Month: March 2014

Elwoods Barbecue & Burger Bar – Charlotte, NC (CLOSED)

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Name: Elwoods BBQ & Burger Bar
Date: 3/26/14
Address: 16139 Lancaster Hwy, Charlotte, NC 28277
Order: Classic Carolina Pulled Pork plate with cornbread, hush puppies, red slaw, and sweet tea (link to menu)
Price: $14

I never ate at the previous incarnation of Elwood’s Barbecue & Burger Bar (then simply known as Elwood’s BBQ) but from what I can tell I wasn’t missing much. Then last fall it was purchased by a couple of brothers-in-law, one of which was a former manager at Ri-Ra, who then hired a chef who previously worked at Burger Co. As I understand it, they immediately began to overhaul the menu and improve the quality of food.

But before I get to the food, Elwood’s interior is nice and generically rustic with a good array of televisions. With a solid beer list in tow, I imagine this could be a pretty good place to watch a [insert favorite sport here] game. In addition to wings and various burgers on the menu, they have barbecue in various forms – pulled pork, brisket, chicken, ribs, and burnt ends. Naturally, I ordered the pulled pork with hush puppies and red slaw.

The pulled pork came out in a mix of slightly dry and more moist shreds of pork. My order had decent pieces of bark (a welcome sight) that to my surprise had decent smoke. Very unexpected, considering there were no signs of a stick burner in the middle of this restaurant on the end of a strip mall. There were two pork sauces on the table: a “Piedmont” vinegar” sauce (which if we’re nitpicking was really an eastern-style vinegar sauce) and a non-traditional “Elwood’s” sauce that was tomato and vinegar-based with a special blend of spices. Of the two, the Elwood’s sauce worked best with the pork for me.

The menu states that all sides are scratch-made in house, which I can certainly appreciate. The hush puppies automatically came with a side of honey butter, which I am always happy to see. The red slaw had an off-putting brownish tint to it and had a slightly unappealing texture, so I did not finish it. Each plate order comes with cornbread, which was a little redundant with my hush puppies order but it was a nice, sweet-ish little muffin that I didn’t mind.

So Elwood’s Barbecue & Burger Bar exceeded my somewhat (and perhaps unfairly) low expectations going in. If it weren’t all the way in south Ballantyne I could see myself maybe going again in the right circumstances. As it stands, it’s an average barbecue restaurant for Charlotte.

-Monk

Ratings:
Atmosphere/Ambiance – 3 hogs
Pork – 3.5 hogs
Sides – 3 hogs
Overall – 3 Hogs

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Elwoods Barbecue & Burger Bar on Urbanspoon

Elwood's BBQ, Burgers and Ribs on Foodio54

Green Street Smoked Meats Chicago

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nickgerber:

Green Street Smoked Meat! This is seriously my new favorite restaurant in Chicago. It’s like they built a rock and roll BBQ joint just for me. It’s loud, dark and delicious. Go for the strong cocktails (my fave is the Oaxacan Old Fashioned – made with mezcal) and delicious food (the brisket is on point, delicious pulled pork, beef ribs, frito pie!!!, hot links, pork belly, baked beans, mac salad and soft serve), and the rock and roll. The service staff is awesome too. I put my seal of approval on it. When it eventually stops being winter in Chicago let’s meet in the alley for after work drinks and awesome food. 

I don’t know anything about the barbecue, but these photos alone make me want to visit Green Street Smoked Meats, a barbecue joint in Chicago.

Linkdown: 3/27/14

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Bonus linkdown? Bonus linkdown!

– You have until Friday to eat at the original Clyde Cooper’s location in Raleigh before it moves a few blocks away onto Wilmington Street the second week in April (via bbqboard)

– Colbert Pulled Pork Rant Pulled Too Hard, says Esquire’s Eat Like a Man Blog:

This seems a bit much. On the one hand, I applaud Colbert for taking on a sacred cow, or rather a sacred pig. They can’t say the guy doesn’t have balls. And he’s right in a way. It’s true that a lot of Carolina barbecue, not just in North Carolina but also in Colbert’s home state of South Carolina, is mediocre at best, and sometimes almost as bad as he makes it out to be. But the best of it is transporting, unique, and irreplaceable. No barbecue tradition in America varies so much from good to bad. I just came back from Raleigh and Durham and experienced both. At Cooper’s, I had a finely chopped barbecue sandwich that was simultaneously soft and somehow also firm, tightly packed but giving up every bite without resistance. It was porky, and a little smoky, and its vinegar just set off its fat. It was basically perfect. Later in the day I went to The Pit, one of the state’s best barbecue restaurants, and it was even better. The barbecue was fresher, and even when coarsely chopped, was still tender. Moreover, the vinegar was judiciously spiked with hot pepper, so you got three things on your palate at once: fat, acid, and heat — a kind of holy trinity of American meat.

– By the looks of this tweet, it appears Our State Magazine has hired a new barbecue writer

– As of 9:24am this morning, The Great NC BBQ Map Kickstarter has been fully funded! Congrats to them!