Mike G wrote:Well, the Barbara Ann link is different. It has a different flavor because of the sage in it and so on.

Yeah, BA's links are very similar to breakfast sausage. Personally, I think both BA and Lem's do better links than Honey 1, but it's personal preference--they all taste different.

G Wiv wrote:Robert Jr confided biz has been a bit slow, personally I intended to do my part to help them pick up from the post holiday doldrums.

The joint was jumpin' last night. My brother and I were there, enjoying a tip combo and some ribs. There was what seemed to be a family reunion going on that took up half the eating area, and another group of eight that were seriously enjoying themselves. Even Hot Doug, the sausage king of Roscoe, was there, patiently waiting for his takeout.

I really can't get enough of those tips.

Best,
Michael

I finally went on my first and highly anticipated trip to Honey One this past weekend. After reading pages and pages of posts on this place, I had to check it out. I was falsely under the impression that the BBQ scene in Chicago was non-existent, so I was very excited to realize I was wrong. I was, however, very disappointed in Honey One.

First the good things:
-The sauce was excellent.
-The ribs and links had a great red color from the smoke that almost completely penetrated the meat.

Now the rest:
-The ribs were almost inedible. My slab was almost 80% fat. The remaining consisted of a rock hard top crust and tough meat.
-The links were hot, but otherwise boring. There was no depth to their flavor. Once again, they were smoked well, but seemed like nothing more than large Hot Jimmy Dean breakfast sausages.
-The fries were horrible; soggy, limp, utterly tasteless.
-The okra had absolutely no flavor.
-The cole slaw, was, well, cole slaw.
-The menu seemed limited and a bit over priced.

I’m not trying to be mean in any way. I really, really wanted to like this place. But now I’m simply trying to understand how our opinions vary so greatly. Did I go on a bad night? Did I just get a bad slab? I could understand returning if the meat was exceptional…that would help me overlook the poor sides. But the quality of the meat was borderline gross and I cannot remember having worse fries.

When my wife, daughter and myself went, my wife got her french fries, already covered with catsup. Yum Yum.

But the kid and I did enjoy the tips.

The fries are consistently horrible. Consistent across all decent smokehouses in this city, I think. I've never seen a combination of good barbecue and good fries in Chicago. Please someone correct me if I'm missing a gem.

Regarding the ribs, tips, and links, there've been quite a few reports that Honey 1's product is sometimes held too long and suffers mightily as a result.

If you are willing to give them another shot, and you want to minimize risk, call a few hours ahead with your order. They'll know (hopefully) to throw a slab on just in time for your pickup.

-ed

gleam wrote:The fries are consistently horrible. Consistent across all decent smokehouses in this city, I think. I've never seen a combination of good barbecue and good fries in Chicago. Please someone correct me if I'm missing a gem.

See, here's the thing with the fries. I think they're great when they're soggily drenched in BBQ sauce. In fact, my brother doesn't even bother with the tips or the links whenever I bring back something from Honey 1's or Lem's or BA's. He just digs in straight for the fries. I think he's partly a weirdo, but there's something about those soggy fries that does it for me.

Now, I understand some of you folks are sauce on the side people, and perhaps don't experience this ambrosial combo. Now, that is how I prefer my ribs, but my tips 'n' links I like messy as all get-out, and the fries are part of the package. Who the heck cares about fries when ordering BBQ? It's like complaining about the Wonder Bread that comes with it because it's not as good as D'Amatos.

gleam wrote:The fries are consistently horrible. Consistent across all decent smokehouses in this city, I think. I've never seen a combination of good barbecue and good fries in Chicago. Please someone correct me if I'm missing a gem.

Edith's BBQ R.I.P.

You're evil.

aside from Gary's post above, has anyone else tried the chicken? is it generally on-hand, or do they often run out as they do sometimes with slabs? I guess I'm wondering if I need to call ahead if I want to try some tomorrow when I pick up a couple batches of tips.

i haven't looked at the prices on the menu in a while. does anyone know how much a whole chicken is? i'm curious..

whitesnake wrote:aside from Gary's post above, has anyone else tried the chicken? is it generally on-hand, or do they often run out as they do sometimes with slabs? I guess I'm wondering if I need to call ahead if I want to try some tomorrow when I pick up a couple batches of tips.

i haven't looked at the prices on the menu in a while. does anyone know how much a whole chicken is? i'm curious..

I'm pretty surte that only fried to order chicken wings are on the menu. No whole (or parts of) chicken.

No, barbecued chicken is available. Fried, only the wings.

whitesnake wrote:aside from Gary's post above, has anyone else tried the chicken? is it generally on-hand, or do they often run out as they do sometimes with slabs?

Actually they were out of chicken when I was there a few weeks ago. Although, I imagine it all depends on how busy they were and how high the demand was for that particular day.

I've been to Honey 1's new location about five times, here's my take:

BBQ Sauce -
Damned fine - just a notch below outstanding. I really like the sauce. Nice combo of smokey flavor, density, sweetness, etc. Really a gem.

Fries -
OK, not horrible but just OK. But better than OK smothered in sauce and eaten right after a link or tip.

Tips (sauce on the side) -
Excellent. Clearly Honey 1's best offering and it's not close. Good smokey flavor, properly cooked, not overly done as can happen so often with tips. Dipped in sauce the tips are always at least good, sometimes divine and consistently excellent.

Links (sauce on the side again) -
Good. Nice smokey flavor throughout the link and a really fine hot n' spicy touch. The actual quality of the link product could be better though, as others have mentioned, but the link still warrants a "good", but not "great" rating.

Turkey Leg -
Not so good. Dead average. Nice to get your first time there basically to say you tried it and then the novelty begins to wear you out. Dry, tasteless, hard texture - still you can tell it was smoked well. Same type, but much more significant problem, than the link - Honey 1 needs to upgrade the quality of the product here. Problem isn't with the cook, because the smoke's good, but with the poultry product. Higher quality meats is a must.

Ribs (salsa al lado otra vez) -
Had 'em thrice, was mildly disappointed each time. Would not order again. My ribs there tend to be overcooked and undersmoked, which I find difficult to believe because these observations should be mutally exclusive I would think. I had such high expectations for the ribs that I tried them on three occassions hoping that my previous suffering(s) were an anamoly - not so, I'm afraid. I make pretty good, not great or fabulous, ribs at home both in the oven or on the grill that destroy Honey 1's ribs and my grill version has twice the smoke! I'm not even that great of a rib master either. Go figure. There signature offering needs to improve vastly or I'm afraid Honey 1 won't be around long.

In sum, I absolutely love their links and tips combo, which includes fries. The XL version I believe is $19 bucks and well worth it. Truly one of the the treasures of all culinary delights in Chicagoland. I have not found better tips without leaving the state. Definitely in my top 25 of all good eats in Chicagoland for the tips and links combo.

Hopefully the ribs will improve with time and they will stock higher quality links and turkey legs.

On a side note, as much as I like aspects and certain offerings of Honey 1's as noted above, I really believe that Chicagoland/Illinois BBQ offerings are just completely inferior to the experience one could have at an AVERAGE BBQ stand in Texas. Not even close.

I've been happy with the tips and links combo every time I've ordered it. The ribs I've definitely found to be more variable. One time, prime lunch time, they were wonderful. Other times, you can tell they've been waiting a little while to be served, a little leathery though certainly enjoyable. Basically, you should time your visit or tailor your order to what's likely to be at its perfect moment. That's the closest you can come to the experience you have at home, where you can serve meat right at its point of perfection.

Hadn't been to Honey 1 in a while, so we stopped by last Thursday to pick up lunch. Ordered a slab and some gizzards. I now realize that my affection for gizzards is largely nostalgia, but they weren't bad. The slab of ribs, however, (with sauce on the side), was absolutely sublime. Smoky, chewy-but-not-tough and oh so meaty. Damn they were tasty! I've gotta make a point to work more Honey 1 into my diet!

Got takeout last night, approx 8:30 pm Saturday - they still had slabs and chicken. The chicken was OK, but a bit dry, the 1/2 slab we got was overcooked - many of the ribs were downright crispy. The fried okra was OK, but seemed like it was one of those "frozen in the bag" items. Do they make it themselves?

I was there last night as well with three friends and a bottle of chianti:) I thought the ribs were very good as usual if a bit dry. We agreed this is surely due to the leaner ribs they use there. Pulled pork was ok but I'll save that for the $5 lunch option from now on. The chicken wings were excellent as always.

I have finally tried Honey One! Hubby, baby and I cruised there from Niles to get some takeout. We got 2 lunch specials, pulled pork, and tips&links.

Before I say anything, let me say that I was a HUGE fan of Brudders BBQ. They are gone and I have been wandering lost trying to find something half as good.

Honey One was very tatsy. The tips had a quality smoke flavor. This was my first consumption of links. For some reason in my head I was picturing lil' smokies! They were also very good

They fries were bad, but covered in sauce they were good.

Now, the pulled pork sammie. At Brudders when you ordered a pulled pork sammie it came in one of those round 9" tins where the bun was lost in all of the pork. In fact you pretty much had to eat it with a fork. The Brudders fries were bad also, but they were good because they were drenched in sauce.
Honey One's pulled pork was very delicious, but SERIOUSLY CHAUNCEY!!

My husband and I split the two lunch orders and were left hungry.

So we will go back to try other things but if it wasn't sooo chauncey I'd recommend it to more people.

I miss Brudders! (They were also called N.N. Smokehouse)

This Brudder's is not, I take it, any relation to that on Addison and Pulaski?

I don't think so. The original restaurant was called N.N. smokehouse and it was at Irving and Ashland. Then about 6 or 7 years ago, the same people opened Brudders BBQ. It was on Harlem right between Addison and Irving.

NN is still there. It was pretty darn good -- a very, very long time ago, when Larry Tucker (?) was in charge. Almost inconceivably bad for most of this millennium, however. (Though it did change management, again, within the past few weeks according to signage.) I don't think it was ever quite up to H1 in terms of quality. But quantity counts too, and they had that in spades

It's not called N.N., though, right? My memory is that it's been Smoke Country House since the landlord took it over from Tucker. It was serviceable when I needed my BBQ fix, but not much more.

Mike G wrote:It's not called N.N., though, right? My memory is that it's been Smoke Country House since the landlord took it over from Tucker. It was serviceable when I needed my BBQ fix, but not much more.

Your memory is correct, after Larry left it was never operated as N.N., only as Smoke Country House. Like you say, not bad but not "gotta have" either.

That's true. The irony about the "new" name is the nearly complete lack of smoke. Not the case when Tucker was in charge. I disagree that it has ever been any good as Smoke Country House. I'm willing to believe wild inconsistency combined with my own personal bad luck, maybe. My last meal there involved par-frozen brisket and ribs pulled from the walk-in and boiled, before my very eyes, in a pan of commercial sauce on the stove by the front counter. Nasty.

The couple of times I ate there were not that wretched. They were clearly discernable as a pale imitation of N.N. Smokehouse, not as something completely opposite to it.

So has Tucker opened a new place?

HE was at LTs grill at 1800 W. Grand. He seems to have had a falling out with his partner because he is no longer there and the partner remains. I have asked where he has gone but have gotten no answers. I would like to find him again if he turns up anywhere.

After reading so much about this place I finally got to try it. I went there Saturday. I had a full slab dinner with the sauce on the side. Well I don’t know if it was my expectations or what? But I was very disappointed. The ribs were over-done, dry, and tough. They just weren’t very good. I didn’t even finish them they were so bad. I thought the sauce was excellent.

atomicman wrote:HE was at LTs grill at 1800 W. Grand. He seems to have had a falling out with his partner because he is no longer there and the partner remains. I have asked where he has gone but have gotten no answers. I would like to find him again if he turns up anywhere.

you can find him here:

http://www.cheflarrytucker.com/start.html

his website is obviously out of date, but it has an e-mail contact for Larry.

Everybody's got a little piece of the N.N. Smokehouse story, but the details are a little twisted in each post. Frankly, as well as I know Larry Tucker, I'm not sure I've got the whole, straight story, but here goes.

Larry Tucker opened N.N. Smokehouse in the early '90s. We met in '94 or '95 when I went in for lunch just by chance. Larry had a bottle of Barbecue Sauce sitting on his counter with a label on it that looked like the painted mural that adorned the back of his long bench seating that wrapped around the room. The sauce inside the bottle didn't look anything like the sauce he was serving in the restaurant. In fact, upon closer inspection, it looked very much like my "Southwest" variety of Roadhouse Bar-B-Que Sauce!

Having never met Larry before, I played it coy and engaged him in conversation about the restaurant and barbecue in general. After a while I got the chat over to the bottle on his counter. Still not knowing who I was, Larry explained that it wasn't his sauce in the bottle but a store bought brand that he had stripped the label from and replaced with his own, just so he could see how it would look.

At this point I introduced myself and Larry confirmed my suspicions that it was my sauce in the bottle. I never suspected there was any evil doing or attempts at skullduggery and we had a good laugh over this. In fact, at that point he admitted he was a fan of our sauces and asked me if I would sell him my "Hot & Spicy" sauce to use as a table sauce in conjunction with his own "house" recipe. Larry served our sauce right up to the moment he got out of the business.

His explanation for leaving was that his landlord had tripled (maybe even quadrupled) his rent in an effort to force him out and leave the space available for his son to open his own 'Que joint. Out of loyalty to Larry, I didn't set foot in the place for two years (more on that later).

After leaving his business, Larry worked for a while as the head chef at Biasetti's Steak House, on Irving Park near Ashland, just west of where N.N. used to be. When he left there, he went to work in partnership and as head chef with the guys who owned Brudders. Those individuals never owned or had a stake in N.N. Smokehouse.

From Brudders, Larry eventually opened up LT's Grill in the original Wishbone location at Grand and Wood. Because he was only open for lunch, I only got down there to see him once before he left the place.

As for the original Irving Park location of N.N. Smokehouse, I'm not sure what the real story was with the landlord and the raised rent. About two years after Larry left the place, I got a phone call from the new owner, a Mexican fellow named Paco (He initially identified himself as "Frank" to me). Frank had tracked me down, wanting to get my "Hot & Spicy" sauce back on the tables, as several customers had been asking for it.

When I went to Smoke Country House (at my urging, they eventually changed the name to Country Smokehouse) to drop off the sauce, I saw some very familiar faces; all of Larry's old cooks were still there making the same good 'Que, true to Larry's recipes! I had a pulled pork sandwich that was as good as anything Larry had ever served. The landlord's son was nowhere in sight and it seemed this was a well run operation deserving of my business. I became as close to Paco and his cooks as I was with Larry, and went in for dinner once a week.

In early April of this year, as the Barbecue Sauce season started to kick in, I started travelling extensively; missing my weeky "appointment" at Country Smokehouse for almost a month. When I finally got back, I discovered that Paco had sold the place to a couple of guys who had little restuarant or Barbecue experience.

They changed the name to Tripi's Joint (or something like that), dropped numerous menu items (among others, the Asian noodles, which I loved), and added a selection of deli items for no apparent reason. I went in three times in order to give them a fair shake. They disappointed on all three occasions. They served smaller portions for the same old prices, they replaced the fresh cut, fat potato wedges with institutional frozen French Fries, and changed the cole slaw recipe to a less distinctive taste. More than likely they will not get a fourth chance from me.

About a week after Paco sold the place, I ran into his brother by chance while out running errands. He told me that Paco had just burnt out on the restaurant business and had made a career change, starting his own construction and contracting business. Paco worked harder than anyone I've ever seen. If anyone deserves to make it in his chosen field, he is the guy.

As for Larry, I've got his cell phone number in my rolodex, but I haven't used it lately. Maybe it's time to give him a call. If I do, I'll let you know what he's up to.

Buddy