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

 

Healthier pigs, sicker us?

Pigs in this country get better health care than we do (up to a point, that is).  Nobody particularly wants to eat pork from a sick pig --but that's why you slow cook 'em.  (Anyhow, treyf is treyf, and all the antibiotics in the world ain't gonna change that.)

Feeding antibiotics to pigs is contributing bigtime to MRSA, which claims 18,000 human lives a year in the U.S. --more than AIDS does.  MRSA is methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, and it is spreading, according to the Union of Concerned Barbeque-fancying Scientists, as confirmed by a recent National Institute of Hog-eaters Heath study.  You've heard of super-bugs, and FLESH EATING BACTERIA!!!! --this is where they come from.  

Lord, have MRSA.  We don't want it.