A new contender enters the barbecue drink ring: sweet tea, Cheerwine, or champagne?!?
Alright folks, I told @DavidSchechter that champagne was the best drink pairing for smoked brisket. He wanted to put it to the test on @wfaa’s Verify. Let’s see if our tasting panel has a palate as refined as mine. https://t.co/8S73lomX6A
NC Tripping’s list of best restaurants in Cleveland County includes several barbecue restaurants including Bridges Barbecue Lodge, Alston Bridges, and The Honey Hog
The Honey Hog in Fallston, NC (about 12 miles north of Shelby) released a documentary film about the origins of the restaurant on their Facebook page a few weeks ago. Tyler “Bones” Jones is the farmer and Johnny Ray is the pitmaster, and this short documentary shows how they got their starts individually before their partnership started at The Honey Hog.
The second half of the short film features two of their local suppliers in Guernsey Girl Creamery and Honey Tree Farm. Ashley from Guernsey Girl Creamery in nearby Shelby is a 4th generation dairy farmer who provides the cheese curds for The Honey Hog’s best selling appetizer, fried cheese curds. Casey from Honey Tree Farms in Conover provides them with their greens and vegetables through their organic “market gardening” processes.
“The Honey Hog” is a 27 minute short film available only on Facebook.
Description: When a community chooses to represent their local farmers, we all eat better. A food revolution has started in Western, North Carolina. Where in the middle of no where, folks have chosen to come from everywhere. This is The Honey Hog.
Name: The Honey Hog Date: 12/28/18 Address: 4629 Fallston Rd, Lawndale, NC 28090 Order: Chopped pork combo platter with red slaw, fries and a sample of chopped beef brisket, appetizer of cheese curds
Monk: The Honey Hog is a farm-to-table restaurant in the tiny town of Fallston (about 20 minutes north of Shelby) that this past summer brought on Johnny Ray as a managing partner and pitmaster to add wood smoked barbecue to their menu on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. Interestingly, Johnny is doing whole hog each of those days with pork ribs on Friday nights and central Texas-style brisket on Saturday nights.
The Honey Hog uses a thicker barbecue sauce that Johnny Ray has been selling in grocery store across the state and the chopped pork comes pre-sauced with it. It’s possible that I missed it, but I didn’t see this indicated on the menu and I don’t usually prefer my barbecue pre-sauced. This was no exception. In this case, it was hard to detect any smoke and I have to admit I was a little disappointed.
Well before central-Texas brisket made its way east of the Mississippi, chopped beef was something commonly found in the western part of NC heading towards the mountains. The Honey Hog didn’t have a combo on the menu so instead of ordering a full order of the chopped beef they were kind enough to provide me a sample with my meal. I could taste the smoke more on the beef, which did not come with the sauce, but it still wasn’t for me.
My sides of red slaw and fries were fine but the best part of the meal was the cheese curds I ordered as an appetizer. Those things were ridiculous and are apparently a big favorite of regular customers.
I didn’t love my lunch on this day but from what I can tell on social media The Honey Hog is probably be worth a second visit to try the ribs or brisket specials. And I’ll retry their whole hog, making sure to request the sauce on the side.
