Percy Street BBQ

#1 of this meal was the amazing Mac & Cheese. People go on and on about places having mac & cheese "to die for" and to me most of it tastes the same or is just kind of forgettable. Percy Street's mac & cheese had the perfect amount of moisture, no overcooked noodles, not too dry or greasy, or swimming in thin sauce. Perfectly seasoned, delicious cheese sauce (bechamel family, I think) clinging to every morsel, crowned with golden brown breadcrumbs, I would come back just for this.


On to the meat. This is apparently real-ish "Texas" BBQ, which I'm no expert on but which they explain means no spice rubs, just salt pepper and smoke, sauce on the side if you want it, ultra simple. The Pork Belly was amazing, ultra fatty creamy slices of pork that melt in your mouth. Great ribs, chicken, unfortunately they were out of sausage and rib tips. Brisket was a little tough for us, not bad, just used to brisket being more tender, and usually my favorite thing.

I was sort of wishing for a bigger variety of sauces, like Abner's or Fette Sau who have several sauces with different levels of heat as well as a few mustard / vinegar based sauces, but the simplicity here is also a good thing.

Also - amazing green bean casserole with fried onions, something I'm sort of scared of, makes me think of brown canned beans mixed with cream of mushroom soup, actually I don't know if I've even had green bean casserole before.. anyway, it was right on.

Great place to come with a group... The "Double Down" or "Lockhart" specials for the table are the way to go, you get a little bit of everything. Only thing that threw me off a bit was the sort of faux-rustic Crate & Barrel vibe going on, like they were afraid to make it look too beat up and scare away the lunching ladies from Ardmore.

I think a more comfortable, rustic dining room similar to Cantina, and less spouting-off-memorized-menu-description professional servers would lend some authenticity to the whole experience. Anyway in the end the food more than made up for any qualms I had about the decor.

Percy Street BBQ
900 South St.

For more about Texas BBQ, check out this documentary about the Percy Street team's research trip, and two great blogs that will have you ready to hop a train to Texas....

•Percy Street BBQ Documentary
•Man Up Texas BBQ
•Full Custom Gospel BBQ

Bebe's BBQ

I know I'm late on this BBQ posting, because Bebe's has been open for a while now, and it has lovely reviews so there's no reason for me to wait this long. I've been trying, their hours have just been extended and now they have delivery ( YES!) South Philly just got sweeter.

So were going to take our pork focus away from hotdogs and to Bebe's beautiful pulled pork. Which lovely Tamara, my biscuit angel, pulls from the bones and chops up right in front of me and drenches in their North Carolina style sauce. Everything of course was awesome and I don't have a single need or want for anything more. I am normally a sucker for sticky sweet tomato based BBQ sauces, but everything about Bebe's BBQ was done with love, detail and care. So there was no need to hide mediocre meat behind a sauce, at Bebe's everything was moist delicious and the sauce complimented the meat perfectly.

What made visiting them on Sunday a little bit more special was the smoked chicken, which for a pork lover like me, actually swayed me a little bit. It was amazing. The spicy biscuits were so good I don't think I came up for air or spoke until they were all gone. And to top it off was the most perfect tiny pecan pie.

It was a great way to end a year of good eating.

Bebe's BBQ
In the Italian Market
1017 South 9th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19147
(267) 519-8791

Abner's BBQ

Who knew that some of the best BBQ in the Philadelphia Area is in a strip mall in Jenkintown? I've read about Abner's a few times but couldn't believe that it could be that great. Figured people in the burbs just like it because there's nothing better.

And Philly's just not a big BBQ town. Mediocre chains and a few old joints that are hit or miss. Apparently the good stuff is all in trucks and makeshift roadside smokers in North Philly. Although I haven't been to Bebe's in the italian market. Hopefully things I will eat soon.


To my surprise walking into Abners I was hit with the smell of real smoke. The chatter of BBQ dudes in dirty aprons shootin' the breeze and hacking up huge slabs of meat. A big condiment island with pickles, different homemade sauces, and lots of napkins.

Since first going to Abner's a few months ago I went back last weekend for more (and pictures). All the meats are ultra-slow smoked with a mix of oak, hickory and sugar maple. Dry rub on the ribs and probably the brisket but maybe not on the chicken.

Authentically served "dry" you can add sauce yourself if you choose. The brisket is so moist is doesn't really need it. Pulled pork and smoked sausage, equally amazing. Ribs and 1/2 chicken, delicious, fallingoff the bone & all that. The sauces are really good though, great vinegar mustard sauce and two different tomato based sauces, one spicy & one sweet.





Sides are decent but definitely not the star. The baked beans and cornbread were really good though. Plus they have awesome classic southern desserts that change (weekly?) like pineapple upside down cake and banana cream pie. Good thing my folks (who live in Jenkintown) like it too, because I plan to stop at Abner's every time I visit. (Note the table setting and Pepper Cabbage are my mom's, not Abner's.)

Abner's Authentic BBQ
505 Old York Road (Jenkintown Square)
Jenkintown, PA

Nick's Charcoal Pit - Again

Chau wrote about Nick's maybe a year ago and kept telling me how great it is. Finally gave it a shot and it was awesome. Now for the purists, some of the stuff on the menu says "BBQ" but this is not smoked, traditional southern bbq at all, but charcoal grilled ribs, chicken and even filet mignon slathered in BBQ sauce. They also do burgers and philly-style sandwiches on Sarcone's bread packed with everything from grilled sausage to tuna steak.

The ribs were really good and tender, wings better than most.. but my favorite thing was the char-grilled, split hot dog covered with bacon and cheese whiz on a kaiser roll. Amazing.

Nick's Charcoal Pit
(Take Out & Delivery Only)
1242 Snyder
South Philadelphia

grits and gravy

After spending a week eating my way across Savannah, GA and Charleston, SC I'm left with a blurry memory of grits, sausage gravy and fried everything. In these tourist heavy towns it can be a bit difficult to sort the real deal gems from the tourist traps. There were lots of good things to eat (some of which I missed getting photos of) so I'm just going to post a bunch of my favorites from the trip.

Savannah & South Carolina are great places to eat because you get the Southern cooking traditions -fried chicken, grits, greens, cornbread, bacon in everything, 75 different varieties of "barbecue" along with the coastal "Low Country" cooking that's heavy on seafood and has a little bit of a cajun feel to it. This is where the she-crab soup, shrimp & grits, and po-boys come in, on practically every menu from the corner greasy spoon to the 4 star hotel restraurants. Oh and I can't fail to mention, especially in Savannah, southern hospitality is not a myth.



Clary's Cafe
First place we ate in Savannah. Been there since 1903 and has been in a few movies. Awesome diner vibe and lots of locals.
Great biscuits. Good Coffee. Chicken fried steak & grits hit the spot.

404 Abercorn / Savannah, GA



Randy's BBQ
Exactly what I was looking for. 6 giant outdoor smokers on the outskirts of town. Closed every time we drove past it.. apparently only open for lunch. Probably would have blown my mind.

750 Wheaton / Savannah, GA



Gryphon Tea Room
Turn of the century apothecary converted into a southern tea room. 40 zillion varieties of tea brewed in your own pot. Take your mom here.

337 Bull Street / Savannah GA

Corleone's Trattoria
Italian in the south? Fried calamari and Sweet Tea? I thought it was going to be disgusting. Pastas were OK but the baked manicotti and meatballs were awesome. Great sauce. Don't be scared.

44 MLK Blvd / Savannah, GA

Red Velvet Cake at Mom & Nikki's
Red velvet cake is not as easy to find here as the food network would have you believe. Mom & Nikki's was closed when we got there but they let us in to take out a giant slice of red velvet cake. Which was great. Super moist with a hint of chocolate and cream cheese frosting with shaved pecans. Apparently this is the place to go for smothered pork chops and mac & cheese.. next time I guess. Warning- everything in Savannah has crazy hours.

714 MLK Blvd / Savannah, GA



Mrs Wilkes Dining Room
Among the top 10 meals of my life. Full review coming soon.

107 W Jones / Savannah, GA



Sweetwater Cafe
Randomly walked in here for lunch. Awesome fried pickles and fried green tomato BLT.

137 Market / Charleston, SC

Amalfi's
Italian food in the south again? In a Best Western? Tables full of sad looking tourists and traveling businessmen? Surprise! The owner is a super excited guy born in Naples who grew up in New York City and walks around talking to everyone. The pizza was AWESOME, total shocker. Great crust, great sauce, real toppings. The next day we were having cocktails at the hotel bar and the owner popped up again with complimentary home made limoncello?? Maybe he knew we were from Philly? Probably the least touristy place we found in Charleston, in a freaking motel.

250 Spring Street (in the Best Western) / Charleston, SC




Hyman's Seafood CO
Total tourist trap, seats about 400 people, buy a T-shirt on the way out. Complimentary boiled peanuts.
Shrimp & Grits were delicious. Here they do it with brown gravy & cheese almost like gravy fries. Sounds sketchy but it's great.
Ate it so fast forgot to take a picture. Fried shrimp/cajun trout/giant crab cakes/hush puppies/slaw. Not bad!

215 Meeting St / Charleston, SC‎




Fiery Ron's BBQ
Sort of expecting more from this gas station-turned BBQ a few miles outside of downtown Charleston. The ribs were awesome. Pulled pork and sides were so-so. I wanted to be blown away by "real southern BBQ" but I guess this wasn't the place to do it.

1205 Ashley River Rd / Charleston, SC

Calhoun Mansion (not food)
So as I've mentioned a few times, Charleston is a bit of a martha stewart middle aged crate & barrel tourist trap. Lots of faux-authentic crafts, tour buses, gift shops, fanny packs. So I wasn't that excited to go on a guided tour of this old southern mansion. Again, total shocker. This place has changed hands about 6 times since 1876 and is covered with hand painted art-deco action as well as the current eccentric owner's enormous collection of paintings, buddhist shrines, giant taxidermied bear heads, busts of african warriors, Tiffany chandeliers, a giant ballroom covered in crystal and gold with every inch of wallspace covered in massive oil paintings..

The third floor is closed because the owner still lives there while tours go on 8 hours a day. He spent something like 5 million dollars restoring it maybe 10 years ago. The only way to explain this place is like a cross between the Louvre and the house from The Royal Tenenbaums.

16 Meeting St / Charleston, SC

Cracker Barrel
Every restaurant seats about 7000 people. Awesome chicken fried chicken, biscuits, neverending refills of mello yello. And they still have those damn peg games that I can never beat.

Every exit off of I-95 below Delaware

Waffle House
Hell yeah. Like eating in a Bubba Sparxxx video. Neck tattoos and nascar shirts everywhere. Triple order of golden brown home fries "all the way" with jalepenos, onions, cheese, tomatoes, chili, for $4. Great biscuits & gravy too.

Every 500 feet

Fox Bros BBQ

I have been to a few of the bbq places in the Atlanta/Decatur area. For me the newly opened Fox Bros is ranking highly up there.

For starters I cannot deny any place that has fried pickles. Truly one of my culinary addictions. Serve that up with fried jalapeno's and tater tots.

The baby back ribs and chicken had a sweet smokey taste from hours of quality hickory smoking and a dry rub. The baked beans were good along with the green beans cooked with stewed tomatoes and a porky broth.

Let the pictures speak.

Fette Sau

Auto - body shop turned BBQ joint and bar with outdoor picnic table seating. You can smell the smoke from a block away. We got 1/2 pound of everything on the menu - which changes almost daily. Their meats come from local-ish small farms, smoked on the premises. Pork Belly, Sausage, Short Ribs, Spare Ribs, Pulled Pork, Brisket. Big squeeze bottles of house-made sauces. Awesome pickles and sauerkraut.. best baked beans I've ever had, chock full of bacon and bay leaves.

House brewed beer by the gallon jug and the biggest selection of american whiskey you've ever seen. We tried to go saturday night and it was insanely packed, had to go back sunday afternoon, so be warned.

If the Jamaican Jerk Hut ever goes up for sale somebody make this happen in Philadelphia. Seriously.

Fette Sau
354 Metropolitan Ave
Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Nick's Charcoal Pit

I don't know if I've blogged about this before but I LOVE Nick's Charcoal Pit. They deliver too, which I love. These photos just don't do the food justice, partly because Tim and I tried to demolish the food before I even thought about taking pictures. The ribs are awesome pork ribs, with there homemade BBQ sauce, which is tangy and vinegary. The wings are the WHOLE wing, so think twice before ordering 24 like I did once. The wings are just grilled and then tossed in the barbeque sauce. But everything has that really awesome charcoal smell, taste, and charred marks I love. The winner though is there onion rings, which were an unlikely awesome treat. They stuck to the batter and the had a good bite ( fresh onions ) and they arrived CRUNCHY!

Nick's Charcoal Pit
1242 Snyder Ave, Philadelphia 19148
(215) 271-3750

Phoebe's

My belly has been queasy all weekend, but for some reason we decided to have BBQ for dinner.

So me and Tim hauled down to Phoebe's BBQ on South St. It's exactly the way a BBQ place should look. A smokey shack, with kinda charred looking employees and a great looking lit up menu. It's take out only, which is why it's so small.
We order the "BBQ for 2" a mix of pork ribs and rotisserie chicken. The service is fast and nice. We then recieve a 5 pound plastic bag full of meats.
We get home and its really food for 3 or 4. The chicken is delicious, the pork ribs are falling off the bone with a little smokey pink in the middle. The cole slaw is crunchy with a slight bite and the mac-n-cheese is bangin'. The sauce is less on the tomato-ey side and more vinegary, which is delicious.





They deliver too.

Phoebe's BBQ
2214 South St
Philadelphia, PA
19146-1158

(215) 546-4811

Korean BBQ

Summer is here in full force and its a time when I sort of want to detox and eat the beautiful seasonal bounty that living in Pennsylvania offers me. Like fresh Jersey blueberries or strawberries and spinach from someones farm in Lancaster. But alas nothing takes hold of me in the summer stronger than grilled meats. That's right BBQ. So on a nice Sunday afternoon we set out for Korean BBQ. It's harder to find Korean BBQ out here in Philadelphia in comparison to where I used to live in Oakland. Oakland had the best Korean sushi and San Francisco had the best Korean BBQ. But there are places popping up here and there in Center City Philadelphia that aren't bad. In fact we went to Miran on Chestnut and it was pretty good.

When you walk in you see these tables with fancy silver grills and spaceship like lowering air vents with a touch of a button. Very fancy compared to the charcoal style chicken-wire-heavy-scary ass bring to your table grills I was used to in Oakland.






We started off with Kim Chee Pancakes. They were delicious and oily and had whole chives and huge bits of kim chee and onions in them. The sauce it came with was a little to salty for my taste though. We also got our delicious side treats. Another stark difference from eating in the Bay Area. Here we only got 4 side dishes whereas normally I am used to getting at least 8 sometimes 10 side dishes. My favorites are always the tiny kim chee'd anchovies. The side dishes here were pretty tame. Although I did enjoy the potato salad and the kim chee was delicious.





Here comes the delicious part, the Bulgogi (thinly sliced marinated beef)and the Kalbi (marinated rib-eye). Nothing is better than getting piles of raw meat and getting to grill them on the hot car rim that is your grill.


In the end I was deeply satisfied. Me and Hawk each had the "King's Piece" the huge bone with mostly fat and gristle on it. But due to the high fat content and the marinating, gets all carmelized, juicy, and delicious. Take my advice though, if you are going to eat this part, it takes a really long time to grill, so put it on a little earlier than right at the end.



Overall a delicious experience, and the staff is super friendly.

Miran
2034 Chestnut St
Philadelphia, PA 19103
(215) 569-1200