I guess I'm missing the connection to that thread, riddlemay.

There are smoked meats offered at the "Sauganash Grill."

Mike G answered it, YoYo. But to amplify on that, "The Sauganash Grill" is inside the new Whole Foods at Peterson and Cicero. I wouldn't be surprised if it owes its very existence to the success of Smoque.

I don't know how The Sauganash Grill matches up in quality to Smoque (I haven't been to either place), but it may be good, and I won't be surprised if it outdoes Smoque in terms of "rationalizing" the business of selling smoked meats (e.g., accurately judging demand in order to have the right amount in supply).

riddlemay wrote:Mike G answered it, YoYo. But to amplify on that, "The Sauganash Grill" is inside the new Whole Foods at Peterson and Cicero. I wouldn't be surprised if it owes its very existence to the success of Smoque.

Considering that construction of this place was in progress long before Smoque exitsted, I'd tend to doubt it.

I'd tend to credit a focus group or two instead, I agree that would be some seriously fast reaction to what could just be a blip in popularity for a new joint.

Well, it looks like I won't be going down to Smoque anytime soon as it just made "The Places we're talking about...this month" page in April's Gourmet Magazine. (see page forty-eight).

It's nice to see Chicago BBQ get this kind of national exposure in such a fine epicurean publication but I fear the down side may be too much to bear - at least in the short run.

Nightmares of lines around the corner infiltrated by black-clad interlopers; insanely increased prices; and half-the-menu-gone-by-noon visions are haunting my brain.

The light at the end of this tunnel truly is the headlight of an oncoming train!

could it it be...

that all this 'smoque' buzz... is being generated by people that don't know how to appreciate real 'que'?

an infusion of the aromatic meld of hardwood 'flavored' creosotes with 'slow cooked' rendered meat fats.


ok now - great 'scrubber' technology, great rubs, sauces and great sides...

for an establishment that has the audacity to call itself 'smoque' - there doesn't seem any such essence, to be had... within or without.

This reminds me of the "We have seen the enemy, and he is us" line.

jellobee wrote:could it it be...

that all this 'smoque' buzz... is being generated by people that don't know how to appreciate real 'que'?

an infusion of the aromatic meld of hardwood 'flavored' creosotes with 'slow cooked' rendered meat fats.


ok now - great 'scrubber' technology, great rubs, sauces and great sides...

for an establishment that has the audacity to call itself 'smoque' - there doesn't seem any such essence, to be had... within or without.

I'm not sure exactly what the implication is here. I assume you are saying that the meats at Smoque are not smoked. If this is the case, I can assure you that you are mistaken.

I have been a regular customer since their opening week and have sampled every meat on the menu. I can say without a doubt that it was all truly and carefully smoked. I've got 28 years of eating Kansas City 'Que under my belt and I know smoked when I taste it and see it.

I will admit that there is a distinct lack of smoke aroma at Smoque. Frankly, I have no good explanation for that other than the "scrubber theory". However if the meat weren't smoked, I'd know it in a heartbeat.

If you don't care for the product at Smoque, that is your right and I will not try to convince you otherwise (just one less person waiting in line in front of me). But if your reason for not liking it is because you believe it is not real Barbecue, you're just flat out wrong.

Buddy

looks like i'm getting someone a little p-o'd with my rant...

perhaps my beef is in the fact that they don't 'smoque' enough.... evidenced by lack of the characteristic smoke ring in their hunk meats or any noticeable redness to their rib meats... along with the distinct flavors the proper process would naturally impart.

sorry but... a gas fired or an electrically heated oven with a 'handful' of smoldering wood chunks at the bottom, does not equate to real barbeque.

this is 21st century style barbeque... 'scrubbed', seasoned and served toward its metro patrons.

i'll continue to eat there, and at famous dave's, carson's et al and the like, but only because i have an insatiable meat jones.

jellobee wrote:looks like i'm getting someone a little p-o'd with my rant...

Or just getting a little tired of it. As I said in another thread, I am sure the owners of Smoque would have built an open pit if they could have, but this is Chicago. There is a very good reason that the Salt Lick is in the middle of nowhere. Nobody wants to live next door to it. Even the once ubiquitous aquarium type smokers are rapidly disappearing from the city, thanks to neighborhood complaints being filed with the Department of Environment and the Illinois EPA. It can cost from $30,000 to $50,000 to retrofit an old smoker with air scrubbers, which would buy two new cabinet smokers. Go ask Hecky Powell why he no longer uses his aquarium smoker and switched to Southern Pride (to the detriment of his product). I will agree that SP makes inferior Barbecue when compared to a pit, but here in Chicago that is all you are going to get in a new establishment. So if you don't like the product from gas fired cabinet smokers, then go to Honey 1 or one of the other few remaining all-wood aquarium type places, and be grateful that they still exist. They could use your support. I think Smoque will do just fine without your patronage.

Given the harassment Honey 1 suffered from pantywaist professional whiners complaining that it was befouling the crisp mountain air of Western Avenue, I wouldn't expect to see another aquarium smoker, let alone a real pit, in Chicago in my lifetime. Passing an ordinance in the City Council isn't the only way to ban a food in Chicago.

Hi,

Honey 1 was precisely the establishment I was referring to last week in my post here.

jellobee, you have to accept the political reality of trying conduct business in Chicago. You cannot hammer away at people who are doing their best in a hostile environment with neighbors who don't bow at the BBQ altar.

Regards,

jellobee wrote:looks like i'm getting someone a little p-o'd with my rant...

perhaps my beef is in the fact that they don't 'smoque' enough.... evidenced by lack of the characteristic smoke ring in their hunk meats or any noticeable redness to their rib meats... along with the distinct flavors the proper process would naturally impart.

sorry but... a gas fired or an electrically heated oven with a 'handful' of smoldering wood chunks at the bottom, does not equate to real barbeque.

this is 21st century style barbeque... 'scrubbed', seasoned and served toward its metro patrons.

i'll continue to eat there, and at famous dave's, carson's et al and the like, but only because i have an insatiable meat jones.

I'm not sure what bothers me more, overuse of unnecessary ellipses or the various posters who have decided that there is only one definition of "true" or "real" barbecue. To me, that is very narrow minded. Jello meat is still barbecue, just not the style you prefer. Sure, it's better if it's smoked, but to some guy who spent an afternoon cooking his ribs from Jewel on his gas Weber grill, his product is still barbecue, just not your style. Some spell it BBQ, some barbeque, some say barbecue. Some say that it refers to the food, some to the process of cooking it, still others use it referring to the cooking device itself. Most agree that the English term probably derived from the ancient Mexican "barbacoa." Since "barbacoa" can describe anything from cow's head to baby goat to pork, cooked in ways ranging from water-smoking to straight steaming, depending where you go, you can start to see the difficulties that lie in making the term too narrow in scope. So I say, vive la difference, the more meat the merrier. There are many types of BBQ, so find one that you enjoy. But don't disparage the ones that others might like and you do not as not being "real." Feel free to say that they taste like dog doo-doo, but let them still be called barbecue if they so desire.

Of course, to ensure maximum freshness, the ultimate product would require the BBQ smoker to be across the street from a pig farm.... There probably was such a place around the Stockyards, say a hundred years ago?

YoYoPedro wrote:Jello meat is still barbecue,

No it is not. To achieve "jello meat" texture one bakes, braises or boils, there is no interaction with smoke, charcoal, wood, wood fired pit, gas w/wood chunks, chips, or even electric with sawdust. Just flabby mealy pissed upon pork product slathered with burnt on sweet sauce that is often laced with li*uid sm*ke.

Gary

YoYoPedro wrote:There are many types of BBQ, so find one that you enjoy. But don't disparage the ones that others might like and you do not as not being "real." Feel free to say that they taste like dog doo-doo, but let them still be called barbecue if they so desire.

Pedro...

Though it clearly isn't the case for some, consider that this is sometimes simply a means of distinction between styles and not an inherent value judgement. I confess to being frustrated at times by definition creep and the fact that a term like barbecue, with the history is has, is frequently applied to any grilled chicken breast with a sweet, spicy tomato-based sauce slapped on it. That said, hey man, there's nothing wrong with a grilled chicken breast with a sweet, spicy tomato-based sauce slapped on it. I feel simliarly about the term "Kobe" in reference to beef. It's become a trendy term, so now any multi-generationally distant bastard offspring of a wagyu steer is labelled "Kobe". Yet some of these bastards are damn tasty, and some are even tastier than the legitimate kids, so to speak. But I'm still equally irritated to see "Kobe" used in such a broad manner. Perhaps, like other linguistic changes, barbecue's use as a wider term has become so prevalent that the ship has sailed and it's time to quit insisting on a strict definition, but if it is that's still just a matter of semantics, and I'm sympathetic to those who prefer less "loose" terminology.

Heard good things about Smoque. If they're out of food, might try Memphis Jacks BBQ in Hillside(located across from Q's restaurant).

Great Pork Sandwich and homemade sides. Best Peach Cobbler around!!

G Wiv wrote:

YoYoPedro wrote:Jello meat is still barbecue,

No it is not. To achieve "jello meat" texture one bakes, braises or boils, there is no interaction with smoke, charcoal, wood, wood fired pit, gas w/wood chunks, chips, or even electric with sawdust. Just flabby mealy pissed upon pork product slathered with burnt on sweet sauce that is often laced with li*uid sm*ke.

Gary

Time to tell us how you really feel.

What if that jello meat was boiled first, then spent a few hours over wood smoke? Then what? What if you you could make the jello meat with out pi$$ing on it? How about if it was sauced later so that it didn't get burned on? I stand by my post, we'll just have agree to disagree.

d4v3 wrote:Go ask Hecky Powell why he no longer uses his aquarium smoker and switched to Southern Pride (to the detriment of his product).

It must have been this, or maybe some other recent thread which casually put Hecky's in the underwhelming category, but looking at a nice afternoon today, I decided to go for a bike ride and counter any possible beneficial health effects with lunch from Hecky's, just to test the waters, and my memory, and whatnot.

Being solo, I decided to order the Mutt, a combo of tips, fried chicken and a hot link plus fries. I figured the fried chicken is a standby at Hecky's, so if the barbecue was disappointing, there'd still be something.

Well, that was a laugh. The Mutt included one measly wing, in two parts a la the standard form factors for buffalo wings. It was not terribly meaty and not terribly delicious.

The tips turned out to be about as I remembered. Not much evidence of smoke, no crust, no visible smoke ring (well, on one bit I thought I peeped a bit of pink through the sauce but...). In the end, Hecky's still doesn't boil their tips and they start from decent quality meat, so there are still enjoyable flavors and textures, but the tips aren't a patch on the real places to the south (if I'm using that phrase correctly ) In fact, based on recent experience, the tips are no better than Barbecue Bob's on Howard Street, which is within walking distance (albeit a bit of a hike) from my home. Bob's are also not a patch on places to the south of it, but if it weren't for a subtle fine point of geography, I might have to counter an earlier assertion that Hecky's is the finest BBQ north of Howard Street

The winner, though, was the hot link. Just the right grind -- it's got to be on the coarse side for me, but not chunky -- and very nicely spiced.

In short, my opinion is in sync with many offered elsewhere on this board. I suppose in retrospect there's not much reason to think Hecky's barbecue would have changed... and it hasn't.

YoYoPedro wrote: I stand by my post, we'll just have agree to disagree.

YoYo,

Fine by me, but you'll still be wrong.*

Regards,
Gary

*I don't mean to come off like a didactic ass, but you can call a Cessna Apollo 11, it's still not getting to to the moon.

G Wiv wrote:*I don't mean to come off like a didactic ass, but you can call a Cessna Apollo 11, it's still not getting to to the moon.

Careful, Gary... if I recall, you've already had to spend a day as an official snooty-pants dilettante

G Wiv wrote:Fine by me, but you'll still be wrong.*

Regards,
Gary

*I don't mean to come off like a didactic ass, but you can call a Cessna Apollo 11, it's still not getting to to the moon.

I suppose that raises the question, what type of ass DID you mean to come off as? ;-0

Seriously, since you like the airborne metaphor, if you said that Mercury, Gemini and Apollo were all space rockets, yet very different from one another, you'd be correct. To say that one is a better rocket than another depends on your criteria. Of course you can have a preference for one rocket over another, or dislike all rockets. That is how I define barbecue. Obviously, someone can choose to take a more narrow, intolerant and parochial definition if they so choose. That doesn't make them wrong, just less right.

Ugh, We Already Talked About That

YoYoPedro wrote:Seriously, since you like the airborne metaphor, if you said that Mercury, Gemini and Apollo were all space rockets, yet very different from one another, you'd be correct.

Funny, I thought Mercury, Gemini and Apollo were all space capsules, mounted on top of Redstone, Atlas, Titan or Saturn rockets. (Okay, the capsules did have minor rockets built into them, but they wouldn't have gotten anywhere without being mounted on big booster rockets.) Anyway - I don't think you can say anyone's correct if they call Mercury, Gemini and Apollo "space rockets."

(distraction from a sometimes amateur didactic ass)

Yo,

I'm done. You want to think pork ribs baked in an oven, boiled in a pot or steamed is BBQ, ~shrug~.

Gary

just 'cause your daddy wears a dress don't make him Faye Dunaway

When I was a kid, if we put barbeque sauce on it, it was called barbeque. Period. Now that I am aware of all the various nuances and variations involved, it's still hard not to call anything with BBQ sauce on it BBQ.

Now that I am aware of all the various nuances and variations involved, it's still hard not to call anything with BBQ sauce on it BBQ.

Even being at least a quasi-purist, you have point. Example: by what alternative name are we to refer to when talking about the typical recipes for BBQ'd shrimp or oysters?

sundevilpeg wrote:Example: by what alternative name are we to refer to when talking about the typical recipes for BBQ'd shrimp or oysters?

Grilled

nr706 wrote:

YoYoPedro wrote:Seriously, since you like the airborne metaphor, if you said that Mercury, Gemini and Apollo were all space rockets, yet very different from one another, you'd be correct.

Funny, I thought Mercury, Gemini and Apollo were all space capsules, mounted on top of Redstone, Atlas, Titan or Saturn rockets. (Okay, the capsules did have minor rockets built into them, but they wouldn't have gotten anywhere without being mounted on big booster rockets.) Anyway - I don't think you can say anyone's correct if they call Mercury, Gemini and Apollo "space rockets."

(distraction from a sometimes amateur didactic ass)

I thought the discussion was about the definition of barbecue, and I felt like I'd said what I could with regards to that subject. But if you wanna split hairs about space rockets...
http://www.thespacerace.com/glossary/index.php?term=715

Projects Mercury, Gemini and Apollo were the names of three projects in the U.S.A. space program back in the 60's. My dad was a senior project engineer who worked on all 3 of them. We would stay home from school on the days of the launches to watch "Daddy's rocket" launch on TV. Each rocket consisted of a capsule or command module, and a launch vehicle (Redstone, Atlas, Titan or Saturn, as you mentioned). During Project Apollo, NASA added the Lunar Excursion Module, or LEM, to the mix. We were raised as little kids with models of the rockets and their various components, and did science fair projects for our classmates before bringing Pa into class to give a little lecture about the space program. Anyway, long story short, most of what you said is correct, except the part about not being correct if you called them space rockets.

But more importantly, would you call them rockets if they were smoked over hardwood chunks?