My birthday falls during Fourth of July weekend — always has, always will — which has both its culinary ups … and more ups.
It means that, at least on the Fourth, I’ll spend the day inhaling hot dogs and hamburgers, cornbread and corn on the cob, and baked beans swimming with burnt ends. And to set my birthday apart from the Fourth, I’ve made it a day to celebrate myself with BBQ — lots and lots of BBQ. Meats redolent of smoke and sauce, tender and melting, so good that I lose all control. It’s my birthday, after all. I can always diet with … another hot dog.
We live in an age when comfort foods are not just desired, they’re essential. Oreo cookies comfort me. So does dark chocolate gelato — the darker the better. And then, there’s BBQ, the ultimate non-vegan experience. Chewing on a nice meaty pork or beef rib, or some brisket, slow-cooked and filled with the flavor of burnt wood — that’s the way to celebrate.
For the sake of standardization, let’s call it “BBQ.” I know it’s also “bar-b-q” and “barbecue” and even, in more rarefied lands, “barbeque.” But that “que” seems pretentious. By changing “que” into “cue” and then into “BBQ,” there’s an element of Americanization at work, turning the word from its French roots to street lingo, smacking of dingy bar stools, beer from a bottle, and whiskey out of a fruit jar.
BBQ is real people’s food. It may parade in classy duds, but underneath is a taste of smoky rooms and bad-tempered Saturday nights. BBQ is food you eat with your teeth, your jaws, your whole being. I’m not talkin’ quiche here, I’m talkin’ ribs.
Ribs are, of course, not just ribs. Beyond the quality of the meat — and the care with which the pitman works the fires of the great brick oven, and the nature of the wood used to flavor the smoke — there is the sauce, which often comes in two forms.
The first is what Texans called the “sop” or the “mop,” which is the marinade in which the meat is first soaked, and then basted throughout the cooking process. The second sauce is the one you slop on the ribs when the crucial moment of ingestion is near. That sauce comes in mild or hot versions. Do not take these labels lightly.
Some years ago, I was waiting for an order of ribs at the fabled Vic & Betty’s Soul Bar-B-Q in South San Francisco, when the woman working my order sighted a pimpmobile rolling by outside. “Uh-oh!” she declared, “there goes that baaaaad dude. If he comes in here for some ’cue I’m gonna give him the hot sauce to get rid of him.”
I swallowed hard, and got ready for a long evening, for I had already ordered the hot sauce. She was right — it had me sweating, gasping and making strange noises for hours afterward.
These days, what I go for is the flavor of the meat, as unsullied by sauce as possible. Which is why I love BBQ from the following local wonders, where smoke is not just in the air, but in the meat as well.
Get ready to chew … with a smile. And for me, to celebrate another year in high-cholesterol style. And in case you’re wondering, the best thing to drink with BBQ is beer, preferably on tap. But a six pack will do.
Dr. Hogly Wogly’s Tyler, Texas BBQ
8136 Sepulveda Blvd., Van Nuys; 818-782-2480, www.hoglywogly.com
At Dr. Hogly Wogly’s, this is Texas BBQ, which means there’s an admirable reverence for beef here — and especially for brisket.
Beef brisket is one of the leanest cuts of meat, which means that, in its own funny way, this is a diet meal. Not that anyone goes to Dr. H for a diet meal; this isn’t the sort of place where the side dish options include cottage cheese and a fruit salad. Heck, aside from the coleslaw, beans and potatoes, the closest the menu comes to a vegetable are the sliced tomatoes and sliced onions offered as sides. There’s also sweet potato pie, which I guess counts as a vegetable dish.
Anyway, getting back to the brisket, it’s the sort of dish you really don’t want to finish. Each and every bite seems to hold nuances, subtleties and tasty bits not noticed the bite before.
If I feel the need for pork, I opt for the pulled model — shredded and rich with sauce. I prefer the baby backs, served in a rack, to the beef ribs, which take a lot of chewing; I’m split on the spare ribs, which come in batches of three or six. The hot links are always a good fall back; and there’s roast chicken for those who need roast chicken. It’s not a bad choice; it’s just not brisket.
Boneyard Bistro
13539 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks; 818-906-7427, www.boneyardbistro.com
Bacon is an underlying theme at Boneyard Bistro. There’s bacon in the hickory smoked deviled eggs, further flavored with smoked jalapeños and Sriracha — a dish that can’t be resisted. There’s a small mountain of bacon in the immodestly named “Boneyard’s Famous House Cured & Double Hickory Smoked Bacon Building Blocks.” There’s bacon in the cornmeal crusted okra poppers — along with cheddar and cream cheese, and Cajun ranch dressing. And, of course, there’s bacon on the Wedge iceberg lettuce salad. And on most of the burgers.
Believe me — I’m not complaining. Big and filling is another definer here. They make doughnuts packed with Kobe beef chili and cheddar cheese. The mac and cheese isn’t just mac and cheese — it’s fried mac and cheese. Which may be gilding the lily, but then lilies look so much better gilded now, don’t they?
There’s a salad made with fried green tomatoes, okra, Stilton blue and Green Goddess dressing; and another with smoked chicken, quinoa, kale and ricotta — which is pretty darned madcap. And the barbecue is just fine — smoky, but not too smoky, and served in many combinations, including platters for you and everyone you’ve ever met.
The Evanator Platter (and no, I don’t know what that means) offers much of the menu for two to four people, though it should feed more than that. The mini-Mega moves it up to four to eight, while the Mega is eight to 12.
Les Sisters’ Southern Kitchen & BBQ
21818 Devonshire St., Chatsworth; 818-998-0755, www.lessisters.com
As befits a broad descriptive like “Southern kitchen,” the cooking at Les Sisters’ Southern Kitchen & BBQ is all over the South. There’s Cajun and Creole cooking from N’awlins, smoky BBQ from the Low Country, classic Soul Food — even “Southern Burgers,” which are apparently Southern because they come topped with the house slaw. They do like their slaw in the South. Everywhere and on everything.
But mostly, they like their spice; there’s no shyness when it comes to spice at Les Sisters’. There’s also no reticence when it comes to crunch — there’s lots of crispy on the menu.
And, not surprisingly, that crispy begins with the fried chicken, which is a triumph of the art of applying well-herbed batter to legs, wings, thighs and breasts and then deep-frying the bird till it’s tender and moist within, but crunchy as could be without.
And I do like the two-meat BBQ combo, a good deal that brings you chicken and a choice of links, BBQ beef, baby backs, spare ribs and even a honey-glazed pork chop. Me, I go for the baby backs, tender and sweet, and, yes, falling off the bone. In this case, the old cliché is true.
The Bear Pit Bar-B-Que
10825 Sepulveda Blvd., Mission Hills; 818-365-2500, www.bearpitbbq.com
This north San Fernando Valley legend dates back to the late 1940s, when founding owner Ben Baier moved from Missouri, and opened a ’que shack in Newhall, serving the distinctive meats of the Show Me State. Some 70 years, and several changes in ownership (and location) later, The Bear Pit is a Mission Hills legend, a place that exudes age and tradition — and lots of smoke in the “palate-ticklin’” meats (beef, pork, ham, chicken and turkey).
Attention must be paid to the vinegar-based coleslaw, and sweet barbecue beans. And to the many combination feasts on the menu. This is food that works best for large groups — large hungry groups — who like their meat and their smoke.
Big Pop’s BBQ & Grill
10755 Glenoaks Blvd., Pacoima; 818-896-5599, www.instagram.com/bigpops_bbq/?hl=en
Big Pop’s shares its mini-mall with a pizza place, a Thai-Chinese shop, a barber and a tattoo parlor with a good name — Sin City Tattoo. At night, Big Pop’s is a brightly lit shop; it glows as you drive into the mall parking lot. There’s a madcap assortment of signs on the walls — everything from “No high fructose corn syrup” to “What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it’s all about?”
The menu here manages to hit all the high points. I do like the St. Louis Style Pork Spareribs, heavy with a spicy rub, tender and chewy at the same time, a slab o’ meat to contemplate as you slowly chew every morsel.
There’s pulled pork, for those who don’t want to do any chewing at all; it defines tender and melt-in-your-mouth.
Rather than fried, the chicken here is barbecued, which allows the sauces to permeate the meat very nicely, filling every bite with a mouthful of hot and soothing, of tender chicken and palate stimulating peppers and sweetness.
Merrill Shindler is a Los Angeles-based freelance dining critic. Email mreats@aol.com.