Name: Kings Restaurant
Date: 9/7/15
Address: 405 East New Bern Road, Kinston, NC 28504
Order: Pig-in-a-Puppy combo with fries, slaw, and a drink (link to menu)
Price: $8

As it turns out, the last barbecue I tried on Labor Day weekend ended up being the best of the bunch. To be honest, after a weekend of eating and drinking, barbecue was kind of the last thing I wanted to have on our 7 hour drive back home. Nevertheless, I try to be a team player when I can (many times much to my wife’s chagrin), so we stopped at King’s Restaurant in Kinston.

Outside of Wilber’s in Goldsboro, the other barbecue restaurant I’ve heard come up the most in the region was King’s. People tend to speak fondly of it with memories of how they would stop there on the way to and from the beach growing up. Plus, they have a barbecue sandwich in a giant hush puppy. I repeat: a barbecue sandwich in a giant hush puppy. This is not a drill, people.

Even without the novelty of the sandwich – the hushpuppy “bun” was kind of weird but I got over it pretty quickly – the pork was nicely smoked and more than held up on its own. After I finished my combo, I snuck some away from my daughter’s kid’s meal (not that she was eating much of it anyways) because I found it to be that good. Or maybe it was in comparison to the lackluster barbecue I had eaten earlier in the weekend. 

I wrote in an earlier review for McCall’s that next time I would rather just go to Wilber’s (particularly since they are 0.5 miles apart) and while Wilber’s does edge out King’s by a bit, they are separated by 22 miles on highway 70. Depending on which way I’m headed to or from the beach in this theoretical example, I could see myself going with either and being quite content.

–Monk

Ratings:
Atmosphere – N/A
Pork – 3 hogs
Sides – 3 hogs
Overall – 3 hogs