Peace -N- Hominy Q Shack – Belmont, NC

March 30, 2015March 29, 2015 / Barbecue Bros / 4 Comments

Name: Peace -N- Hominy Q Shack
Date: 3/25/15
Address: 403 E Catawba St Ste 200, Belmont, NC 28012
Order: “Pul’d” pork sandwich with BBQ slaw, hush puppies, and Sun Drop (link to menu)
Price: $9.50

Monk: Belmont is a small town situated just off of I-85 between Charlotte and Gastonia that is mostly known for being the home of Belmont Abbey College, a small Catholic college. I haven’t really spent much time that way but last year a promising looking barbecue spot called Peace -N- Hominy Q Shack opened up. Being that Belmont is actually a little bit closer to where we currently live than barbecue restaurants in Fort Mill, Concord, or Kannapolis (since I’ve exhausted most Charlotte options), I decided to check it out.

I quite like the space that Peace -N- Hominy occupies at the rear of an older building that also houses Belmont’s Drug Store. It’s a smaller space and there aren’t but a handful of tables available in the main dining area (which were all full that day during lunch), so I headed back to the barstool seating against a wall just off the open kitchen.

Peace -N- Hominy state on the menu that they smoke their pork for 13 hours with apple-wood and hickory but from what I could tell, they do their smoking with a gasser. Which you could taste in the dry and coarsely pulled pork I had on my sandwich. The chunks that did have some bark were a notch above the other pieces but on the whole it was crying out for one of their table sauces (available in hot, vinegar, and mustard).

Speedy: Which sauce did you try? Did it help?

Monk: I tried the vinegar sauce, which helped a bit in terms of dryness. Another thing that helped was the barbecue slaw on the sandwich itself. One suggestion, though – they should put the slaw on top of the pork (as most places do) so that by the time I receive the sandwich the bottom half of the bun isn’t soaked through due to the weight of the meat sitting on top of the slaw. This resulted in me having a somewhat hard time eating the sandwich without it falling apart.

The hush puppies come lightly dusted with what I believe is cinnamon sugar and is almost more dessert than savory side. Nonetheless, they are quite good despite being somewhat inconsistent – some were a little more underdone than others.

And a note about the paper straws they utilized. Props to Peace -N- Hominy for refusing to use styrofoam products – I wish more restaurants would do this – but a paper straw is where I draw the line. Its just not natural to sip through a straw that is slowly disintegrating and breaking down with every sip. I try not to hyperbolize too much (I usually leave that to Speedy), but a paper straw truly is the devil’s instrument.

Speedy: I have no idea what you’re talking about…

Monk: Sure you don’t, Speedy…

In addition to having a pretty good name, Peace -N- Hominy Q Shack is a decent little barbecue joint. They are unfortunately at a bit of a disadvantage by not using a wood burning smoker from the get-go but are worth checking out in Belmont.

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

Friday Find: GE’s 12 foot smoker

March 27, 2015April 27, 2015 / Barbecue Bros / Leave a comment

From a few weeks back at SXSW…

For this year’s SXSW Interactive, General Electric introduced the Texas-inspired BBQ Research Lab. The lab features a 12-foot BBQ smoker which houses multiple sensors that record temperature, humidity, smoke velocity, and meat temperature in real time. The Digital Lab went behind the scenes to see how big data makes for delicious food.

For more information, check out this article on TMBBQ.

–Monk

Linkdown: 3/25/15

March 25, 2015April 27, 2015 / Barbecue Bros / Leave a comment

– The “Elite Ate” of Garden and Gun’s Barbecue Bracket has been posted; in the Mid Atlantic region Skylight Inn has been eliminated by Red Bridges Barbecue Lodge and faces Lexington Barbecue. The rest of the bracket is located here and voting ends Thursday at 10pm

– Speaking of brackets and barbecue, Red Clay Soul’s Georgia BBQ Bracket Challenge is also down to its “Great Eight”

– Last week, Robert Moss took a deeper look at barbecue spaghetti in Memphis

– Marie, Let’s Eat! stops at Hodges Bar-B-Que in Decatur, GA and Blue Sky Barbecue in Woodstock, GA in two of his latest chapters

– The pitmasters for the 2015 Big Apple Barbecue Block Party have been announced, and Ed Mitchell is not attending this year

– Another reminder that the NCBBQA cooking and judging school is this Saturday, March 28

– Aaron Franklin is a James Beard finalist for Best Chef: South

– If, like me, you are less than familiar with Alabama and Georgia barbecue, here’s a primer

When it comes to regional barbecue, some people claim that neither Georgia nor Alabama has a distinctive style. We say, think again.

Sure, you can find everything from Texas brisket to Memphis ribs in Atlanta, but on the two-lane highways, a definite Georgia style emerges. Pork shoulders or hams are cooked over hickory and dressed in a thin tomato-and-vinegar sauce. They’re served with Brunswick stew, a hearty combination of chicken, beef, or pork (or all three) simmered with tomatoes and corn. Some of these elements carry over into Alabama—chopped pork dressed in tomato-and-vinegar sauce, plus a somewhat thinner Brunswick stew. But there’s too much variation to identify a single Alabama style. Sauces range from ruddy, tomato-based mixtures to thick mustard-spiked concoctions. Most distinctive is Alabama’s mayonnaise-based white sauce. Some are traditional, others more modern, but one element unites: They’re all delicious.

Troutman’s Bar-B-Que – Concord, NC

March 23, 2015April 27, 2015 / Barbecue Bros / 2 Comments

Name: Troutman’s Bar-B-Que
Date: 3/7/15
Address: 362 Church Street North, Concord, NC 28025
Order: Chopped barbecue plate with slaw, fries, hush puppies, and Cherry Lemon Sun Drop (!!) (link to menu)
Price: $9

Barbecue smoked over wood or wood coals is usually a pretty reliable indicator of good barbecue, but it isn’t 100%. Troutman’s Bar-B-Que has been open since the early 70s at its downtown Concord location off Church Street. And they are still cooking over wood coals in the smokehouse located at the back of the parking lot. However, Troutman’s is a case where cooking barbecue the old way unfortunately doesn’t produce a great product.

When it comes to barbecue plates, you get a choice of chopped or sliced and naturally I went with chopped (some day I will try sliced barbecue, but that day was not that day). For a place that smokes over wood, you sure couldn’t taste any of it in the barbecue. There was not a lot of bark either, which almost seemed as if it was taken away by design. And to top it all off, it was also extremely dry. Very disappointing.

The chopped plate comes with fries, slaw (your choice of red or white), and hush puppies. Only the hush puppies are really worth talking about and they were actually damn good. The Monkette would definitely agree, as her lunch that day mostly consisted of them. Thankfully, my father-in-law ordered an additional basket so we each were still able to get our fill.

The other saving grace of the meal besides the hush puppies was the Cherry Lemon Sun Drop. You see Cheerwine and you see regular Sun Drop at barbecue joints in the Piedmont but you don’t see a lot of Cherry Lemon Sun Drop. Man, that stuff is just about perfect to have with barbecue.

The search for good barbecue in Concord continues…

–Monk

Ratings:
Atmosphere/Ambiance – 3 hogs
Pork – 2 hogs
Sides – 3.5 hogs
Overall – 2 hogs