Eat through Bob Garner's NC barbecue list

This restaurant is located in Mooresville. My co-workers describe it as a “smorgasboard” with excellent buffalo wings. We had this barbecue catered in at work earlier this week. On the menu was barbecue, chicken, hush puppies, baked beans, cole slaw, broccoli-cauliflower salad, banana pudding, and apple crisp.

I had the barbecue, hush puppies, baked beans, cole slaw, and banana pudding.

Barbecue:
For once in my life, I found some barbecue that I didn’t quite like. There were some burnt bits mixed in, which weren’t very appealing. The sauce was Western North Carolina style, thick and orangey-red, with pepper flecks in it.

Hush Puppies:
The hush puppies came in standard hush puppy shape. There was nothing unusual about them.

Baked beans:
Wow. These are my favorite baked beans of any barbecue place I’ve tried. They were not barbecue beans or your usual baked beans with molasses or anything. They had some sort of zip to them, like orange juice, maybe?

Cole slaw:
The cole slaw was regular slaw, not barbecue slaw. I liked it; not much else to say about it.

Banana pudding:
The banana pudding had very large chunks of banana in it. There were about equal parts banana and cookie in it. The pudding part wasn’t very stiff like a normal pudding; it was a slightly thinner banana sauce. Still quite good, though.

I am told by my co-workers that the broccoli-cauliflower salad was excellent.

Would I eat there again? Maybe not if my purpose was to get barbecue. There is better barbecue closer to where I live.

On a whim, I stopped here for lunch. I’ve driven by it before over the last year or so, and wondered if it was good. (It is not on Bob Garner’s list, but this line item has become more about enjoying good ‘cue than just the list.)

I ordered the Pulled Pork dinner with baked beans, coleslaw, sweet tea, and banana pudding. Total cost: $13.06.

The Barbecue:
The barbecue was pulled, in long strings. It was very moist, of medium tenderness. (Not tough, but chewing still required.) I saw visible flecks of red pepper in the meat. The vinegar/pepper sauce permeated the pork. If you wanted, you could eat it straight up without adding the cup of red sauce on the side. The sauce is a red thick sauce, which seems to be ketchup based. It definitely has the sauce used on the meat mixed in, with hints of molasses or brown sugar? I actually liked the pork better without the red sauce on top. I did not go behind the building to see if there was a woodpile behind. I’m guessing that since they are in the city limits, it was probably not smoked on site, if it was smoked.

Sweet Tea:
So fresh that it came out of the carafe warm. Good balance- sweet but not overpoweringly so. Can still taste tea flavor underneath.

Baked beans:
Regular baked beans, not barbecue beans. It was made from large beans- big pintos or red beans. It constituted about 3/4 beans and 1/4 chopped green peppers. Apart from the added green peppers and onions, I couldn’t really tell a whole lot of difference than this and pork and beans from a can. It just lacks some sort of “zip” to it. Maybe a splash of the barbecue sauce would liven it up?

Cole slaw:
Regular coleslaw, not barbecue slaw. The cole slaw was Very sweet. It seemed to have something like sweet relish in it, perhaps. The cabbage was very crisp, not limp at all. Alas, I couldn’t finish it; the taste was just a little too… odd….

Banana pudding:
Very nice presentation- a gigantic serving in a little pie plate completely topped with meringue. There was a high cookie/banana to pudding ratio; essentially vanilla wafers and bananas in a plate with just enough pudding to hold it all together.

Other offerings:
Pulled chicken, brisket, ribs, collard greens, lemon pound cake, cornbread muffin, macaroni and cheese,

Ambience:
The restaurant is located in the storefront of a converted small bay warehouse block. Very bare bones. There are tables to eat at, but all the customers were there as part of the brisk takeout business. I did not see any high chairs, so the place may not be conducive to taking small children.

Staff:
Very friendly to an obvious new customer (other customers were greeted by name). Apart from the younger man working the front counter, the staff were all older gentlemen whose age suggested years of cooking experience and authority in their field.

Would I go back? Yes, but I would skip the sauce, and eat the ‘cue straight up. I’d probably also try the collard greens and cornbread muffin, and maybe just get a pulled pork sandwich. ($13.06 is a lot to spend for lunch, but there was a lot of food, so it was good value.) My lasting impression was just how sweet everything was. I had a terrible urge to brush my teeth afterward.

Website: Bobbee O’s BBQ

This place completely lives up to Bob Garner’s billing, except for the sweet tea. I’ve had sweeter. It did come in a large pitcher, of which I womanfully drank half a pitcher until I figured I’d better stop before I both ruined my stomach and kept myself up all night. I ordered the coarse chopped tray with hushpuppies, which was about $5.50 or so. The “tray” size portion is smaller than a “plate.” I would say that the “tray” portion is just about right in terms of a reasonable amount of food. All told, we fed four adults plus one toddler and one preschooler for $32.00.

Getting there: This place is not precisely hard to find, but it does take careful attention to finding it. The turnoff to the restaurant is only 4.5 miles from I-85 on Route 8, but it feels further, mainly because you are way out into the countryside. Currently, there is large billboard advertising Hayes Jewelers with a large sparkly diamond ring at the turnoff onto Rockcrusher Rd. It helped that we had familiarized ourselves with the landscape using Google Earth, as well as helpful Cook’s Barbecue signs with pigs pointing the proper direction once you turned off Route 8. We found it the old-fashioned way using maps, but the other vehicle in our party found the address pop right up in their GPS.

Barbecue: Their barbecue is wood-smoked. As proof, my dh located large stumps of wood out back, and there are chimneys coming out the middle of the building. The smokey flavor came right through in the meat. It was incredibly moist and tender. I was initially worried I’d need a knife to cut the meat when I saw that the “coarse” chopped barbecue is chunks 3/4” to 1” square, but it melted in my mouth. My dh loved the coarsely chopped ‘cue, but I think I’d rather have the regular chop next time. The dip was good, and came on the side, in proper Lexington-style. It had a little bit of a kick to it, but I wasn’t totally able to taste it because I’ve been having taste bud issues for the last week. (I think I scalded my tongue somehow.)

Slaw: In each “tray,” there was half made up of barbecue and half made up of coleslaw. I had regular slaw, since it wasn’t pink. It was a little spicy, but the cabbage taste definitely came through. I really liked it. I would say that this is my favorite coleslaw of all the places I’ve visited so far.

Hushpuppies: The hushpuppies are tiny little things, the size of a marble or a small gumball. They were very moist inside. You mostly just tasted the cornbread (white cornmeal), there weren’t the oniony overtones you sometimes get. The batches were very consistent. We had to get two baskets, since there weren’t enough for the adults to have some after the kids had theirs, and then the toddler started pitching a fit wanting more after the basket was empty. (Cook’s Barbecue’s Hushpuppies: Endorsed by Toddlers Everywhere!)

Baked beans: I ordered baked beans, knowing that they are one of the few vegetable-like substances that Anastasia will eat any more. After initially trying to say she didn’t like baked beans any more, she decided that she really liked them. So did her little brother. He liked the spoon more, and tried to walk out of the restaurant with it, but we confiscated it. The baked beans had bacon and green onions in them, as well as notes of molasses and brown sugar, but mostly brown sugar than the dark flavor of molasses.

Dessert: We did not have any dessert, but they had an array of meringue style pies in the case at the front.

Ambience: Definitely get there before 5:30 PM or come after 6:00- When we got there at 5:10 PM, there was hardly anyone there (only three other tables had people). Then after we came in and sat down, there was a mad rush and every table but two were taken. There were lots of families there- I counted at least two other babies.

Would I go back? Definitely.

Bob Garner says that Stratford Barbecue #2 is located on King-Tobaccoville Road, but we couldn’t find that road name on any maps. In any case, we would say that it is on Main Street in King. The building is red and white, and shaped like a barn. There is ample seating inside. We came slightly after the lunch hour, and although it was not full, there was a steady stream of people getting take-out.

I ordered the chopped barbecue tray, which was a plate of barbecue, slaw, and five hushpuppies for $5.05. This is the most food for $5 that I’ve ever seen. You could feed two people on the amount of food that I got. There was literally a mountain of food on my plate; approximately two cups of slaw, a cup and a half of barbecue and 5 gigantic doughnut-shaped hushpuppies.

Barbecue: Their barbecue is hickory smoked; there were stacks of wood out back. The meat was very tender, in long strings. There was neither gristle nor fat; I only detected one bit of fat attached to a large chunk of barbecue. Bob Garner said that his was dry, but I thought mine was moist, so he must have been right that they might have had a bad day when he was there. Or perhaps they read his review, because my meat was swimming in Lexington-style sauce. The sauce was not thick, reddish, and very sweet. My husband opined that he wished that they would let you put your own sauce to taste, rather than make the decision for you how much you would need.

Slaw: The slaw was barbecue slaw, but it was not as red as some barbecue slaws that I’ve had. It clearly was made with the sweet barbecue sauce, but it was only pale pink at best. It had a kick to it; perhaps they were using lots of onion in their recipe?

Hushpuppies: As mentioned before, the hushpuppies were gigantic doughnut sized items. My husband initially thought that they had given us onion rings by mistake when he went to pick up our order at the counter. I think that it may be a Wachovia-area thing, because the Guide says that a place in Kernersville serves similar hushpuppies. Hmm…. This is a study for ethno-foodi-cology, are these a legacy of turnovers or some ur-Moravian food?

Desserts: We did not have dessert at Stratford’s, since we were headed to the Dairi-O afterwards to please the young folk, but there was an impressive display of chocolate cake, pecan pies, and pineapple upside down cake slices at the front counter. I am going to have to come back sometime to try the pineapple cake. The Dairi-O is on the edge of old downtown King, and is like a Dairy Queen with hard serve ice cream and a more extensive menu. (When would you ever be able to get a pimento cheese sandwich at a DQ?)

Would I go back? Meh. (Although I do think that pineapple cake is tempting.) I’d go to Fuzzy’s first, and my husband and I have decided that our next stop is Clark’s in Kernersville, along with a tour of Koerner’s Folly.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I didn’t actually eat at Prissy Polly’s restaurant, and I did not set out to eat their barbecue intentionally. I just happened to be at a picnic catered by Prissy Polly’s this evening, and I’m going to count it. So there.

As Bob Garner points out, the meat had long fibers. It was very tender, no chewy bits. Garner questions the authenticity of their Lexington barbecue, but I don’t have enough experience with Lexington to form my own opinion. The sauce was thick and red, and very good. That’s enough for me. (In terms of Lexington-style, that is. I prefer Eastern style.)

Slaw: Barbecue slaw. I didn’t actually have any, so I can’t speak to its merits.

Potato Salad: not what you usually think of as a barbecue side dish, but very tasty. The potatoes were cooked to perfection- not too soft, not too hard. Mmmmm….

Hush puppies: Not applicable. They served dinner rolls instead of hush puppies. Eh. I guess that’s a reasonable substitution.

Bean side dish: I’m not really sure what to call this. It was like baked beans, only they added red kidneys and lima beans, and the sauce was thinner than usual baked beans. Very unusual, and tasty!

Banana pudding: Mmmmm… bananalicious. There were many large chunks of banana in it, but the banana flavor did not overpower the pudding. There was still an equal amount of vanilla pudding flavor.

Given the chance, would I eat their barbecue again? Definitely!

Okay, so it’s not on Bob Garner’s list, but it’s barbecue and I ate there last night.

Barbecue: Very smokey flavored. Very tender; not a chewey bit to be found. They serve the barbecue straight up, so you can add your own sauce to taste. The sauce is Eastern-style, but more vinegary than peppery. (The sauce has many fewer flecks than, say, Scott’s.)

Hush Puppies: The size and shape of lady’s fingers cookies. Very tasty, but a little inconsistent in cooking. We ate two baskets, and the first basket came out a rich dark brown, mildly crispy, and the second basket was a light brown, no crisp.

Slaw: Mustard-based, not dry like some slaws (plenty of liquid, but not soupy).

Sweet Tea: Sweet in name only, and not very tea-ey either. (It seemed watery.) The second worst sweet tea I’ve ever had.

Brunswick Stew: Smokey flavored. The chicken was very tender, visible only as delicate ribbons. Fewer lima beans, more corn than average. Some of the best I’ve had.

Dessert: Their menu says that they have dessert, but we didn’t get a chance to try it. The server just brought us our check and never asked if we wanted any.

Service: We waited about ten minutes for a server to come take our drinks order, but the food came quickly once we ordered. Granted, they’ve only been open for a week.

Miscellaneous: Their menu is too long; you lose cred as a barbecue restaurant if you offer seafood. The prices are high compared to Bubba’s a few miles down the street.

Would I go back? Maybe. I’d go to Bubba’s first.