There’s this place down the road, the Barbecue Shack (I think), and I’ve driven past it thousands of times and always thought someday, I’d try it. Yesterday, I was driving past with my windows open and the stoplight turned red. I was sitting there, and the wind changed. I smelled not barbecue sauce, but hickory smoke, and without really thinking about it, as soon as the light turned green, I turned into the parking lot.
I discovered when I went inside that this is really a beer store (this is one of those socialist states where all alcohol sales are state-regulated) with a barbecue place built in. There are booths, but no sign that anyone has sat in one. Nobody was behind the counter. It looked empty, and that’s never good.
It wasn’t empty. There was only one woman working there, and she was selling beer. When she took care of the last customer in line, she asked me what I wanted. I’d been looking at the menu, and my rule when trying out a new barbecue place is always get the pulled pork. They sell pints of pulled pork for (I believe) $9.99, and quarts for $14.99. So I bought a quart.
I had needed to stop at the store anyway, so I picked up some buns there (Pepperidge Farm Onion) in addition to the other things I needed, and headed home. I put the pork in the microwave and nuked it for a minute to get it hot again, and put a bun on my plate.
The first thing I noticed when spooning it out was that there was the perfect amount of sauce, just enough to moisten the pork. I piled it on the bun, then picked it up and took a bite.
The sauce was a bit on the sweet side, but pleasantly spicy (not hot–then, people in this part of the country don’t seem to have much tolerance for hot). Had there been more sauce, I might have liked it less, but as I said, it was just enough to moisten the pork. You could eat a pulled pork sandwich of this barbecue without goo running down your forearm or falling onto the floor out of the bun. It was actually pretty good. I ended up eating most of one of the pints.
I’ll probably have the rest for lunch today. Not bad. Not bad at all. I noticed after I’d ordered that they offer three or four sauces, one a vinegar-based Carolina sauce. Next time, I’ll try that.
