punkerque

For Christmas, Punkerdoo was given a copy of BBQ Joints. On the cover in the top left is Bubba himself standing in front of his establishment.  Since we were headed to Tampa for Super Bowl XLIII and would be going through Tifton, we thought it would be great to stop in to what looked like a great, old school, southern BBQ shack.

Wrong.

The shack looks the same as on the cover.  I think even the circa 1973 Datsun pickup was still parked under the tree.  There was even a sepia cast to the sunshine. But Bubba is gone; taking with him any vestige of Q goodness with him.

It started out well enough.  They had menus with several types of BBQ shack food on it.  The Q came in two varieties, chipped and chopped.  Not being a huge fan of chopped pork, we both opted for a lunch involving chipped pork.  Punkerdoo went for the chipped pork sandwich with chips and I got the pork plate with slaw and potato salad.

Apparently chipped pork looks like Manwich.  Tasting like Manwich would have been an admirable trait for this pork.  It was not good: no smoke, no texture, even the soup it was constrained by had no flavor.  Bewildered, I looked at the two un-labeled sauces on the table.  One was brownish and one was greenish.  I tried the brown concoction.  Nothing changed.  I put some on my Texas toast.  Nothing.  I put some on my fork, nothing.  Ok, I’ll try the green sauce.  It yielded a small bit of heat but tasted more like salsa verde than BBQ.  Not good.  The potato salad was yellow, bright yellow as in the color of French’s Mustard.  The texture was more like cold buffet style hollandaise with a healthy quart or two of mayonnaise.  It was extremely unlike any potato salad to come before it, a new subclass of side dish disasters.  Again, not good.  The slaw was ok, but at this point peppery sawdust with a hint of lime would have been a great success.

Bubba, wherever you went, I am sure you are bummed.

This sucks!  The last two places we have been to were really bad.  Doesn’t anyone make decent Q any more?  I am sure you are out there and we will find you.  And eat you.

Bubba’s Ribs & Q

1629 Tift Ave N
Tifton, GA 31794
(229) 386-2888