A Morning Menu of LAF-Style Food News and Stories to Begin Your Day
HAPPY NATIONAL CHOCOLATE MINT DAY!
Gus’s Fried Chicken Going National
Dining Out in Snowy Portland ME
The Best of Carolina BBQ
The Best American BBQ Cities
Gus’s Fried Chicken Going National
Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken, much-loved in Memphis, is planning to go national this year. They’ve announced nine new locations planned for 2015, including restaurants in Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, and even Kansas City, where Stroud’s has been the fried chicken king for eight decades. Currently, Gus’s can be found in Tennessee, Mississippi, Texas, and Arkansas.
Dining Out in Snowy Portland ME
Becky’s Diner has been at the Portland waterfront since 1991.
The snow this winter in coastal New England has been particularly brutal, and the effect the weather has had on restaurants has been equally brutal. In Portland, Maine, many restaurants are having to cope with parking bans driven by the repeating storms. One Portland restaurant that has thrived during the winter is Becky’s Diner on the waterfront. They open at 4 a.m. and the storm workers appreciate it. The result is a constant flow of plow guys and police officers at the diner. Read more in the Portland Press Herald.
The Best of Carolina BBQ
Smoked pork ready to be chopped at Red Bridges Barbecue Lodge of Shelby NC
Southern Living presents ten must-visit Carolina barbecue palaces, both North and South, encompassing all the regional styles. At Lexington Barbecue, “The meat is chopped and dressed in the classic Piedmont vinegar-and-ketchup sauce.” Allen & Son of Chapel Hill uses an Eastern-style “spicy, tomato-free vinegar sauce.” The Skylight Inn in Ayden finishes its meat with “salt, cider vinegar, and Texas Pete hot sauce as it’s chopped, and the skin is added for a little crunch.” The hog at Jackie Hite’s of Leesville, SC is “simmered with plenty of mustard.”
The Best American BBQ Cities
The buffet at the Moonlite Bar-B-Q Inn of Owensboro, KY features the area’s unique barbecued mutton.
Thrillist presents a quirky and provocative list of America’s top 11 barbecue cities. Quirky: Honolulu, “with its famous Kalua pork,” at #11. Provocative: New York City (” every spot boasts serious, studied knowledge of the craft”) at #7, just ahead of Owensboro, KY. Austin, TX, a city that was certainly a barbecue also-ran just a decade ago, was chosen as the country’s finest barbecue metropolis: “there’s not a city in the country doing more in both creative and classic styles than Austin.”
That’s a good list for Carolina BBQ! Sadly, I’ve never been to any of the SC places but all the NC ones.
If you had to pick one NC barbecue joint to recommend to a first-timer, which would it be?
Lexington #1, of course…if they happened to be in or near Lexington. It’s not the most convenient town to get to when traveling. Greensboro has Stamey’s, which is just as good, and Raleigh has Allen & Son (in Chapel Hill). East of Raleigh lie all the other great shacks (Skylight, Grady’s, et al.), but they’re all remote destination places.
That’s one of the nice (and difficult) aspects of Carolina Q – it’s not all centralized neatly in one or two urban areas. Makes it a lot tougher for the casual visitor.
True! But for those who have the time to explore, the distances are great to process while driving to the next shack!