Bill's Barbeque Review

Sloping Toward Bethlehem

Slope's BBQ

5865 Gateway Drive

Alpharetta, GA 30004

(678) 393-1913

http://www.slopesbbq.com/

Bill's back from the Land of the Northern Aggressors, and he is inspired to do more blogging and reviewing. Slope's is the barbecue place closest to where Bill lives, so he's going to be extra careful what he says about this one. Lady wife Ann drops here often and likes it.  So he'd better be extra extra careful.  

Slope's started out at Union Hill and Sugar Pike Road in Hickory Flat, then migrated down to Roswell, and now has gone franchise.  This is one of the franchises.  There are other locations, too, listed on their website (URL above).

This was Bill's first-ever visit, and he got a good vibe going in.  There was a plate of burnt ends on one side of the cash register!  Bill had to resist helping himself to one, 'cause he was already feeling the pangs of confirmation bias.

On the other side of the register was this cryptic sign: 

Bill was too slow-witted to ask, and now now must return at least once to find out why this special place had to be set aside.  

Yet another hopeful indication was this.  The phone rang. The cook answered it, and all he said was, "She don't work here no more."  And hung up.

Home again!

Bill worked his plan and ordered a simple pork sandwich with no sauce, with a side order of fries.  He was assured that, Yes, there were pickles with it.

When his order came out, Bill noticed that there was only one pickle slice.  It was sitting on top of the bun, and you could see through this thing, the slice was so thin.  The meat was chopped tender and fluffy, with no trace of burnt anything.  You have to ask.  Bill reached for the sauce.

Anyway, he'll have to come back and remember to specify pickles, plural.  And some of those burnt ends (some call it crunch meat, Bill knows it as outside meat).

On the way out, Bill noticed a Southern Pride-type quick smoker on the other side of the counter.  And then he drove smack around the entire place and saw no pit, no cords of hickory or oak.

Sometimes Bill misses the City.  And the first-person personal pronoun.

The Art of Barbecue

Killing time in the Yale Art Museum, I happened onto some barbecue art. Pretty tasty, too.  Some dude name of William Christenberry took pictures of the Bar-B-Q Inn, in Greensboro, Alabama, before it was tore down.  And built a model, too (looks like O-gauge, at least).  

I asked somebody if there was barbecue at Yale, and I was assured that indeed there was.  The best place, they said, is Skull and Bones, just around the corner. I tried to check it out but it was closed.

Have You Ever Been to New York City?

Well, then, you know just what I'm talking about.  No Mexican food, and --worse yet-- no barbecue.

There is barbecue in Dallas, however.  (Did you know they had barbecue in Texas?)  So when I saw the sign for Dallas BBQ on West 72d Street, just off CPK, I mean, CPW, I did a double-take.

I had to check this out, even if it was NYC style Dallas BBQ. The menu says the barbecue sandwich (and you kinda have to look for it --it's down under Shots and Shooters and Rotisserie Chicken) is Carolina style! We're covering a lot of territory here. This location is on the same block as the Dakota, so I guess you could say it's Dakota-style Carolina-style Dallas-style barbecue. 

But first, the wait person (excuse my French) shoves this under my nose:

"We serve everybody chips and salsa. I mean chili," she says.  I almost had to take back what I said about no Mexican food in New York.  But I was thinking, you know: Is this a barbecue place, or a food court?

Anyway, here's the review: 

This is a Carolina pulled pork sandwich served on a nicely toasted poppyseed bun with pickle slices.  Looks eligible. But the sauce turns out to be mainly corn syrup/molasses. The treacly sweetness makes for a Big Apple-sized cloying aftertaste. The meat is a bit spongy but possibly not bad if freed from the sauce.  

(Note to self: in NYC you have to specify black coffee and sauce on the side.)  

The fries are slender, skin-on, and wonderfully mediocre.  The slaw is mercifully served on the side --not Carolina style-- next to a tub of honey/mustard sauce.  The pickles are not dill but sickly sweet "bread and butter" type.  

The wait person and I get to chatting, and I mention the way Carolina barbecue comes with the slaw on top, back in North Carolina. She says, "It's better down there," although she's never been there.  She knows what's what.  I ask the wait person how long the meat cooks.  She says, Four hours.  I believe her.  That's what I love about New Your City.  No bullsh*t.  No barbecue, no burritos; but no bullsh*t, either.  None of that Southern-style "Bless your heart!" treacle talk.

It's almost a deal.

Rating: Meh

 

Fresh Air? Smokin'!

Fresh Air Bar-B-Que

1164 Hwy 42 South

Jackson, GA

770-775-3182

 

What used to be the main drag between Atlanta and Macon goes through Jackson, Georgia, named for President Andrew Jackson.  Don't pay any mind to the PC crowd, who'll claim his enhanced relocation techniques made him some kind of racist genocider  (like they're not what put us on the trail that eventually led to Geronimo).  The Fresh Air Bar-B-Que is now just under an hour south of downtown Atlanta, via I-75 (take exit 212 and follow signs to Jackson).

This is the real deal: an open-pit place dating back to 1929.  Although it has changed hands a few times, you will instantly perceive that barbecue traditions are treasured here.  Oak and hickory, both, are used to slow-cook the meat.  Menu options are few (which is as it should be).  The standard sandwich comes with chopped pork on a bun ($2.55), but for 98 cents more you may explore the "on loaf bread" option.  A pickle spear is served on request.  You can get slaw or stew, but not fries.  And why would you want fries anyway, in this enlightened age?  You've come this far, have another sandwich if you're still hungry.

Open 7 days a week: until 7:30 M-Th, 8:30 F-Sa, and 8pm Su.

^Rating:  

Barbecue Explained

I thank my good buddy John Tanner for this link to a musical explanation of what's distinctive about the barbecue of the several states.  I think it is pretty good, though I'd never heard of much less tried Alabama mayonnaise-based barbecue sauce.  And I think these tarheel boys need to own up to their barbarous practice of plopping coleslaw on barbecue meat.  John responds:

There are a few places that have white sauce-- I've been to one in Cahaba Heights.  It isn't really bad -- has some vinegar and isn't cloyingly sweet. It goes better with French fries.

The cole slaw is a bad idea, but at least in NC the places I've been to make cole slaw with only chopped cabbage and vinegar-based sauce.  It ends up being mostly texture.  The real crime is that it has led others to put cole slaw made with mayonnaise, sugar, pickles, onions, celery salt and all sorts of other distractions -- usually on top of faux barbecue.  I do not favor the death penalty as a rule, but there are some things people just shouldn't do.

Readers should note that the death penalty is still applied in every bona fide barbecue jurisdiction in America.  Coincidence?

O Brothers, Where Art Thou?

Two Brothers Bar-B-Que
Near Ball Ground, Georgia
Closed Mondays and Tuesdays
735-2900

Off the beaten path, and then another 200 yards.  Tucked away just off GA 5/372, one mile north of Ball Ground, on the way toward Jasper.   The meat is brisket, slightly smoked, dressed with a vinegar-based sauce, a bit too liberally applied.  The skin-on fries are cooked in peanut oil!  Decor of rural artifacts presented a la musee archeologique --what Cracker Barrel aspires to but does not achieve.  A huge mountain trout is mounted up over the cash register.  If you don't get why a restaurant that serves no seafood would have a fish on prominent display, you have no business eating barbecue.  An enigmatic, faded print of the Mona Lisa hangs amongst vintage firarms and farm tools.  The puddin'-filled chocolate pie and the trout put this reviewer in mind of Ollies, and those dear, dead days beyond recall.

Rating: 

Bob? That you?

Bad Bob's Barbecue Restaurant
2340 Atlanta Highway (Hy 9, in Pine Tree Village Shopping Center)
Cumming, GA 30040
678 519 9700
www.badbobs11.com

The name says it all.  Well, half the name.  Two guesses which.
Meat ("Boston Butt," as if "Boston" weren't bad enough) is on the dry side, unsauced, but nicely stringy with some almost burnt ends.  Don't like it dry?  Well, Bob has thought about that, and put out squeeze bottles of "Hot" and "Special" sauces, "made with jellies, honeys and other fine ingredients" like High Fructose Corn Syrup (listed #3 on the label), brown sugar, and molasses.   

 

The french  fries were dusted with some kind of powdered chili spice.  The thirsty will be glad to know that Bob's is fully licensed, the hurried that he has a drive-thru window.

Rating: P(assable) for the sweet-tooth, all others pass on by.

Category Mistake

What's too silly to be said can be sung.  And what's too silly to sing can be sold.  Or at least offered for sale.  Check out the "BBQPIG Lil' Pig": 
a mere $1600.00, from Traeger Industries.  Traeger asks: "Is it 'Art Deco'" or is it a barbecue?"  And indeed the resemblance to the Chrysler Building is hard to mistake.   The maker's claim that "this grill is sure to raise a 'squeal' from your guests" need not be disputed.   All it seems to lack is a tow-bar for hauling behind our Nieman Marcus Edition Lincoln Blackwood pickup truck.  [Thanks to Gizmodo for the pointer.]

"The New Q"

Bill knows there is a fine line between righteous traditionalism (good) and ornery atavism (not quite as good).  He just isn't sure where it is.  Bill does know that he had some fine barbecue this afternoon at the Slow Food Atlanta and Heritage Foods USA first annual BBQ benefit  for the Atlanta Community Food Bank.  Bill did have to swivel his head more than a couple of times to get a close look at some of the "Twists on Old School BBQ" served up there.  For instance, it had never occurred to him that somebody could drink wine with barbecue, unless maybe it was a Sunday and they were out of beer, which it was not.  And who'd of thought you could wrap barbecue meat in a little pancake and serve it that way?  It put Bill in mind of the Moo Shoe Pork that Missus Bill had got for him the other night at the Chinese take-away.  Anyway, Bill is for anything and everything akin to slow cooked, open-pit pig's meat.  His favorite today was some Utah-style barbecue served up by 5 Seasons North chef David Larkworthy.  What it says on the menu is "Sequatchie Cove Farm Cracklin' Scallion Whole Ossabaw Hog Crepe," and it was good. 

  The meat was tender, moist, and well-smoked, and you had three different sauces you could try on it: Chip-olay which they said was Mexican, Carrot (I kid you not), and the third which was the favorite was vinegar-based with some orange juice in it.  Chef Larkworthy's crew obliged Bill by sitting for a picture portrait that he took with his new camera that works fine when he remembers not to grab it by the front of it.   They are looking proud because it was just announced that they had won the First Annual Bill's Barbecue Review Golden Pig's Foot Award for the best tasting whatever-it-was that Bill liked so much.  Bill will not call it "Q".  If you can't say nor write out "BBQ" or "barbecue" or "bar-b-que" he feels sorry for you.  It may take a little longer but it will sound a lot better.  Slow Food folks shouldn't have to be told that.

Harold's

Harold's Barbecue
171 McDonough Blvd
Atlanta, GA

Rating:

Can you say "authennick"?  That's what Harold's is in any language, and has been since 1947.  Within wafting distance of the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, Harold's delivers, if only in the figurative sense. A basic pork sandwich can be had sliced or chopped.  Buns are not served at  Harold's.  If the idea of untoasted sliced white bread doesn't get it for you, be warned --you're doing yourself out of a treat.  The  French fries are  salty crinkle-cut greasers which nonetheless  are indistinguishable from those anywhere else, just as fries should be.  Harold's is located in a neighborhood that has mercifully been spared the modish horrors of gentrification-- thanks in part to the closure of the GM plant next door.

It is a hangout of the Guardians: police, prosecutors, custodial officials, and nonPopperian philosophers.

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