Saturday, March 3, 2012

Ballistic on BBQ




I have to admit I was already pissed when I walked into Pig-N-Chick BBQ on Briarcliff tonight. I had just came from a nearby shooting range (Quickshot, on Zonolite rd.) where my rifle had promptly jammed after 6 shots, ending up with me breaking a brand new $25 magazine I had just bought. Add the $16 dollar hourly fee I had to pay for all of 5 minutes of shooting I got to do, and you can see the mood I was in. But I was looking for comfort food and was hoping Pig-N-Chick (P-N-C from here on out) could deliver. No such luck.

Problem number 1: Pig-N-Chick is located in the old Dusty's BBQ building. I have fond memories of Dusty's and was a little sad to see they were gone. I had hoped P-N-C was carrying on the tradition. Nope. Which leads us to...

Problem number 2: The sandwich. I had hoped for the nice chopped sandwich Dusty used to serve. What I got was the same ole' gigantic pulled pork sandwich that every other new BBQ upstart sells. Huge chunks of pork on thick loaf bread. How did these things get to be so popular? I never once had one like this growing up. To me it's just pure laziness. Instead of taking the time to chop (or at least continue pulling) the meat, modern BBQ places just give you huge chunks of pig meat in a large portion, evidently hoping that quantity will overpower quality. And you're not fooling me by using the Texas (un)toast either. You're shooting for faux-BBQ cred, aren't you? You think that bread will make you legit? Well get this: BBQ is blue collar food, and when blue collar folks go to a restaurant and pay for food, they want it fancier than what they make at home. That means buns! You think I came all the way across town to eat a sandwich on loaf bread? (this falls in the same category as those Mason jars Po-Folks used to serve drinks in. Don't even get me started on those) Taste-wise the sandwich was about the same as the ones all the other restaurants serve. in other words, not distinctive. See, I was paying attention to more than just the superficial aspects of the food.

Problem number 3: The stew. Brunswick stew makes or breaks a BBQ joint in my opinion, and P-N-C's is one of the worst I've had, mostly because it wasn't stew, it was soup! This is mission 1 for making a stew: having it end up a stew, with texture, for Pete's sake. Otherwise it's just vegetable soup. FAIL!

Problem number 4: P-N-C, you charge me $1.40 for a Coke, give it to me in a CAN and then you ask me if I want a cup of ice with it? Are you F&*king kidding me? The whole meal was $8.50, which might have been okay if it was worth a flip.

What a night.

(Normally I'd put the BBQ place's address here, but I don't want you to go here, so never mind)

No comments: