Year of the Pig

This was a great weekend for pigs and fun. It was Memorial Day weekend, and the M Shanghai String Band headed up to Cape Cod, for some fun, sun, music, and even ribs. We arrived on Friday afternoon and set up camp at Maurice’s campground, which was perfectly pleasant and also the most expensive campground I have ever stayed in, at $80-92 per night (for 2 adjacent tent sites). Oh well, this is Cape Cod, right? If you don’t got money get lost!

Anyway, some of us left the campsite and headed to the nearest beach to check out the surf and skip some rocks, and just down the road my nostrils were greated with the unmistakably delicious smell of hickory smoke. My stomach rumbled as my head turned to the sight of a nice looking smoker right there on the side of the road, a column of rich smoke rolling down the road from Russ and Marie’s Marconi Beach BBQ Restaurant. Marconi Beach, by the way, is the site of one of Guglielmo Marconi’s wireless radio stations. I was excited and knew that BBQ joint was gonna be on my list of tourist attractions while there on Cape Cod.

The next day, several of us showed up hungry for some Barbecue. Squidocto, Glendon and myself split a full rack of ribs, and I can promise you I was excited after seeing that great looking smoker and smelling that hickory smoke up and down the road. The food arrived on a nice lookin platter, served with small sides of BBQ beans, cole slaw, grilled bread and a baked sweet potato with maple cinnamon butter.

I have to say as soon as the ribs were in front of me, the disappointment was already setting in. They were completely slathered and dripping in sauce. Sometimes I am ok with that, but I wasn’t expecting it here. Then I took my first bite, and was disappointed again by the taste and texture. The ribs themselves were quite bland, the sauce sweet and overpowering. The membrane on the boneside of the ribs was still intact, and although it wasn’t that tough, it looked bad and could have led to some of the blandness by preventing the smoke from penetrating into the ribs. The ribs were overly tender and falling off the bone like they had been boiled, however they did show a smoke ring, but had very little smoke flavor. Lastly, one more criticism was that at least half of the rack were “shiners,” meaning that there was no meat on the bottom of the bone. Not a great cut of ribs. As you can tell I was disappointed. Sometimes its just not smart to expect too much, and set yourself up for such disappointment. That said, I like ribs and it was still a nice lunch. I had 3, making my Year of the Pig count 74.

After lunch we headed to Provincetown, which is a beautiful little New England beach town. We played an afternoon set on the local radio station, WOMR, and then headed to the venue we were playing in that night which interestingly was called THE SQUEALING PIG, or THE PIG for short. I thought that was a good sign. We got a free meal there, and I ordered the “Hog Burger” which was described as “Thick-Cut Smoked Bacon, served with Gorgonzola Cheese and Chipoltle Mayo.” I thought that sounded pretty great, but when it came it was just a beef patty with one sad shrunken piece of weenie bacon. Certainly no hog burger. Again with the disappointment. I forgave them quickly though, cause playing the PIG that night was a great. The show was a blast and we couldn’t have asked for a better night. The staff was great to us, and the audience even better. I can’t wait to go back to the Provincetown PIG. Thanks to all that made it happen!

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I read a review last week from someone’s blog about Northeastern barbecue joints. He went a little ga-ga in his review of the Manhattan restaurant RUB, (see the Ribulator, Entry #15) and as I left work that night, I thought, I am pretty damn lucky to walk by this place everyday on my way home from work. So, I called in a takeout order for some smoked chicken and burnt ends of brisket, which I know (sorry) is not pork. It was so good, that the very next night, I decided to get some takeout ribs, and again I was not disappointed, they are so damn fine. That’s all I have to say.

Those were 4 superb ribs. That makes the current ribulation 71.

(They went great with Fiddleheads too. Get ‘em while you can!)

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….Brown Ale to be exact.

I played a gig at Johnny D’s in Beantown last night, and had to order a “Pig’s Ear” when I looked at the tap beers. The bartender gave me a taste and I was happily surprised by this rich yet refressing, deeply brown ale. It was pleasantly bitter, with a nice fragrant aftertaste. Just like a pig’s ear.

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Last night Mike and I went to a new place right around the block that just opened this week, called “Soul Flavors.” I have been a little excited to try this place since I first saw its awning go up and peeked at the menu, since I have been known to like some soul flavor.

We got there kind of late, around 9pm, and the place was full, although it has a very small seating area. We had to wait a little while for the table and we got to sit on the side and observe a little as we sipped our B.Y.O.Beer. They had renovated the entire place, which used to be a cozy little Moroccan restaurant. It was nice see some of the stuff they did, like opening the space and taking out the drop ceiling, but for a place called Soul Flavors, it is pretty Soul-less. Granted it is a small and tough space to work with, but the place has a Home Depot floor and some bad smooth jazz music playing. The walls are bare and stark and the tables although do not feel inviting.

The staff, however, was very friendly, obviously excited about their new place and ready to show it off, which is nice and refreshing. Before long, we were seat and handed menus, which I have to say has many dishes that made me think twice, but my decision was made before I came in the door, I would have the “Orange Ginger Glazed Slow Cooked Pork Ribs.” We place our order, Mike ordered the Melange “A” Salad, and we also ordered a side of Cornbread and Mac and Cheese.

The food eventually arrived and everything was on its own little square plate. If we had ordered one more small side there would have been no room on the table for any more square plates! They set down the baby back ribs, which were stacked three on top of three, and looked very tempting decorated with the orange and ginger glaze. I was excited about the ribs, and so was the server who let me know that they were delicious. I would say that many people would agree, and don’t get me wrong, they were good, but I would probably not go back there for them. Yes, they were very tender, you could pull the bone right out of them, and sometimes that is nice. However, the rib meat itself was very bland, maybe they were boiled to get them tender like that. I have read that boiling ribs can leach out a lot of flavor. On the top of the ribs was a charred outside, that looked like the sauce that was on them had burned, maybe when reheating. Again, it tasted like char, with no real flavor. On top of all of that the ribs were drizzled with a syrupy sweet orange glaze. It was sweet, and a lot of people would like that, but I think it didn’t offer much for my taste buds.

As for the rest, the Mac and Cheese was creamy and tastey, with a layer of crisped melted cheddar, which was good. The cornbread was Yankee style, somewhere in the spectrum between Southern cornbread and yellow cake. Mike was very happy with his salad, which did look good. We also ordered the Bread Pudding for dessert, which was very sweet, but quite delicious.

All in all I was not that impressed with the place, but as it is right around the corner from my house, and did have a lot of other very interesting sounding choices on the menu, I am sure I will be back to sample more. I will probably not order the ribs again, but I certainly wish the place good luck getting off the ground!

As for Ribs, I ate all 6, no problem. That is 59 ribs in the Year of the Pig. Thanks to the Piggies!

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I was chatting this morning with Ben, a nice fellow I work with, and as in all good conversations, the topic of Barbecue eventually came up. You see, Ben here is from San Antonio, and claims to know of the best Barbecue spot in the world. I was immediately skeptical. He described a little town in central Texas, called Llano. He said as you drive in towards Llano, the first thing you see is a rising pillar of smoke in the distance, leading directly to a place called Coopers. The image in my mind was compelling, so I had to investigate. I quickly found the place on the internets, Cooper’s Old Time Pit Bar-B-Que. Hmm. Does look pretty good. I looked a little more, and found this great review from dallasfood.org of a trip to Llano to visit Cooper’s and some other places. Wow, it sounds REALLY good. I wish I could go! Just a quick trip to Llano please!

READ IT HERE

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Man, I hate air travel these days. I had a 6:30 am flight from Laguardia this morning, and that meant I set the alarm for 3:20 am. No human should have to get up at 3:20 am and schlep luggage. Anyway, at least I got to the airport on time, onto the plane, AND to my destination, Louisville, via a quick layover in Memphis.

I know that Memphis is one of the big BBQ meccas of the USA, but I didn’t expect BBQ signs to be plastered all over the airport. I am not complaining! Now I have to confess, I got to the Memphis airport at about 8 am (9 am EDT) and man, I was hungry, having been up 6 hours already. First thing I saw walking out from my gate was this big neon pig, a sign for “Interstate BBQ.” However, they were only serving breakfast, and I was really thinking about some ribs. I probably would have felt a little self conscious chowing down on ribs at 8 am in the airport, anyway, so that was probably for the best. I settled for a bagel and an apple I had packed with me, and stood in the long line for a Starbucks coffee (sorry, yes, I admit it). I would like to say that the airport Starbucks employees were shockingly chipper and friendly, and I really liked the hard-to-type Memphis pronunciation of the word, “cowfee,” drawn out long and dramatically like something that will really get your day going, “cooowwwfee.”

Memphis! That’s right. Alas, that I could not leave the airport. I got a quick airport tour of the city, and I am sure that is not fair, but judging from what I saw represented, including Sun Records, Elvis, the Stax Museum, and lots of BBQ, I realized, I owe it to myself to make a visit to Memphis one of these days soon. (Not to mention that I have very sweet cousins and an aunt and uncle I would like to visit there. Hi yall!)

This guy did not like having his picture taken, so, I thought I would post it.

A trip to Memphis for some Graceland and some BBQ, it must happen.

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R.U.B.: Righteous Urban Barbeque!

Yes, one geek offered to take another geek to lunch, and where did that geek wanna go? You got it…to R.U.B., for some Ribs. We invited a third geek, and so it was that the three geeks, ended up at a table for three, with three orders of ribs, three sides, and till about three o’clock before I had to be back to work.

But that was plenty of time for the mission at hand, and BloggyMcBlogBlog, the Crushinator and myself ordered up a platter each of Rub’s “Long End” and “Short End” Spare Ribs as well as an order of their Baby Back Ribs. To accompany all that piggy goodness, we ordered Hush Puppies (I think those are fried in Lard, btw), Greens, and their damn fine Beans.

I have eaten at R.U.B. a number of times and have had their Brisket, Pulled Pork and I usually get their smoked chicken, which I highly recommend. This is the first time I have had their ribs, and they did not disappoint!

The restaurant opened a couple of years ago, and the co-owner Paul Kirk, the self-proclaimed “Baron of Barbeque” is a well know Pitmaster with many BBQ books, and even a BBQ school. It is a no frills looking place with a menu boasting a great selection of smoked meats and even a $250 bottle of Dom Perignon to take advantage of those high falutin’ Manhattan types. The meats are served on wax paper on metal pans, and garnished with wonder bread and pickle chips.

As for the ribs today, I would say, I enjoyed them awfully well. Definitely worth the time and money for anyone who likes some excellent smoked ribs. The meats were warm, not hot, and are smoked daily. They are not covered in sauce, but R.U.B. on the side sauces are good if you care to drown your food in them. The ribs were deliciously smoky, the meat firm and tender. As crispy and dry, and at the same time juicy and succulant. These are ribs that I like. Yum!

As for the various cuts of Ribs, it seemed like the overall table favorite was the “Long End” Spare Ribs, which were the meatiest ones. I, however, cannot really say that I preferred one over the others, they were all excellent.

Also a word about the sides. The greens were fine, but nothing to choke your chicken about. The hush puppies, well they are lard fried cornbread balls. Fine again, but not my favorite. The beans, however, are rich and dark, and smoky as HECK, with big chunks of their Burnt Ends. Delicious!

I am proud to say that I was able to enjoy 8 of these ribs today, and thanks to BloggyMcBlogBlog for picking up the bill. That’s 53 Year of the Pig Ribs. I would have just eaten 7, but I couldn’t just leave that last rib there all rejected and alone, and who wants to waste a styrofoam box on one rib. By the way, that reminds me of my one criticism of R.U.B.: I know they are going for a “low rent” feel with the pie pans and white bread and all, but I still don’t get off on a restaurant serving all their sit-down customers in styrofoam and plastic and paper. I just get sick of trash, that’s all. Sorry about being preachy. I will stop now.

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I was back in Ann Arbor, MI this week, to see my girlfriend Alissa’s dissertation recital. Fortunately, it all went well, and afterwards we headed out to celebrate at a local Brew Pub, called Grizzly Peak. We were planning to just get some beer and some dessert, but looking at the menu, I noticed the Pulled Pork Sliders: “pulled Heritage pork shoulder, slow-braised with barbeque sauce and served on fresh mini potato rolls, $1.95.” Suddenly I was hungry! We ordered 3, they arrived, and as you can see, we dug in. They were delicious. Grizzly Peak is a recommended Brewery, with great beer, and above average bar food. I recommend the Cherry Bread Pudding as well!

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What’s for dinner? Ribs, of course!

After playing on WFMU, the “Freeform Station on the Nation!” a few of us went over to the WHITE STAR BAR in Jersey City for dinner. The White Star is a great little bar with a nice mellow vibe, music you can actually talk over (I am old and hard of hearing) and much better than average bar food, including great burgers and ribs! Squidocto was all for splitting some ribs, God bless him, so we ordered a rack of Baby Back Ribs, with a couple pitchers of Magic Hat #9. I haven’t been terribly impressed with the restaurant ribs I have had recently, so my expectations were low, but I must say these were delicious. They came out served on a big platter of shoestring fries, and accompanied by some mac-n-cheese (actually penne-n-cheese). It was a nice looking rack of baby back ribs, coated (not too thickly) in a decent BBQ sauce, nicely blackened around the edges. They were ribs of the totally-falling-off-the-bone variety, and that were a pleasure. We all sampled and discussed and everyone agreed on their delicious-atude. I was prodded to interview the cook for the this here blog, but I failed to do so. Sorry loyal reader(s). I have failed you this time.

These ribs certainly set a bar to aim for. If they had any fault, they may have been a little TOO falling-off-the-bone-tender, but that is not a terrible fault. It’s definitely nice to have tender ribs, but it’s also good to have a little of that gnawing off the bone to go along with it. After a few ribs, Squidocto also thought that maybe they weren’t the most flavorful ribs, but he also enjoyed them very much. Anyway, I would totally recommend them, and I will be going back there again. I will also be looking for a way to duplicate this recipe…stay tuned for that.

5 more delicious ribs down, for a total of 45. It’s so easy! Thank Ye PIGGY!

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One of my all time favorite Chinese Restaurants has to be the M SHANGHAI BISTRO & DEN, located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It’s always a fun and delicious place to go, and the owner, May, is a real sweetheart. I have spent a lot of time here, since the band I play with started here, plays here regularly, and is in fact named after the restaurant (see THE M SHANGHAI STRING BAND). I have been a regular patron here for years and years, and yet there are many things on the menu I have still not tried, including their Ribs.

Yesterday, after rehearsing our band sat down for dinner at one of M Shanghai’s big communal family style tables, and Squidocto and I decided to split an order of Ribs. The menu called them back ribs, but I believe they were spare ribs. Six ribs were served, covered with a sweet and savory gravy. The ribs were soft and tender, I am assuming they were boiled or braised, quite tasty, but probably not my favorite rib dish on the planet.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the food at M Shanghai, it is great! Recommended staple dishes at M Shanghai are the Awesome Beef and Scallions, Garlic Eggplant, Lo Mein, Mu Shu Pork, Tic Tac Toe Chicken, Duck, and DO NOT miss the Spicy Won Tons, Shumai, or Steamed Juicy Pork Buns! PORK BUNS!

As for a little ribulation, that’s gonna be 3 more ribs, for a total of 40 in the Year of the Pig. Thanks Piggies!

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