Carolina - North & South [Pics]

I was recently invited to attend the South Carolina Festival of Discovery in Greenwood, SC. The festival included a KCBS sanctioned BBQ contest that is also the South Carolina State Championship. Not wanting to waste a trip on a single destination, I arrived a couple days early and took a quick tour through North Carolina as well. Knowing full well that I would be eating a glutton’s share of BBQ at the festival, I tried to hit a variety of spots in North Carolina including some diners (it is the South, after all) and not just the legendary BBQ temples that have been well documented here and elsewhere.

Arriving in Charlotte fairly early in the morning, I was more in the mood for breakfast than BBQ. After consulting with a local friend, I headed over to John’s Country Kitchen for some of the highly recommended liver mush and eggs. Unfortunately, upon arrival at John’s, I found a “closed for vacation” sign on the door. This cool looking diner will have to wait for another visit.

After that bit of disappointment, it was off to Fincastle’s Diner in Greensboro for a burger. Fincastle’s opened in 2005, though you’d never know it by the authentically vintage look and feel of the place or by the way they cook their burgers. I loved everything about this place, from the food to Jaybird Williams, my waiter, who sang along with the jukebox in a voice that would have made any Motown singer jealous!




Each burger starts out as a hand-made 1/3+ pound ball of burger. It is then tossed on the grill and smashed down to make a somewhat thicker than normal 30’s style burger. It’s left to cook undisturbed, creating lots of craggy, crispy edges. Burgers here are under $4.00, and a double can be had for only $1 more, though a double would seem to throw of the perfect balance of meat to bun. I’d recommend against ordering that. Instead, I ordered a Combo #6, which included an “Elm Street Burger” (Burger topped with pickles and house-made pimento cheese), hand cut fries and a drink. For an extra .50, you can sub cut to order and hand breaded onion rings…and you’d be a fool not to do so. The combo with the onion ring substitution is still under $8.00.

Fincastle’s Burgers on the Grill


Fincastle’s Elm Street Burger


Fincastle’s Onion Rings


In addition to being an excellent diner, Fincastle’s is located directly across the street from the historic Woolworth’s where an incident at their lunch counter helped spark the civil rights movement. The Woolworth’s is now a historic landmark and is in the process of being turned into The International Civil Rights Museum.



This was a great stop and afterwards, it was off to Raleigh to see what had been described to me as “The best farmer’s market you will ever see”. More later.


John’s Country Kitchen
1518 Central Ave
Charlotte, NC
704-333-9551

Fincastle’s Diner
215 S. Elm Street
Greensboro, N.C.
(336) 272-8968

As I'm heading out there in a few weeks to plow a similar trail as you did, I cannot wait to see the rest of this report. Did you get to Scott's, that place John T. Edge wrote about in the NYT some weeks back? It's on my itinerary, as is The Pit; I'll have to see about this Farmer's Market as well.

I’d heard a couple of stories about the Raleigh Farmers Market and I wanted to have a look for myself. The market, open every day, features multiple pavilions and buildings housed on a large tract of land, similar in size to a fairground. According to the published literature, this market sells over 300 different items and offers products for both the large wholesale buyer and individual consumer. Over 35,000 spaces are rented to growers for sales of locally grown fresh fruits and vegetables, plants, Christmas trees and crafts. If Chicago had a permanent farmers market 1/5 this size, We’d all be happy campers.

Raleigh Farmers Market Vegetable Pavilion


This is about 2/3 of one of several pavilions at the market. This one is dedicated strictly to produce. North Carolina is about a month or two ahead of us in the growing season, and the season’s bounty was in full swing. There were some fantastic melons, tomatoes and the best peaches I’ve eaten in several years available to sample and purchase.





In another smaller adjacent pavilion, there were a couple of bakers offering bread and pastries. The pickings in that area were a bit slim, but I was there late in the afternoon and I’m sure the offerings earlier in the day were much better and more abundant.

Raleigh Farmers Market Baked Goods



I snacked on some schnecken and a couple of the turnovers (peach and blackberry), which were made with very fresh fruit and were buttery and delicious.

Across a parking lot sits an identical pavilion; this one containing prepared foods including canned items, candy, cheese and lots of cured pork products, mainly sausage and country hams whole and by the slice.



There’s also a fish building, a place to buy meat and poultry, a restaurant and lots of arts and craft type items…and if you want some fresh shucked peas, they run a shucking machine right along side one of the pavilions.

Pea Shucking Machine



I had such a good time at the farmers market that time slipped away and I forgot to visit The Pit for BBQ before I hit the road for Chapel Hill in order to visit Allen and Son, my main NC BBQ destination. More Later.


Raleigh Farmers Market
1201 Agriculture St
Raleigh, NC 27603
(919) 733-7417

stevez wrote: Over 35,000 spaces are rented to growers for sales of locally grown fresh fruits and vegetables, plants, Christmas trees and crafts. If Chicago had a permanent farmers market 1/5 this size, We’d all be happy campers.

Thanks (I think) for the post, Steve. The world is full of wonderful things to eat. But like you and many on this board, I wish for a permanent covered market in Chicago. I am aware that the strategy is to develop neighborhood markets, but there must be some central location that is accessible. If frosty Minneapolis, snowy Buffalo and Cleveland can do it, so can Chicago!

stevez wrote:I’d heard a couple of stories about the Raleigh Farmers Market and I wanted to have a look for myself. The market, open every day, features multiple pavilions and buildings housed on a large tract of land, similar in size to a fairground.
Raleigh Farmers Market
1201 Agriculture St
Raleigh, NC 27603
(919) 733-7417

That pea shucker is also used to shuck black-eyed peas, lima beans and the like. If you like your beans fresh, the Raleigh market is really the place to go as they sell the beans in 5-10# cello bags.

If you get a chance, head down to Columbia, SC and check out the South Carolina State Farmer's Market. It is much more of a wholesale operation but it is one place where you can really get some good deals on farm fresh vegetables this time of year.

I was just in Raleigh for work and thought I would mention a really nice bar if you're in the area. It's called the Raleigh Times and has a great beer menu. They have a really nice selection of Belgians and a wide array of domestic microbrews. I think the only mass produced beer they serve is PBR, which seems to be ordered often by the hipster clientele. Overall, the crowd is mixed and pleasant. Good music as well.

The other nice thing is the bar food menu. They have a good burger as well as a bbq sandwich from the Pit, located right down the street. Fresh cut fries are served for a bit extra but everything was good. You could do worse than the Raleigh Times.

Raleigh Times Bar
http://www.raleightimesbar.com
14 E Hargett St
Raleigh, NC 27601-1426
(919) 833-0999

Steve,

Great post, terrific pictures. The Raleigh Farmers Market looks like a dream, a brightly colored fruit and veg dream.

Enjoy,
Gary

As I mentioned in my last post, I was so taken with the Raleigh Farmers Market that I completely forgot to go to The Pit for some BBQ while I was in Raleigh. It was starting to get late, and I wanted to get to Allen & Son in Chapel Hill so I hit the road. Unfortunately, it was later than I thought and Allen & Son had just closed by the time I got there. Since Allen & Son was my #1 North Carolina destination for BBQ, I ended up staying in Chapel Hill for the night so I could get to A & S the next morning before heading out for Lexington and points south.

Dinner that night was at a very promising looking Mexican restaurant near my hotel called Los Portillos. While the place looked promising, that promise was broken with the bland, Gringofied food. Avoid, avoid, avoid!

In the morning, I went to Sunrise Biscuit Kitchen, a Photomat-sized drive thru that features biscuit sandwiches. This was a place that I originally heard the Sterns talk about on The Splendid Table and planned to visit on this trip.

Sunrise Biscuit Kitchen


This tiny operation turned out biscuits that would make Jim in Logan Square slap his Momma! They were light and flaky, with a flavor that complimented the sandwiches. I tried two (couldn’t resist), a pork tenderloin biscuit made with fresh, juicy but unpounded breaded tenderloin and a superb sausage, egg and cheese, made with some great flavored patty sausage and cheddar. I liked the breaded pork biscuit well enough, but the egg biscuits seem to be the way to go. The one with country ham is next on my list. This place is a drive thru only. There is no inside and no place to eat, other than al trunko.

Sunrise Breaded Pork Tenderloin Biscuit


Sunrise Egg, Sausage and Cheese Biscuit


After breakfast, it was time to check out of the hotel and finally head to Allen & Son for some legendary pulled pork. More later.


Los Portillos
1404 E Franklin St
Chapel Hill, NC 27514
919-929-5765

Sunrise Biscuit Kitchen
1305 East Franklin
Chapel Hill, NC 27514
919-933-1324

Since Allen & Son was my #1 North Carolina destination for BBQ, I ended up staying in Chapel Hill for the night so I could get to A & S the next morning before heading out

You know you're an LTHer when...

Much has been written about Allen & Son. It’s a place I had always wanted to visit because their BBQ is almost universally praised as being among the best North Carolina has to offer. In the words of pitmaster Keith Allen, “Those folks out east think they know how to make BBQ and the folks in Lexington know they do. We take the best of both styles and make it our own.” Truer words were never spoken.

Allen & Son is located in a rustic setting, just outside of the hubbub of Chapel Hill. The dining room has a great patina earned by years of serving great BBQ to their customers in a no-frills atmosphere.

Allen & Son




I arrived at around 11:45 and was the only customer. I couldn’t believe that this place wouldn’t be doing any business this close to lunch time, and sure enough, by 12:30 the joint was jumpin’, full of both baseball cap-wearing pickup truck drivers and the suit-wearing Mercedes set. I ordered a BBQ platter and was served a beautiful plate of pulled pork, coleslaw and perfect hush puppies.

Allen & Son BBQ Platter


It’s hard to taste the smoke in a lot of the BBQ that is served in North Carolina. Although I understand that it’s a regional style choice, I enjoy a bit of smoke in my Q. Allen & Son achieves just the perfect kiss of smoke in its meat, along with some great flavor. Not overwhelming by any means, just enough to let you know that this meat was cooked over wood. The quality of the pork is evident, too. Rich and dark…definitely not the other white meat. Oh, and the hush puppies are what appear in the dictionary as the definition of the term. This was some fantastic BBQ.

As do many of the finer BBQ joints in the area, Allen & Son sources its meat from the Nahunta Pork Center (rumored to have the “largest retail pork display in the eastern United States”). Although Allen & Son cooks and serves mainly shoulders at the restaurant, they also cater whole hog “pig pickings”. I was there at delivery time and caught this shot of a whole hog (and a bunch of cases of shoulders) being delivered.

Nahunta Pork Delivery


I was lucky enough to catch Keith Allen just as he was getting ready to pull a pit’s worth of pork shoulder. Pulling pork can be tedious work, but Keith has it down to a science.

Pork Shoulder Fresh From the Pit


All of that beautiful, crispy skin is removed and not used in the finished product (although it is sometimes sold on the side). Keith doesn’t believe in chopping the skin in with the meat. He then pulls the shoulders into manageable chunks by hand.

Pulling Shoulders


Once the pork is pulled apart, Keith uses a couple of small machetes to chop the pork to the proper consistency.

Chopping Pork


All of this work happens while at the same time Keith pontificates about BBQ and life in general. I felt it a great privilege to hang out and talk to Keith for a while.

On the way out, this vision stopped me dead in my tracks. It was the wood all set up for the next morning when Keith would arrive around 4:15 to light it up to burn down to coals for the next day’s cook just as it’s been done for generations. I felt like I was looking at the alter of a holy shrine.

Allen & Son BBQ Alter


More leter.

Allen & Son
6203 Millhouse Rd
Chapel Hill, NC
919-942-7576

Nahunta Pork Center
200 Bertie Pierce Road
Pikeville, NC 27863
919-242-4735

Steve, thanks for recreating for me here, what was my standard protocol, once-a-month, day of eating when I lived Chapel Hill (Sunrise > A&S). Though I typically opted for either chicken and/or country ham and/or gravy, the biscuits are the real star of the show at Sunrise, and have become my personal prototype.

Sorry to hear you ended up at Los Portillos. Sounds like it was circumstantial, but for future notice a short drive into Durham would've found you in a much better position for Mexican fare, at places like Taqueria y Birreria Los Comales, Super Taqueria, and La Vaquita to name just a few. A friend of mine is opening up one as well, more on the relative upscale end of the taqueria spectrum, but sure to be a winner if his other endeavours are of any indication. His new place is called Dos Perros.

Looking forward to the next installments !

-Nab

Taqueria y Birreria Los Comales
2103 N Roxboro
Durham, NC 27704
(919) 220-1614

Super Taqueria
2842 N Roxboro St
Durham, NC 27704

Taqueria La Vaquita
2700 Chapel Hill Rd
Durham, NC 27707
(919) 402-0209

Dos Perros
200 N. Mangum
Durham, NC
(919) 956-2750

Steve:

Cannot wait to get to A&S next week. Two questions:

1) What are the hours, anyway?
2) Is the restaurant easily identifiable from the road? I was looking at Google Maps's "Street View" yesterday and couldn't quite spot it. Is it the area that looks like a picnic grove?

Yum. Can't wait for more...

Great stuff, Steve. A very inspirational thread. Thanks.

=R=

chezbrad wrote:Steve:

Cannot wait to get to A&S next week. Two questions:

1) What are the hours, anyway?
2) Is the restaurant easily identifiable from the road? I was looking at Google Maps's "Street View" yesterday and couldn't quite spot it. Is it the area that looks like a picnic grove?

The posted hours say they open from 11:00 - 8:00 most weekdays. The truth of the matter is that it's best to call ahead, because they sometimes close early. Oh, and yes, the picnic grove is the restaurant. Those tables are set up on A & S's property, if you want to eat outside next to the smokehouse.

stevez wrote:Pork Shoulder Fresh From the Pit

I keep coming back to this photo, almost as if it is speaking to me, calling to me.......

...squealing @ you maybe?

The saga continues. Next up, it was on to Lexington for some more BBQ, though as you will see, the Gods conspired against me. As I was driving along, I was seduced by a vintage sign along the road touting Smithfield’s Chicken ‘N BBQ (Established 1964). The billboard looked great and was a siren’s song, since I had not yet had any fried chicken in North Carolina. I took the small detour to Smithfield’s. Little did I know that Smithfield’s would turn out to be a mini-chain of fast food restaurants very similar to our own Charcoal Delights. I had a couple of classic soul food/fried chicken places on my list and I nearly left in favor of one of them, but what the heck. I decided to let serendipity take a hand.

Smithfield’s Signage


Smithfield’s Interior


Smithfield’s chicken turned out to be solid, though not memorable. The breading had a decent amount of pepper and some other spices; and it was nicely deep-fried. The accompanying fries were straight off the Sysco truck. Given the wealth of famous old-school fried chicken places in North Carolina, I wouldn’t go out of my way to return to Smithfield’s. Still, if I were cruising down the highway and a fried chicken emergency struck. Smithfield’s would do in a pinch.

Smithfield’s ¼ Dark Plate


Driving on to Lexington, I made a beeline for Lexington Barbecue #1. Well, not exactly a beeline, since my GPS led me to the wrong location. After I finally found the real location (which I have now marked in my GPS for future reference), they were inexplicably closed. Not a car in the parking lot.

While I was driving around trying to find Lexington #1, I passed a place called Smokey Joe’s Barbeque. There was a plume of sweet smelling smoke coming out of the chimney as I drove past, so I decided to backtrack to Smokey Joe’s for a sample of Lexington’s best.

Smokey Joe’s Barbecue


Smokey Joe’s turned out to be the single worst example of BBQ I had on the entire trip. Even though the nice smoke had been coming out of the place not 30 minutes earlier, the pork I was served had been held for quite some time. It was tasteless and mushy, and the hush puppies resembled something that actually came out of a puppy.

Smokey Joe’s Course Chopped BBQ Sandwich


Smokey Joe’s Hush Puppies


Unfortunately, the day was getting late and I had to get on the road in order to make it to my friend’s house in South Carolina by dinner time, so I was unable to sample any other BBQ in Lexington. I’ll certainly be back another time, because I know Lexington has much better to offer than Smokey Joe’s.

More Later.

Smithfield’s Chicken & BBQ
1710 South NC-119
Mebane, NC
919-563-2440
Many other locations

Lexington Barbecue #1
10 Highway 29-70S
Lexington, NC
336-249-9814

Smokey Joe's Barbecue
1101 South Main St.
Lexington, NC 27292
336-249-0315

Smithfield has a very decent brunswick stew.

After a somewhat disappointing visit to Lexington, it was on to Greenwood, SC. My friends Redneck John & his wife Missy had invited me down to attend the Uptown Greenwood Festival of Discovery, which included, among other things, the SC State BBQ Championship Cookoff. That was still two days off, so in the meantime the first night we had an excellent dinner of pasta primavera, prepared by Missy, featuring some wild caught shrimp brought up from Charleston along with a bunch of veggies from the garden. This was an outstanding meal!

The next day, John and I headed to Wise’s Bar-B-Que House (pronounced Weiss). In an area of South Carolina that has only tiny little towns, Wise’s has chosen to locate their business outside of all of them. Truly in the middle of nowhere, Wise’s is a shack serving up a buffet of BBQ items. It’s all you can eat for something like $7.95.

Wise’s Bar-B-Que House


Inside, it’s very no-frills and inhabited by regulars who, judging by the looks we got when we walked in, could pretty much predict who was going to come walking in the door next. Even though John is a local, he had never been to Wise’s before. The first words out of the waiter’s mouth were, “Passing through?”

This is exactly the type of place I was hoping to discover on this trip. Seating was on folding chairs at any number of folding tables set up in the dining area. The food was self-service (other than the constant supply of sweet tea being poured by the one and only waiter) and set up on a small steam table near the entrance.

Wise’s Bar-B-Cue House Buffet

(Notice the bags of cracklins’ and mustard-based sauce offered for sale)

The buffet features pulled pork (or BBQ, as it’s known in The Carolinas), ribs, chicken and, that staple of South Carolina BBQ, black kettle hash.







I’m not much of a fan of back kettle hash, finding the texture to be a bit mushy, but Wise’s version, with its very mustardy sauce, is some of the best I’ve tasted, though it’s not something I’d go out of my way for. The rest of the BBQ was very tasty, though.

Wise’s BBQ Plate


Sorry for the quality of the picture of my plate. I wanted to take a few more pictures, but it seemed that no one there was all that comfortable with me snapping away, so I felt it better to just put the camera away. I did bring a couple bottles of Wise’s tasty sauce home and surprisingly found the #1 ingredient to be margarine. If you ever find yourself in central South Carolina, I'd suggest trying to find your way to Wise's.

Wise's Bar-B-Que House
25548 Hwy 76
Newberry, SC 29108
803-276-6699

Lucky 32 in Greensboro has had what I understand is a mixed past. It spent many years featuring generic "Continental Cuisine" at prices locals balked at. A few years ago, a new chef took over the kitchen, and his passions for Southern cooking and local ingredients have taken over the menu. Customers have returned in droves.

Hickory smoked lamb on johnny cakes, pinto beans with chow chow, buttered green beans.


Corn bread with pot liquor:



Those 2 dishes made one fantastic meal! The lamb was like carnitas - fatty, juicy, and loaded with flavor enhanced by subtle smoke plenty of bark. The beans were creamy and tender. The green beans were buttery and overcooked in the traditional style. And the corn bread. Oh, the corn bread! Salty and crumbly but not dry. What an intoxicating thing when dipped into the very bitter pot liquor. A huge portion. I wanted more.

Don't miss Lucky 32 if you're in or near Greensboro.

Lucky 32
1421 Westover Terrace
Greensboro, NC 27408
(336) 370-0707