More Pork in Chicago - Hot Doug's

"You're going to Chicago? You HAVE to try Hot Doug's."

I heard that from numerous friends when I mentioned my wife and I were traveling to to the Cochon 555 event in Chicago last month. Then we got there and heard the same thing from friends who live there. And I'm not someone who needs a lot of arm twisting to visit a place billing itself as "the sausage superstore."

We got the right after the place opened at 10:30 a.m., still nursing our severe Cochon-induced hangovers, since we had been warned about how quickly the line grows. It was sound advice. Our wait wasn't very long but by the time we finished eating the line was well out the door, although the staff still kept the line moving at a steady pace.

I went expecting big, traditional Chicago-style hot dogs. Hot Doug's definitely has those. But the wide variety of specialty sausages is what surprised me.

This is the Saucisse De Morteau and the wild rice and Asiago Bison sausages.

...And this is the veal, pork and chive "bockwurst." Everything was as good as it looks and sounds.

We also enjoyed the laid-back atmosphere with tunes by classic punk bands like the Sex Pistols and Dead Kennedys playing in the background and the comical signage that included elements like a picture of hot dog on the men's room door and an empty bun for the lady's room.

I love punk music in general and the Clash in particular so I was briefly excited to see a dog named after Joe Strummer. Then I read the description. As bad as it sounds I realize it is meant as a genuine tribute to the legendary clash frontman, a longtime vegetarian who died of heart disease at the age of 50. Many other celebrities have endorsed the health benefits of a vegetarian/vegan diet like Adam "MCA" Yauch of the Beastie Boys (dead at 47), Linda McCartney (dead at 56) and Steve Jobs (dead at 56). If you eat at Hot Doug's and are concerned with your health I recommend sticking to the natural sausages loaded with healthy pork fat.

Chicago - Cochon 555

Two weekends ago my wife and I made a trip to Chicago for the Cochon 555 event there. As I mentioned in my post on last year's Cochon 555 event in Memphis, the traveling event takes five celebrated area chefs and pairs each with a different breed of heritage pig from a different small, sustainable farm.

We had a friend arrange VIP passes for us to attend the Chicago event, held in the Grand Ballroom of the Chicago Four Seasons. Since it was a vacation I didn't keep careful notes the way I did in Memphis, and I didn't go out of my way to sample every tasting station once the lines got long. But I still wanted to share a brief photo essay of some of the highlights we experienced.

My favorite presentation was the lunch tray featuring a small, Chicago-style hotdog, empanada, tamale, open-faced head cheese sandwich and tiny Dutch oven of stew.

The pork paella was one of the most intensely satisfying dishes I encountered that evening.

One of the big distractions was the amazing variety of whiskey available for sampling at the event.

The Eagle Rare Manhattans were a highlight of the whiskey selections. I consumed an outrageous quantity of Luxardo cherries.

Like at the Memphis event, there was also an incredible cheese spread for when you had your fill of pork.

 

Bacon-topped chocolate-covered cheesecake.

This wasn't a vegetarian-friendly event.

Broad Avenue Art Walk - Stuffed Food Truck

The Broad Avenue Art Walk continues to grow each time I visit. At last the Friday-before-last's event the festivities had expanded to include the loading dock area of the former Sears building across the street from the main strip of bars, art galleries and restaurants. The loading docks were packed with vendors and performing  musicians while the parking lot in front of them had several food trucks serving the crowds.

While walking past the Stuffed Food Truck I noticed barbecue and cole slaw empanadas listed on the specials board and immediately ordered one.

It was basically the classier cousin of the fried barbecue pie I tried recently at the A&R Bar-B-Q on Elvis Presley Boulevard. Having cole slaw inside the crust added a nice extra element of texture and I liked that the sauce was served on the side so that I was able to decide how much to use instead of having a large quantity of it included in the filling the way it was at A&R. It was cheap, convenient and portable comfort food; perfect for a quick snack while strolling through an outdoor festival.

Fast Food Pulled Pork Tacos - El Toro Taco

I don't eat barbecue every day, but sometimes barbecue finds me even when I'm not looking for it. On Monday I was working in Millington when I decided to stop in El Toro Taco for a quick lunch.

I'm not sure how long El Toro Taco has been around, but I can't remember a time when I wasn't on US Highway 51 north of Navy Road.

El Toro Taco is a little local fast food place that serves fare like tacos, burritos and nachos. Imagine a locally-owned version of Taco Bell only serving bigger tacos with filling that actually looks like ground beef.

While I was there I noticed a sign announcing that pulled pork had been added to the menu. Naturally I felt obligated to try one alongside two of the beef tacos I'd been craving when I stopped there. When I ordered the cashier asked if I wanted barbecue sauce on the pork taco and I naturally said yes.

The pulled pork was juicy but without any real smoke flavor. That was no big surprise since I wasn't expecting any award-winning barbecue in a $1.39 taco from a fast food taco shack. It did add some nice variation to my lunch when eaten with the two beef tacos I ordered. And my lunch was less than $5 total. El Toro Taco isn't going to wow anyone looking for authentic Mexican food, but it is way better than Taco Bell at a similar price point.

North Memphis - Jock's Hot Tamales

Last Friday I ended up trying some good Delta-style tamales that fate put in my path. That morning I cleared a bunch of scrap metal out of my garage and drove it up to the Mid-Town Auto Parts and Salvage yard at Chelsea and Evergreen.  Despite the junkyard's name and its proximity to Midtown it is in an area any Memphian would refer to as North Memphis. 

It's located north of Northside High School and the North Memphis Library. The location of the old Firestone plant is due west of it and the intersection of Chelsea and Hyde Park is due east. That is about as North Memphis as it gets.

For those of you who have never sold scrap metal, there are several salvage yards along Chelsea that buy it. You turn in your copper, brass, aluminium and stainless steel at a relatively small scale near the entrance at Mid-Town. You turn in steel and cast iron further back in an area where you drive across a giant scale, unload, then drive back across and get paid based on how much less your vehicle weighs. You show your license and get thumb printed at both locations. I had a few pieces of brass and copper and a pretty good bit of steel. I got $23.62 for my brass and copper and $4 for my steel. There is a reason thieves target brass and copper.

After I left the scrap yard I was driving down Chelsea when I noticed a van parked at the corner of Chelsea and Thomas advertising "Hot Tamale Man," "Jock's Hot Tamales" and "The Best Hot Tamales in Town." It had flashing lights on the roof alongside speakers that were blasting soul music. there was no way I could pass an opportunity like that up.

The price ended up being $5.50 for a half-dozen tamales. They were good and spicy without being overly greasy and I had to force myself to stop eating after four of them. The final two made a great afternoon snack a few hours later.

Delta-style tamales can be delicious but they aren't very photogenic since they inevitably just look like cornmeal mush wrapped in wax paper. But the ones from the Jock's Hot Tamales van deliver on taste.

Great Ribs and Fried BBQ Pies - More A&R

When people talk about the best ribs in Memphis you frequently hear people mention A&R Bar-B-Q. You also here people dismiss them as okay but not all that special. I think a lot of that difference in opinion is determined by which location people have tried. Most of the A&R locations share buildings with other businesses and have little indoor pits inside the restaurant. Meanwhile, the stand-alone Elvis Presley location has more in common with rural West Tennessee barbecue joints like Helen's and Latham's.

April showers bring light conditions that can make outdoor photography difficult

The first time I posted about the A&R on Elvis Presley I'd been writing this blog for less than a month. At that point I was still heavily focused on educating people on the geography of Memphis and that post spent much more time talking about the nearby Soulsville neighborhood than the actual barbecue. That was also largely because in those early days of blogging I hadn't come to fully appreciate barbecue cooked in old-fashioned smokehouses.

This is the brick-chimneyed cinder block smokehouse behind the Elvis Presley location of A&R. You normally only see smokehouses like this in rural areas. Over the past two years I've eaten enough barbecue from enough places to really appreciate how much of a difference one can make. Having access to one in an urban area is a genuine treat.

After my recent post about the rib tips I enjoyed at A&R's Downtown location I decided to swing back by the Elvis Presley location to try the ribs there. A sign at the counter informed me that the company recently lowered the prices on its menu items to commemorate its 30th anniversary. My rib dinner plate was only $9.99 before tax, making it one of the best values in a rib dinner I've encountered.

Of course, low cost is only one part of a good value. But these ribs delivered on taste as well. I requested them dry with sauce on the side. Between the smoke and the light dusting of dry rub the ribs had so much flavor I barely touched the sauce. They had the perfect texture too; tender but without the fall-apart consistency so many people mistakenly consider ideal. The beans and slaw were pretty average, but with great ribs that cheap who cares? While the Manic American guys were in town they mentioned how impressed they were by the big old barbecue pit inside the Hickory Hill location of A&R and the ribs that came out of it. I haven't been to that one yet, but I'm now curious to try it soon. 

While I was waiting for my ribs at the Elvis Presley store I couldn't help but notice a large sign advertising "BBQ fried pies." It looked like one of the fried pies you usually see with fruit or chocolate filling at little country stores, only filled with pulled pork and sauce. I posted a pic of it on Instagram before eating my lunch. Over the next several hours I got enough messages questioning me about the fried pies on Facebook that I decided to swing back by A&R for a Hobbit-worthy second lunch.

It turns out the pies are available with pork, beef, chicken or turkey filling. I naturally went for the pork. I ended up waiting nearly 30 minutes for the pie. I'm not sure if that is standard or if there was a mix-up in the kitchen. I do know that when it came out it was way too hot to eat or hold. I had to poke some steam holes in it with a fork and let it cool down.

At $4.99 before tax the fried barbecue tax compares well to a barbecue sandwich in both price and volume. It is loaded with barbecue sauce as well as meat and ends up being similar to a barbecue-stuffed chimichanga, i.e., similar to a pothead's greatest dream.

Regular readers of this blog know that I normally try to make my barbecue and soul food selections as healthy as possible by trying to eat real foods in place of toxic, empty-calorie junk foods. I have three big rules I generally try to follow.

1. Avoid refined carbohydrates as much as possible, particularly wheat and sugar/high fructose corn syrup.

2. Avoid foods cooked with industrial-produced, chemically-extracted vegetable oils like corn, soy and canola oil.

3. Avoid unfermented soy products.

The fried barbecue pie features meat drenched in sugary sauce and served in a flour crust that has been deep fried; most likely in soybean oil. So it manages to completely break all my usual rules for healthy eating. Of course, we are talking about a deep fried barbecue pie here. I'm pretty sure anyone looking to drop a few pounds or worrying about heart disease or diabetes already realizes they shouldn't be ordering one.

It is obviously meant to be an occasional, yet delicious, indulgence. But like I demonstrated with a jumbo barbecue sandwich from Payne's Bar-B-Q in a previous post, it is important for people to understand why it is unhealthy and that the pork meat is actually the healthiest part of it. Meanwhile the rib dinner I had earlier in the day is actually pretty ideal for someone worried about their heart health or their weight.

Convenience Store Soul Food - Gary's Market

I recently got a tip from a reader that I needed to check out Gary's Market on Getwell down near the Mississippi state line. Here in the South convenience stores sometimes contain surprisingly-good fresh cooked food so I made a mental note to try it the next time I was down that way.

There isn't anything outside Gary's that would indicate it has anything other than the standard gas station assortment of fried crud under a heat lamp. But once you are inside you will notice a cafeteria-style counter at the back with a line of people at it. Like the nearby Tom's Bar-B-Q, Gary's mainly draws its customers from the surrounding industrial area and it keeps the line moving fast to get them back to work on time.

I went for pork neckbones, cabbage and turnip greens. After your order is put together it gets wrapped in a clingy plastic film. That does a good job of keeping all the juice in the container to avoid a mess but I noticed that the staff even wraps up burger and fry combos like that, which seems like it would turn the buns and fries into a soggy mess if someone had far to drive before they started eating.

Since there aren't any tables or chairs in Gary's I ended up eating in my work vehicle so the plastic wrap and plastic bag were helpful to me since I was able to spread them out on my console to catch any spills while I ate. Everything was good and the portions were huge, especially considering the $5.99 pre-tax price. The neckbones were some of the meatiest neckbones I've ever seen and the greens had plenty of meat in them too. And everything was well-spiced to the point I didn't my eating without the standard soul food condiments of Louisiana Hot Sauce and Bruce's Green Hot Pepper Sauce available.

The line at Gary's moved so fast that I didn't even realize it serves barbecue until I picked up a menu while I was checking out at the cash register. I'll be sure to try it the next time I am down there. The daily specials for plate lunches feature an impressively wide variety of food to choose from. There is also a biscuit-centric breakfast menu.