Longtime readers know that Marie and I – well, admittedly, it is mainly just I – get a kick out of stopping in other states for regionally-available sodas that we cannot get in Atlanta. When we were in Fort Payne, we pulled into a grocery store called Sav-a-Lot, where I hoped – actually, where I expected – to get twelve-packs of Buffalo Rock and Grapico, but they didn’t carry them. They did, however, have strawberry flavored Moon Pies. I gobbled those babies up within four days. Continue reading “Joe’s Walk Hard BBQ, Leesburg AL”
Bar-B-Q Place, Fort Payne AL
The Alabama Department of Tourism puts out a little brochure, updated every couple of years, to highlight all the good eating to be found in that state. You can view a PDF of this fun document, 100 Dishes to Eat in Alabama Before you Die, and marvel at all the interesting meals that they’ve found. A couple of things occur to me here. First, heck, we drove right past the Log Cabin in Mentone on this trip and did not stop for an order of chili corn pone. Second, I sincerely hope that when Ric and I next go to Mobile, we visit one of the places on this list. I’ve been thinking about The Brick Pit for several months, after reading 3rd Degree Berns’ rave review of the place. Continue reading “Bar-B-Q Place, Fort Payne AL”
Big Jim’s Bama-Q, Hammondville AL (CLOSED)
So I decided that we should have a little barbecue tour around DeKalb County, Alabama. The valley between Lookout and Sand Mountains, where my parents lived in the 1950s, is still really isolated from today’s bloggers. With an aging population and little industry anymore, there are very few reasons for younger people to stay here, and, other than the gorgeous land around the somewhat-unimpressive-in-August Desoto Falls, little to bring tourists through. Well, there’s a church that’s literally built into a mammoth rock, and that’s pretty neat, but even Manitou Cave is closed to the public now. Haralson’s Drugs, which once sported an awesome soda counter, is long gone. Well, I knew that place wasn’t gonna last when they quit carrying comic books in 1981 or so. At any rate, there are very few restaurants in the area, and unless you’re a fan of the country band Alabama, whose fan club and museum is larger than some airports I’ve seen, or unless your parents grew up here, I can’t imagine what would bring you to Fort Payne or any of the surrounding towns. Continue reading “Big Jim’s Bama-Q, Hammondville AL (CLOSED)”
Armstrong’s Barbecue, Summerville GA
I first visited Armstrong’s in early November, 2001. The Reverend Howard Finster had died shortly before, and so I took my children to pay our respects at his Paradise Gardens in Summerville, a town in northwest Georgia. While there, I remember blowing a tire, necessitating a trip to a nearby shop, and also having a really inexpensive meal at Armstrong’s. According to notes that I made at the time for my old Geocities page, theirs was among the cheapest barbecue plates of any restaurant in Georgia. A princely $3.99, then, would get you sliced pork with two sides. Today, that plate costs only $6.25, which is still among the lowest prices I can imagine for this much food. Continue reading “Armstrong’s Barbecue, Summerville GA”
LeRoy’s Fried Chicken, Atlanta GA (CLOSED)
In a recent chapter, I noted how my interest in out-of-the-way and unheralded restaurants occasionally leads me pretty far away from the trendiest of local places. But it’s good to keep an eye on what’s going on in town and check out what people are buzzing about. I don’t get to the hawt new restaurants all that often, particularly the tableclothed ones, and I’m sometimes disappointed that location means as much as it does to some regional reviewers. Would LeRoy’s Fried Chicken be getting all this attention if it was on the Square in Marietta? Almost assuredly not.
Anyway, sometimes I go eat somewhere because it’s where all the cool kids are going.
They’re also complaining a lot. Since opening in June, Chef Julia LeRoy has evidently been having consistency issues. Either that, or a fickle public is complaining overmuch about prices, long waits, and a lack of parking, and this and that. So I knew going in that this might not be a successful visit, but I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. I’m glad to say that it worked out just fine.
I had a mid-length shift at work letting me out after 12:30, and so I had a couple of backup plans in case LeRoy’s was too crowded. Fortunately, there was still one space in front to park. (Unfortunately, it’s a complete nightmare getting back out onto Howell Mill, especially when a big truck is five hundred feet ahead, blocking the lane while unloading!) It’s all outdoor seating here, with only seven tables. Yes, there is a wait after you place your order, as the chicken, locally raised from Springer Mountain Farms and cooked in lard, is fried to order. They were finishing up a few other guests’ orders as I waited for perhaps eight or maybe nine minutes for my food.
It looks like they have heard guest complaints about the fairly high prices here and have offered a few “combo meal” options. I had two pieces of dark meat, fresh-cut fries, a biscuit and a bottle of properly sugared Coke from Mexico for just under ten bucks. Prior to assembling a few specials for their guests, the cost would have been nearer to twelve. I’m not quite sure what the complainers are comparing these prices against to find room to argue. It seems to me that most really good lunches in the area are going to run around this price.
I think that there’s simply a stigma against high-priced fried chicken, as public perception of fried chicken is something consumed in mass quantities from mediocre chains at a low price. “Feed your family” pricing at places like KFC have just dominated peoples’ concept of what good chicken should cost, I guess. I found this to be a very fair price for excellent food. Admittedly, I really don’t order fried chicken very often, but this was among the best that I can recall having lately. The meat was very tender, and while it was greasy, it was not disgusting. However they are prepping this chicken, they have absolutely nailed the mix of really moist and juicy meat with a crispy, crunchy crust. It was, flatly, as far removed from the food available at a Church’s as a really good burger is from a Wendy’s. The fries were also very good and nicely salty. The biscuit was buttery and crumbly. They thoughtfully included an extra little pat of butter. The bread doesn’t need it, frankly.
Incidentally, I’ve been wondering about the inclusion of Mexican Coke on the menu. It’s among several interesting bottled drinks like Cheerwine. I’ve been seeing this more frequently, buzz restaurants getting praise and attention for taking the extra step of ordering Coca-Cola with sugar instead of cane syrup. Sublime Doughnuts has been getting that in lately as well. I wonder whether this is having any impact, anywhere? Is some distributor reporting to his superior about how more of these trendsetting places are refusing to take the local corn syrup stuff and getting sugared Coke in from somebody else?
Anyway, I’m glad that I waited until it was just cool enough to make this place worth a visit. If they were stumbling when they opened in June, they’ve certainly got it together now. It’s a delicious and fine treat that I enjoyed a great deal. Sometimes, the crowd knows what it is talking about, and sometimes a good restaurant like this can address public grumbling with excellent results.
(Update 10/26/11: Sadly, this experiment didn’t last, and LeRoy’s shuttered yesterday.)
O.B.’s BBQ, McDonough GA
I have been driving past O.B.’s for many years, not knowing that it is the last remaining store in a failed expansion into the suburbs of Atlanta. Similar in a way to The Mad Italian and Old Hickory House, the large store in McDonough is the only thing remaining from an attempt at growing that just didn’t take. There used to be three more locations, including one further south down I-75 at that Tanger Outlet Mall in Locust Grove, and one in south Cobb County, near Mableton. This store was sold to a new owner in 2010, who renamed it J-Bones. Well, there’s something else to investigate further.
I first spotted O.B.’s in 2004. If you’re a longtime reader, and actually remember recurring jokes that have not recurred in many, many entries, you may recall that I regard 2004 as a mistake-filled year. One of the few things that I did that year that was not at all a mistake was popping down to visit a friend in Macon a few times, and I noticed the restaurant then. So this is slightly better than seven years now, and I finally stopped in. I plead “other barbecue restaurants” in my defense; the same exit (218) that a driver would take to get to O.B.’s would get you over to Southern Pit in the other direction, for example. Plus, you know, there were usually restaurants in Macon awaiting me.
At any rate, confirming that O.B.’s is one of the criminally few barbecue restaurants in middle Georgia that’s open on Sunday, it has been on the backlist for whenever travel plans forced us onto the road then. Our most recent visit to Saint Simons saw us coming home then, and so we stopped by for an early supper.
Travelers can’t help but notice O.B.’s, because they made the good choice, many years ago, to build on a frontage road parallel to I-75 and erect a huge, interstate-friendly tall sign. Many years ago, O.B.’s was called Outback’s, but apparently some legal grumbling came from the direction of that big chain restaurant, the one sponsors what I’d like to still call the Hall of Fame Bowl. (Similarly, the December 31st game in Atlanta is still called the Peach Bowl around my TV.) A bit of cheeky nose-thumbing comes from a slogan beneath the restaurant’s name: “Real Pit Out-n-Back.”
Inside, it’s really not possible to eat without getting the vibe that this restaurant’s glory days are behind it. It’s nowhere as bleak and decrepit as Dunwoody’s Old Hickory House, mercifully, but it was only a fifth and maybe a quarter full on a Sunday evening. There were several young servers around, being a little bored and idle. The bright, shiny, corporate-designed menus really drive home the point that this place used to have fellow stores. I’m not sure what this place did wrong, because the food is really quite good. Many places around Atlanta have made a bid for expansion, and I think the pork here was certainly good enough to warrant the effort. Perhaps the other stores were just mismanaged or something, because this isn’t at all bad.
I just had a pork sandwich on Texas toast. This comes with lettuce, tomato and onion, and of course, these aren’t necessary for a barbecue sandwich, but I figure I needed some vegetables. Honestly, this was the least of the three barbecue meals that we had that weekend, following Southern Soul and Smokin Pig, but that’s not a fair comparison, because those other two places were downright amazing.
The meat here was smoky and juicy and stood out as better than many other places that I have tried. The beans were good, and the Brunswick stew was quite excellent. I can’t honestly rave about it quite as much as 3rd Degree Berns, one of my absolute favorite barbecue writers, did, but it’s nevertheless very good stew. The three table sauces are all variations of the same somewhat thick brown tomato-vinegar-pepper mixture, in mild, sweet and hot versions.
Was it worth a seven year wait? Probably not, and some grouchy online reviews suggest that this pretty good meal was even better years ago. Did O.B.’s take their eye off the ball when they expanded, or have things improved again now that they have consolidated from four locations to one? I’m not certain, but I’m glad this is available for travelers to find so easily. Honestly, if you’ve only time for a quick stop just off the exit ramp without a lot of detour and hunting, then I can’t think of a better place right by the highway between Atlanta and Macon. I hope that they weather their downsizing well enough to last a lot longer.
Other blog posts about O.B.’s:
Buster’s Blogs (July 24 2009)
BBQ Biker (Aug. 22 2009)
3rd Degree Berns Barbecue Sabbatical (Sep. 1 2009)
Smokin Pig, Richmond Hill GA
(With apologies to my many visitors from Google, this is one of the occasional entries here on the blog where it takes me a very long time to get to talking about the restaurant titled above. This isn’t a conventional restaurant review blog, after all, but rather stories about the fun that we have eating. Sometimes, the research that finds these places to eat sparks its own story.)
The only thing that I dislike about our trips to Saint Simons Island is that we occasionally have to return on a Sunday. Our experience has been that just about any place worth visiting in middle or south Georgia is closed on Sunday, and it sure is a shame to drive past an interesting-sounding restaurant and not have the chance to visit. Continue reading “Smokin Pig, Richmond Hill GA”
Marie, Let's Eat! 