Let’s assume for a moment that you don’t want to grill and that you don’t have any friends kind enough to invite you to their barbecue drunk-a-thon on the Fourth. Where do you turn? Well, Y&H has some options, including a couple with smoked meats for those who just can’t celebrated America’s birthday without an animal sacrifice.

Mmmm, animal sacrifice.

• Jamie Stachowski will be grilling his artisan sausages at Red, White & Bleu in Falls Church from 1 to 5 p.m. on Saturday. The charcuterie master will be tending the charcoal grill at the wine and gourmet food shop, cooking up veal bratwurst, kielbasa, merguez, and linguiça for customers to sample. Stachowski will also have some rabbit terrine, country pate, and other “meat surprises” to try. All samples will be free, but the shop is hoping, of course, that you’ll be enticed into buying some of Stachowski’s meats to take home — and maybe a bottle or two of wine to go with it.
• Mr. P, one of the top 50 performers on Y&H’s 2009 Dining Guide, will be working the Fourth at his usual spot: the Safeway parking lot at Rhode Island Ave. NE. Aside from his amazing spare ribs, which are smoked to a charred, crispy, and succulent state, Mr. P will also trot out a new item: barbecued short ribs. He tells me they will be a permanent part of his menu.

Read More “Some July 4th Eats Good Enough to Keep Your Grill in Storage” »

This is what passes for photography when your camera’s broke.

I was aimlessly roaming around Beltsville, looking for an interesting place to eat, when I spotted a vision by the side of the road: a portable barbecue stand with a black-metal pit expelling smoke into the air, a smell as irresistible as I imagine the sounds from the Isle of Sirens to be. Only two words came to mind when I discovered this accidental treasure: “Fuck ya!”

I immediately turned the vehicle around and pulled up behind Griffin’s Barbecue and Catering. (I still curse my broken digital camera, which I haven’t yet replaced; apologies for no pics. But call Griffin’s at either 301-785-4550 or 301-785-5026 for details.)

Griffin’s is a two-person operation, run by Shaquana Hamilton and Jeffrey Griffin, who pulled up stakes in Fort Wayne, Ind., to start life anew in the D.C. area. Back in Fort Wayne, Hamilton and Griffin had a restaurant; here, they just have their mobile vending trailer and their smoker, which date back 11 years when the pair first started in the barbecue business.  They pulled their portable equipment out of the mothballs for their fresh start on the East Coast.

Griffin’s specializes in pork and beef ribs, but Griffin, the pitmaster, smokes his meats in a style he describes as Midwestern. Which to him means no hardwoods like hickory or oak. Instead, Griffin applies a secret rub to his ribs and smokes them over charcoal briquets. Once the ribs are pulled from the pit, he slathers them in a homemade vinegar-based sauce. Like K.C. barbecue, the sauce is not an option; it’s an essential part of the experience.

Read More “More on the Local Barbecue Trail: Griffin’s and Hill Country” »

It’s no secret that I love barbecue. It’s the result of living in two regions — Kansas City and Texas — with celebrated ‘cue cultures. To say I was excited about visiting the Safeway Barbecue Battle on Sunday would be an understatement.

The organizers of the event sent me two tickets in the mail. Had I paid for them, like almost everyone else at this outdoor meat fest, they would have cost me $10 each. I used one and went solo to the massive event, which stretched five blocks along Pennsylvania Avenue NW. I didn’t bring much money with me and, since I had lost my check card recently, didn’t have access to any cash from the portable ATMs on site.

I almost starved to death.

I have to admit that I was startled by the fact that my ticket got me next to nothing to eat. I had, perhaps foolishly, expected that the contestants in the barbecue battle would be, at the very least, offering samples to the public. That was not the case — at least when I was there on Sunday afternoon. Most of the samples available were products that Safeway, the sponsor, was pimping.

Regardless, I decided early on that I was not going to pay Famous Dave’s or Old Glory any money for their crappy barbecue. I was going to eat freebies only — or I wasn’t going to eat at all. I wasn’t here for the music, after all. I was here to eat.

Here’s what I ate:

Read More “What Did Your $10 Ticket Get You at the Safeway Barbecue Battle?” »

I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait for the grilling season to begin, which is why I’ll watch even semi-informative videos like this. Now all I need is a new grill. I’m looking for an oil drum smoker, with a wood box on the side. Anyone got a lead on a good used one?

Before I moved to Texas and spent more than a decade exploring the Lone Star State’s smoked meat houses, I lived for two years in Kansas City, the cow town prized for its fountains and its ability to keep another liquid — alcohol — flowing during Prohibition.  I still have an strong affinity for K.C., which was only reinforced during a recent visit.

The original Arthur Bryant’s on Brooklyn Avenue hasn’t changed much since my last visit a good 15 years ago. The Formica tables, the red banquet chairs, the faded snapshots on the wall, they’re all still there. The countermen remain as abrupt and efficient as ever. The brick smoker continues to huff and puff and turn out vast amounts of brisket, pork ribs, and the semi-famous “burnt ends” (which, in my case, weren’t burnt ends at all, but thick hunks of brisket slathered in AB’s “Rich & Spicy” sauce). It’s as if Arthur Bryant’s were less a restaurant than a giant barbecue time capsule that you can re-enter at will.

Frankly, I love that the place has resisted modernization with a sort of Amish zeal.

But if Arthur Bryant’s, the restaurant, was just as I remembered, Arthur Bryant’s brisket wasn’t. Memory and time have simultaneously romanticized my A.B. experiences and shattered them permanently. Until I stepped back into the K.C. institution last week, I could at least understand and appreciate the enthusiasm behind Calvin Trillin’s famous line — that Arthur Bryant’s was “…possibly the single best restaurant in the world” — even if I couldn’t fully endorse it.

Read More “Dear Calvin Trillin: You’re Wrong About Arthur Bryant’s” »

I stopped by Urban Bar-B-Que’s “Saturday Straight from the Smoker” promotion and ordered up enough meats to feed the Washington Redskins‘ offensive line for a week. Co-owner David Calkins hacked me off a few ribs—which, incidentally, didn’t need a drop of Urban’s sweet sauce to give them flavor—and sliced me several thick strips from a brisket that was as black as onyx. He loaded me up with sausage and pork butt; he even gave me a handful of charred burnt ends, those delicious dehydrated pieces of smoke and meat, when I asked for them.

Read More “Potential New Name for Urban’s Promotion: Semi-Straight from the Smoker” »

I’ve had a number of barbecue mentors over the years, but none more influential than Robb Walsh, the author of Legends of Texas Barbecue Cookbook. He once told me—well, he repeatedly told me, but that’s Walsh—that you have to hit a barbecue joint as soon as it opens, so that the meats come straight out of the smoker. Or as close to that as you can get.

For some reason, it took me a long time to grasp that concept, probably because I had tasted great barbecue at all hours in Texas.

But then I came to D.C., where timing is practically everything if you want a half-decent plate of barbecue. Then again, even if you hit a joint at the right time around here, it’s still no guarantee that you’ll get good ‘cue. Of course that was before Urban Bar-B-Que installed its new Southern Pride unit and started taking a lean, Texas-style approach to smoking meats. The Rockville operation has immediately vaulted to the top of the barbecue heap in the area.

Read More “Urban to Offer Meats Fresh from the Smoker on Saturday” »

Tell people that you’ve found good wood-smoked barbecue at the Whole Foods store in Fairfax, and they’ll no doubt ask to revoke your critic’s license. (Believe me, I know a number of you who would love to phone up some agency, if you could, and ask them to revoke my license.) But trust me (or don’t, which only means more for me), you can find some seriously smoky brisket, pork, and sausage at this sprawling Fair Lakes store.

Sarah Godfrey, City Paper’s dual-threat writer/editor, first told me about this smokehouse hidden among the overpriced organics, and like any devout barbecue believer, I dutifully made the pilgrimage to this piece of pricey real estate, far removed from the locations usually associated with grease and burning wood. I soon learned that the WFM Smokehouse, as the operation is called, is no pretender. They smoke meats—brisket, pork shoulder, pork ribs, sausage, whole chicken, wings—24 hours a day.

How have I not heard about this place before?

Read More “Smoked Brisket, Pork, and Sausage Available at…Wait for It…Whole Foods!” »

There are a ton of reasons not to eat meat: animal welfare, global warming, health, and even (God forbid) because some folks don’t like the taste of it. So it’s with no small amount of kiss-my-ass attitude that a pair of Floridians started Meat Week in 2005. The barbecue pig-out has since spread to Los Angeles, Atlanta, Baltimore, and other cities, but alas not D.C.

The rules of Meat Week are pretty simple: You eat barbecue eight days in a row, from Sunday to Sunday. You’re supposed to eat at Sonny’s on the first and last days of the promotion, assuming your city has an outlet of the barbecue chain, which the D.C. area doesn’t, but there are even ways around this rule. This year’s Meat Week, which runs from Jan. 25 to Feb. 1, is already in full swing, and we in the District are way, way, way behind on our flesh eating.

So I have a proposal.

Read More “Meat: It’s What’s For Dinner….Tonight and Tomorrow and the Day After Tomorrow” »