour/peppery, which goes perfectly with the somewhat sweet hushpuppies.

The potato salad is made from scratch, which I was able to observe since the potatoes for next day’s batch were peeled and cut at a neighboring table (as usual, I was there after the lunch rush had been run out, so the crew had time to take care of some scores). The taste is leaning towards the sour side, but with a deliciously sweet undercurrent. Not the best potato salad I ever had, but definitely in the top ten.

The only disappointment is the cole slaw, which is rather watery, with extremely small cut pieces, and without any discernable taste.

But other than that quite miniscule grief, Gibson’s Bar-B-Q on Memorial Parkway in Huntsville is one of the best places to get your BBQ fix in Northern Alabama. 

Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q

Quest Log No12 – Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q
Hwy 31, Decatur, Morgan County

Frequent guests at the Today Show, winner of the 2004 Jack Daniels World Champion Barbeque Contest, Grand Champion of the 2011 Memphis in May Festival World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest, numerous first places in National BBQ Association competitions for their sauces … Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q in Decatur is an Alabama institution since 1925, and we are all very proud of the big success with all the medals, championships, national recognition and so on.

But is it the best BBQ in the World, as they claim on their website? Well, let’s see first if they can hold their ground against other places here in the BBQ heartland of Northern Alabama, before we let them venture out to conquer this planet.

The main restaurant in Decatur – they also have a satellite restaurant in North Carolina and another one in Decatur – is situated smack in the middle of town on US Highway 31.

It is a big, full service restaurant, and no matter when you go there, the parking lot is always at least half full. The interior is dominated by all the plaques, certificates, and medals they won over the years, and the entrance area hosts three or four humongous metal trophies made out of grill parts. The atmosphere is like in those sports-bar/family chain joints, only that there is only one big room where everybody sits.

The meals are served on plastic plates with actual metal silverware, which is quite appropriate for a place like this. They even have crayons and coloring sheets for the little ones. Needless to say that the service is efficient and the cleanliness of the whole place is impeccable.

Contrary to my typical behavior, I combined the usual pulled pork with beef brisket this time, but, of course, had sides of slaw and potato salad. At about ten bucks with a drink, the amount of food was quite satisfactorily.

But then, a few questions arose …

The first question was – what is the brisket and what is the pork? It looked all the same but fortunately the taste was different, at least somewhat, so eventually, after some trial and error, I was able to tell it apart.

Then the second question arose - can meat be fatty and dry at the same time? Go there and find out for yourself. You will be astonished what all is possible.

Although the taste was not bad, my stomach did not agree with the rather low quality of the meat at all. It felt as if I had eaten millstones.

Next question – are the sides as important as the meat? Well, I really do not wish to discuss the sides here, the memory is too painful. The slaw tasted like raw cabbage without any spices or vinegar or anything on it, and the potato salad tasted like it was scraped off the bottom of a bowl that had been forgotten in the fridge for quite some time.

Final question – are the sauces really world championship caliber? Yes, they are surely top notch, but they also have ingredients lists as long as the Old Testament. Not quite your home made, organic, one-of-a-kind-taste stuff, but more like the industrial grade sauces you can order at Amazon or buy at the next Supermarket.

Their championship red sauce is tangy, not especially spicy, but kind of fruity and with just a hint of sweetness. The white sauce is very peppery and sour and also quite spicy, but without being really hot. Both sauces are very much agreeable to the mainstream audience, and in this area they are certainly at the top of the crop.

But can that be all – to win laurels for the sauces and rest on them, while neglecting all the other things that belong to a good BBQ?

I think not. While I certainly would pack some bottles of their sauces as gifts if I travelled to other parts of the Country, or even the World, there are numerous BBQ places here in Northern Alabama where you will get better food overall. They just don’t have the medals and trophies to prove that.

Ole Hickory Barbecue

Quest Log No11 –Ole Hickory Barbecue
County Hwy 69, New Market, Madison County

New Market is a small rural community in Northern Alabama. They grow cotton and corn there, you’ll find the occasional cattle on the meadows in the surrounding area, and the prevalent tranquility is only gently disturbed by County Highway 69, which runs through the town.

Since January 30, 1966, their claim to fame has been the lowest recorded temperature in Alabama ever, -27 F.

But for about six years now, there is a different reason to look up where to find New Market. In the middle of town, right on County Highway 69, under a big old tree, with a plaster pig on the lawn, there sits Ole Hickory Barbecue.

It is run by a former research chef for a major fast food chain, who was lured by the prospect of doing some real southern style cookin’ for folks who really appreciate good food from Boston to this rather obscure place near the Tennessee border.

The restaurant oozes the charm of a country store – you will find forks, sauce bottles, and napkins in an old wooden cupboard next to the soda machine. The decoration is predominantly figurines of chickens and roosters, some pictures with country scenes, a tiny TV in one corner of the room, and they have a small bouquet of plastic flowers on every table. Wooden furniture complements the plain country atmosphere, and the people there are very friendly and courteous, and they also keep the place spotless - which is always nice when you eat food somewhere.

The food is served on Styrofoam plates with plastic forks (I could not detect any knifes or spoons around there … ),, and with disposable plastic cups for your sweet tea or soda.

When you are finished with the meal, you are supposed to dump all that into a big trash can by the exit. Well, I guess it’s necessary to keep the overall costs down, but this is certainly not bringing them any additional style points.

As usual, I had the large pork plate. It comes with slaw, potato salad, baked beans, and a roll by default, and I did not see any reason to alter that.

The outstanding item here is clearly the slaw – vinegary but not sour, with a really nice aromatic flavor. Actually, vinegar is quite the dominant theme at Ole Hickory Barbecue.

The meat comes dowsed in their original vinegar sauce, which is not a bad sauce by any means, but I would prefer to decide myself which sauce and how much to pour on my pork, thank you very much. It is quite unusual for Northern Alabama to have your BBQ meat prepared this way, but I guess a bit leniency is in order here, because the cook comes from Boston, which is not quite the BBQ capital of the world.

The pulled pork is very tender and succulent, but I missed the typical smoky flavor – it tasted rather neutral to me. Well, at least the few un-drenched pieces I could pick out of sauce were that way.

But with the vinegar sauce on it, it is actually quite good. Of course, if you like it sweet rather than sour, you probably won’t go there very often. Even their so called sweet sauce is just a less sour variant of the vinegar sauce. I guess, some ketchup could balance it with a little sweetness, but since I really like sour stuff that was not an option to pursue.

I would have expected that also the potato salad would be more on the sour side, since everything else is, but actually it was quite bland and unspectacular. And the baked beans had a kind of very sweet, cinnamon like taste, which adds a much needed counterpart to all the vinegary sourness that prevails with the rest of the food.

All in all, the Ole Hickory Barbecue is a good example of the variety in BBQ you will find here in Northern Alabama. Their obsession with vinegar is a nice change of pace, and I really liked their food. But my next BBQ will probably be one where they have a really sweet sauce. If you like sour, by any means, go there. Or go to their satellite station in Huntsville, if you don’t want to drive to this out-of-the-way place just to get your vinegar fix. But you will miss a really nice place with style and charm that you usually don’t find in a big town. Not to mention the plaster pig on the lawn.

Thomas Pit Bar-B-Q

Quest Log No10 –Thomas Pit Bar-B-Q
Hwy 72 W, Madison, Madison County

It ain’t gonna get more authentic than this.

Thomas Pit Bar-B-Q on Highway 72 in Madison, Alabama, is the real deal. They are at the same place since 1932, when Madison was just a sparsely populated railroad stop, and not home to the largest population of engineers per square mile, as it is today.

The outside of the building certainly looks like from a distant era, and the inside is also not the most modern one could imagine. No flat screen TV’s on the walls, an old chewing gum machine at the counter, the occasional dead spider in a window corner, and the dust of eight decades on the wall decorations – very authentic and old school.

When I am there, and I go there often, sometimes a thought crosses my mind – was Wernher von Braun, the engineering genius behind the Saturn V Moon Rocket that was designed and tested in Huntsville in the 1960s, a BBQ fan? And if so, he surely must have come here. Often.

Because, besides the authentic atmosphere there, he would have gotten the best BBQ in Northern Alabama- as I do nowadays, every time I come here. And I come here often, and not only because it is right around the corner from where I live.

The pork plate at Thomas Pit Bar-B-Q is actually what first got me hooked on BBQ way back in the day. Since then, I’ve tried many different BBQ places, but although a few come close, the unique mixture of authentic atmosphere, authentic food and authentic history is hard to surpass.

This place just has charm – you cannot pay with plastic money there, only cash is accepted. On Saturday nights, the line at the drive through window runs into the next county, and when your order is ready they will shout out the number on your ticket, and you better hurry to fetch your food, or the next shout will be louder and a bit more harsh and impatient.

And really, there is absolutely no excuse to let that delicious food sit on the counter even a second longer than necessary. I always get the large pork plate, with slaw, potato salad and lemonade.

The meat is smoked in a dedicated building adjacent to the restaurant, and it provides half of Madison with this unbelievable aroma each day – except Sundays, when they are closed like every authentic BBQ place here in the Bible Belt.

The pulled pork is juicy and tender, wonderfully flavored and just perfect in every regard. Yes, perfect. I dare to proclaim that publicly, and I stand by it.

The potato salad is very unique, since the potatoes are not sliced, but diced real fine, so it resembles the slaw which is also diced in the same manner. The taste is a bit on the sour side, but not in an overwhelming manner. That is also true for the slaw, which is of the vinegary kind, as opposed to this strange variety you sometimes find that is drenched in mayonnaise. Again, this is just very authentic and old school.

As for the sauce, they have an original hot sauce that has a vinegar base, and which is very peppery and very spicy indeed, and an original white sauce – which you only get if you ask real nice at the counter. And there is the ubiquitous Ketchup bottle at every table.

Yes, I know. That certainly looses them some serious style points with us purists. But to be quite frank here, although I usually sneer at Ketchup in favor of the original sauces, in this case a mixture of the hot sauce with the Ketchup will work miracles. With those two ingredients, after some experimentation, one can achieve the perfect blend of spiciness, sweetness and tanginess.

The large pork plate also comes with two slices of toast and two cups of country crème, and that is truly a lot of food you get for exactly ten bucks.

The meal is served on those inevitable foam plates, with plastic silverware and a single-use plastic cup for the drink. Well, this is certainly not quite authentic and kind of on the cheap, but at least you can leave all the stuff on the table after your are finished – they have a dedicated cleaner who takes care of that.

But there is one major flaw I have to complain about - they don’t serve Hush Puppies. Given their track record with anything else, those puppies would probably be to die for, if they decided to put them on the menu. But maybe it’s a good thing that they don’t have them – it would be too much to ask of me not to go there every day. And so, I only go often.

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. 

Smokey's BBQ

Quest Log No8 – Smokey’s BBQ
Hwy 72 West, Madison, Madison County

The Sauce Makes The Difference – that is their motto at Smokey’s BBQ in Madison, Alabama. They also say in their ads that the best barbeque in Bama (Smokey’s, of course …) is right around the corner, which is a pretty bold statement. Yeah right, but virtually every barbeque place here tells everybody all the time that they are the best, so hold your horses. We’ll see about that at the end.

Smokey’s BBQ is very conveniently located on Highway 72, on the western edge of Madison. They are in business since 1991 and proud themselves with offering good food at low prices. This, I found to be true for the most part, and what they did not mention is that the portions are also quite generous. My kind of place …

They describe their style of barbeque as East-Tennessee and claim that they make all their food from scratch. Even more my kind of place …

But back to the difference maker – the Sauce. While I absolutely agree that this is the most important part of any barbeque, the foundation of good barbeque is flavorful, tender meat, of course.

The sauces they offer at Smokey’s are indeed excellent, but the meat … well, that is a somewhat different story.

As usual, my wife had the ribs, while I opted for the pork and beef combo plate this time, with potato salad and slaw as sides, and they also give you a slice of their cornbread or a roll.

The ribs also come with one of those giant slices of corn bread (or a roll, if you prefer that), and we added some BBQ beans to that.

You can have the ribs either dry rubbed or sauced – my wife had the first variety.

It is a big pile of ribs that you get there, but quantity did not equal quality in this case. The ribs were very much on the fat side, the meat was not especially tender, and the taste was kind of neutral. The BBQ beans were your run-of-the-mill, everybody-has-those-in-their-repertoire dish. Not bad, but not spectacular, either.

That description should be reserved for the cornbread. It is more like a piece of cake than a real lunch item, both in shape and in taste. Very much on the sweeter side of the corn bread spectrum, it is the perfect desert for a BBQ meal. Fluffy and golden, sweet and little moist, it represents the high school of cornbreadism. You can even put some of Smokey’s mild BBQ sauce on it for a little savory twist. Yummy. Very.

Ahh, the sauces at Smokey’s. Before we go any further, let me sing the praise for the sauces.

Smokey’s mild BBQ sauce is a thick red sauce, which is fruity and only moderately spicy. They have another sauce there that is also called mild sauce, without the Smokey’s moniker on it, but the difference is neglectable. Well, maybe the sticker that says “Smokey’s” just fell off of it …

You can also get a pre-packaged hot sauce in those ubiquitous little plastic bags, if you must. But the real killer here, the coup de grace, the big enchilada, the I-think-heaven-is-missing-a-sauce experience, is the Mustard BBQ sauce.

I never heard of something like it before, and was very skeptical at first.

But after the first careful and hesitant taste, I was hooked. It is thick and yellow, a bit spicier than the red mild sauce, but instead of the fruity undercurrent of tomatoes and the like, there suddenly is the mustard that kicks you in the back – this sauce has an attitude!

And it goes very well with either pork or beef – and with sweet cornbread it is a revelation. Yes, the sauce does definitely make the difference!

Oh, yes, the pork and beef combo plate. Who cares on what the Mustard BBQ sauce is poured eventually? I bet even road kill Armadillo would be a feast with it.

But to be fair, my pulled pork was very good – tender and with a very well defined smoky taste. The pulled beef was a bit on the dry side, though, but also very tasty, even without the sauces. The combo plate also comes with three ribs, which makes it a very generous amount of meat altogether. My ribs, however, were even fattier than those my wife had and thus had no real value for me.

The slaw was creamy and yet surprisingly sour, which I very much like, but the potato salad had a good helping of cinnamon in it, which I found a bit disturbing.

Service was very friendly, but the place could use a bit more attention to detail when it comes to cleaning the booths. The atmosphere is quite nice, with wooden furniture and faux leather upholstery, and a few pictures on the walls. The omnipresent big screen TV on the wall does not really disturb the peace here, but a nice painting or wood carving, or even a poster with a cartoon pig on it would probably bring a few more style points.

They certainly would not get any of those for the Styrofoam plates, the plastic silverware, the little paper cups for the BBQ sauce (except the Mustard sauce, which comes in a plastic bottle – but there are only a few bottles at the counter, and if they are all already used elsewhere, tough luck for you …), and the fact that after the meal you just drop everything into one of the garbage cans, just like you would do in any fast food joint.

So, would I go there again? Yes, because of the fantastic Mustard BBQ sauce and the spectacular corn bread, although I would probably stay miles away from the ribs (alone the thought of it begins to clog my arteries …), and also would not try the pulled beef again, but order the pulled pork instead, with slaw and French fries, which are hopefully free of any hint of cinnamon. Plus, it is right around the corner from where I live, the prices are reasonable (9 bucks for the combo plate and 11 bucks for the ribs ... well, if you take the quality of the ribs into account, it is kind of overpriced, I guess ...), and now that I know what I like there and what not, the siren song of the Mustard BBQ sauce might actually prove too overwhelming from time to time.

Lawler's Bar-B-Que and Catfish (Athens, Hobbs St)

Quest Log No7 – Lawler’s Bar-B-Que and Catfish
Hobbs St, Athens, Limestone County

One might think, or even expect, that the food in every location of a restaurant chain would be roughly the same. More so even, if that chain has a “central cooking facility for quality control”, which supplies all satellite locations. Well, in case of Lawler’s Barbeque it is not quite that clean cut.

Lawler’s is not a big franchise, they have six locations in Northern Alabama and one in Southern Tennessee, and five of those are labeled “Express”, with limited or no seating at all.

My wife and I have already been to their Madison (Express) restaurant, which is a quite new, very nice place. Although the food was very good, we did not intend to visit another Lawler’s for quite some time. Actually, we wanted to go to the Ole Gin House BBQ in Elkmont, but they were closed. Then we opted for Denao’s BBQ in Athens, because we were both getting really hungry and it was just a twenty minute drive away. Closed, too.

Next try, Sarah's Waffle Chicken & Barbecue, also in Athens. The place where the GPS unit led us to had no such thing. Either we had the wrong address or the restaurant was closed, permanently. Rats! Our stomachs were getting really angry with us, so we tried alternative number four for that day – hallelujah, they were open! But just barely in time, because although not listed as an Express location but a full fledged restaurant, they close at 2PM, and we showed up twenty minutes before that. Confusing …

So, what makes a Lawler’s Express location different from a regular Lawler’s restaurant? After you order at the counter, in the Express they will call you to get your stuff there, and in the regular restaurant they will bring the meal to your table.

And whereas the Express in Madison is kind of new and shiny and very nice inside and outside, the restaurant in Athens is kind of old and beaten up. You are greeted by duck-taped upholstery in the booths, and sticky plastic table cloths. At least it is all clean, and the service is also quite nice and attentive, and you get metal silverware with your standard plastic plates. They have some old faded pictures on the wall and also some old tin advertisement signs. Here too, the Express in Madison is the more nice and shiny place.

As usual, I had the large pork plate with cole slaw and potato salad, and my wife had the ribs with fries and baked beans. And to our surprise, they have hushpuppies on the menu, so we both got those as well.

Which we shouldn’t have done. Too sweet, too dry, only tolerable with some sauce on it - no comparison with them puppies in the Greenbrier Restaurant.

And instead of four sauces as in the Madison Express location, there were only two at the table – the very peppery and really, really spicy hot sauce and some concoction without label which seemed to be a mildly spiced up vinegar. No mild sauce, no BBQ sauce, no white sauce – disappointing.

The cole slaw was less sour than at the Madison location, the taste was actually more “au naturel”, meaning that the cabbage flavor was very strong. The potato salad was quite the same and also the beans were not different from the Madison location.

The same is true for the pulled pork, which was also very tender and juicy and had a real nice smoky flavor to it.

But the ribs the ribs, the ribs … gristly, not very tender, without real taste. No, definitely not good. Maybe we just happened to run into a bad batch there, because at the Express in Madison, the ribs had been superb. Or we got the last left-over piece that day, because we came in so late. Be it as it may, my wife was not very happy and if she is not happy, I am not happy.

And after our odyssey of fifty or so miles that day to find an open BBQ place, to end up with bad hushpuppies and bad ribs … lets just file it under “one of these days” and be done with it.

Gereenbrier Restaurant

Quest Log No6 – Greenbrier Restaurant
Old Hwy 20 (Greenbrier Rd), Madison, Madison County

Wanderer, if you come to Northern Alabama, go to the Greenbrier Restaurant in Madison, Alabama, and have the best Hushpuppies on this Planet. Period. No further discussion required. Just go there and eat those things. GO!

There are a few things that are so iconic to the Southern Cuisine, that they be in a museum: Fried Okra, pulled BBQ pork, Grits, Sweet Iced Tea, and Hushpuppies.

Those little fried balls of corn, onions and spices are the Manna of the South, if they are done right. If not, they are an insult to the Southern legacy.

So, what exactly constitutes “right” in regards of Hushpuppies?

First of all, they have to be firm, yet with a certain fluffiness, not too dry, but with just the right amount of gooeyness, golden brown and crunchy on the outside, but easy to crack through the shell and dig into the soft inside.

Then, of course, the flavor has to be savory, with a hint of sweetness, but not too spicy, and you should actually be able to taste the onions. The shape does not really matter, it should vaguely resemble a sphere, but the more different the sizes and shapes they come in, the more certain you can be that they are freshly made from scratch and did not fall out of a microwave-ready box.

Well, except for the last part, you get everything above at the Greenbrier Restaurant. This is not to be confused with the Greenbrier Bar-B-Que, which is a few miles south of it at I-565. Yes, they serve good Hushpuppies, too. No, you would want to have those from the place at the corner of Greenbrier Road and County Road 10, instead.

You will get your first basket of Hushpuppies even before your drink order has been recorded. And be warned – once you start with them Puppies, there is no stopping. And they fill you up pretty good, too, so come with an empty stomach, because no matter what you order, you will get another basket with your meal, and they will bring you even more if you look really hungry. Surely, you can devour them raw as they come. But I found out that they go perfectly with the thick white Tartar-style sauce they have there on the table. The other white sauce, a simple mayonnaise-with-spices-style sauce is also not bad with it, but I prefer the sourness of the tartar sauce over the spiciness of the other white sauce. My wife liked it just the other way around. And even with the BBQ sauce, which is basically vinegar with spices, and more sour than hot, the Hushpuppies are delicious. I haven’t tried them with Ketchup, though, because they were gone too fast, so nothing was left when it was Ketchup’s turn. Too bad, deal with it and move on. I used it later to mix the BBQ sauce, which generated a nice tangy sauce for the pork.

As usual, I ordered the large pork plate, and my wife had the ribs.

Both come with cole slaw by default, and I opted for the fries as second side, because they do not have potato salad on the menu. Instead, you can get baked potato or baked sweet potato, which my wife ordered.

The cole slaw is made with vinegar, and has a very nicely rounded, slightly sour, bouquet. The baked sweet potato is just that – a baked sweet potato, and it comes with little cups of cinnamon and brown sugar, in case you need even more sweetness, and some butter.

The pork was very tender, with a nice smoky taste. Not too juicy, but certainly not too dry, either – just right, I’d say. And it was a large portion, too. With the fries, the cole slaw, the hushpuppies as an appetizer, and hushpuppies with the meal, I was filled up pretty good afterwards.

The ribs were dry rubbed with spices, and also a very large portion. Very crunchy outside, they had virtually no fat on them, and were not exactly fall-off-the-bone tender, but somewhat compact and a bit dry. The taste was on the neutral side, neither very smoky nor very porky. I liked them very much, especially the fatless crunchiness, but my wife would have preferred a more defined taste and some more moisture.

So, I was very much satisfied with my meal, although a bit disappointed that I could not get my customary potato salad. My wife loved the sweet potatoes and found the ribs tolerable but not great. And we both absolutely loved the hushpuppies.

After the meal, I had a little time to look around and take in the atmosphere of the place. There is a deer’s head mounted on one wall, some pictures of College Football players, old menus, and some historic pictures of the town on the other walls. One wall is out of corrugated sheet iron, which contributes to the uniqueness of the interior. Nice wooden furniture with a certain patina on it completes the very homey and distinctive impression it made on me. The meals are served on very large plastic plates, but with actual metal silver ware. Service is very quick and very friendly and attentive, and the place is very clean.

To sum it up – this is one of the best places for BBQ my wife and I have been so far, and THE best place for hushpuppies on this planet. Only for those alone would a further visit be warranted. Soon. 

Amendment, 02 June 2011:
Home made Lemonade ...
Today, I went back there, and discovered that they serve home made Lemonade - after BBQ the second big food-related passion that possesses me.
Really good lemonade is hard to find - it is either too sweet, too sour, too bubble-gummy, too watery, too all of the above ... even most of the home made stuff is merely acceptable.
But not the Lemonade they serve at the Greenbrier Restaurant. It has a semi-sweet sourness with a hint of bitterness in it - I would call it the perfect mixture.
I also discovered that they have a self-serve ice-cream machine in one of the two additional rooms adjacent to the main room. A cup of vanilla costs $0.25 with a meal, and $0.75 without.
And, believe it or not, there is also entertainmment, in the form of a singing deer's head on the wall.
Now, has this place been directly sent down from heaven, or what?!