The B12 (XII) Forum, home of the 'Front Porch, y'all' at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

Around here, the three major kinds of "BBQ" are ribs, pulled pork, and (less frequent) brisket.  The pulled pork, to me, is pretty constant (ignoring the BBQ chains).  The rubs vary all over in style and even type, the brisket can be pretty bad at some places, dried out, tough, not tasty.  Fox Bros. IMHO has the best brisket of any place I've tried, but when I venture to a new place I USUALLY get pulled pork.  But I suspect some places may have great ribs and mediocre PP and maybe not offer brisket.

I kind of wonder what makes the top ten truly elite.  It would be fun to try one and then try #50 and see if I could discern a difference.  I'd guess #50 in Texas might be better than anything in GA, or at least top ten in GA.

The sauce variable is another one in the southeast of course.  A lot of folks here thing BBQ has to have sauce, and they may rank restaurants on how well they like the sauce.

The best ribs I ever had by far were cooked in my backyard on a trailer rig by some boys from Missouri.  I've never come close to them, and the notion they needed sauce was foreign to my lips.  They didn't, at all, need any sauce.  The funny thing is it was for a work dinner and I had about 20 coworkers from Japan sitting in my backyard eating ribs, corn, baked beans, and water melon.  They seemed content.

I'd just skip that steak entirely.

I'd just skip that steak entirely.

There are times of course where someone else chooses, like the Mexican place we went to in San Diego, located in a mall.  There's your sign.

I think if the BBQ ranking really can differentiate between 1-10 and 40-50, it's worthwhile.

For general resurants it's easier in the sense one can start by going by the average dollar cost of a meal. That gives you a start, but of course some hole in the wall might be excellent and cheap.  

I'm like Utee on steak sauce, I might put some A1 on a burger, maybe, but not on a steak, ever, unless it's awful and I have to eat something.

I usually mess around with BBQ sauces here on pulled pork because a lot of places have 3-4-5 different types on the table, including mustard and vinegar based.  

The brisket at Fox Bros. either comes "fatty" or "lean" and I've always gotten lean.  We both usually get the two meats with Brunswick stew and fried okra, you about can't have a BBQ place around here without those two items.  Ribs here usually come with sauce already on them.

I don't know if it would qualify as barbecue, but when I was in Korea (nearly 40 years ago), I liked what they called barbecue. I like a lot of hot/spicy Korean food.

I don't know if it's the same actually in Korea, but here in the US what they call "Korean BBQ" is just grilled meats.  It's delicious and I really enjoy it, but it's not smoked low and slow.

Lewis Grizzard wrote that you can spot a good BBQ place if it smells like smoke, has a least one Cadillac parked out front, and has several pickups near it.  Obviously it's a lot easier to serve "hamburgers" etc. than real BBQ which takes time and attention and a lot more training.  

I mentioned before we stopped somewhere between Austin and San Antonio on some four lane highway, not an interstate, at a crowded place that I think was a chain, I didn't know that, and I thought it was mediocre, going to show I can find mediocre amidst greatness.  It may have been this place.  

Old 300 BBQ - Texas BBQ in the Heart of the Hill Country, Blanco, Texas

We had stayed on River Walk and were headed back to my wife's friend's place south of Austin intending to go through "wine country".  I did find a winery that was very nice and had pretty good wine.  I got a membership for my wife's friend who had put us up several days.

I'd guess we'd have more Q places around here if it wasn't so time consuming to prepare everything.  The places we have tend to be crowded.  I have some more to try out, I'm not overly impressed, but some are pretty good.

There was a chain place near us in Cincy that was solid, we went there pretty often.  Another place had really good chicken but their pulled pork was oddly not great or even very good.  I never understood that, the owner knew what he was about.

Is smoked fish BBQ?

Cold smoked?  No, I don't think so.  You'd certainly never find it listed as BBQ on any traditional Texas BBQ menu.

Some of the BBQ/Asian fusion restaurants that have popped up, though?  Maybe so.