punkerque

Groovy! We had Q in a place that didn’t suck. A treat in the recent swath of disappointments.

We were headed south to attend the 57th Annual Mobil1 12 Hours of Sebring and needed to eat some lunch. As we neared Cordele, GA, we saw a billboard for Smaokie’s BBQ. I caught it in the periphery of my eyesight, so I figured I had read the sign incorrectly and that it was called Smokie’s BBQ. A few seconds later Punkerdoo said, Wanna try SmooAaaakies”? We decided it was worth the try just to see if that was really the name or if the billboard people had screwed up.

We pulled off of I75 and drove for about 2 miles and found Smoakie’s BBQ in what looked like an old service station. They were open, so we went in and grabbed a booth. They had all sorts of good BBQ hut items on their list and their sides were great: Vidalia onion rings and pork rinds were on the list. The strangest part was the weight watchers numbers on the menu. Pork rinds=8 by the way. We ordered fairly usual items, pulled pork plate with Vidalia onion rings and stew for me and pulled pork plate with slaw and waffle fries for punkerdoo.

First let me say that pulled pork is the way to go, chopped is just lazy. It was great to see that Smoakie’s did it right. The plates arrived and they came with BREAD, not some bun or other crap, proper BBQ white bread. The portions were quite large. To me the pork was a bit suspect in its smoke, very light to none, but Punkerdoo said that I was wrong and that had good smoke. Maybe I was losing my taste to a cold, maybe not. Anyhow, the pork was moist and was not pre sauced, so I was mostly happy.

This place has four different sauces, they recommend each one for a different use such as ribs, chicken, pork, you get the idea. The hot was mustard based of which I am not hugely a fan of and the mild was vinegar based. Both were really good. Q life will go a long way with the proper sauces which can be applied by the customer and not the waitress.

We were full and happy. A man who I assume was the owner stopped by to ask if we had had enough to eat. It was a pleasant place to which we will certainly return. They are dark Sunday and Monday. Never did ask about the name, will have to go back. Their website is currently a Bob The Builder, but I linked to it anyway.

Smoakie’s BBQ
107 Cemetery Road
Cordele, Georgia
229-273-0802

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

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Must get away…..Must be somewhere else…….Go to Mountains, Stay in cabin, Bring the barky-barks.

Bailed work early on Friday, loaded food, wine, dogs & Punkerdoo into VehicleOfPunkerdooAndHusband and headed for Cherry Log via R53N. Our plan was to hope to hit East Ellijay in time to try what was reputed to be some of North Georgia’s best Q.

Luck was on our side and we arrived ~7pm (Poole’s closes @ 8PM on Friday). The place is easy to find as it is just off of 515. The outside is fine example of kitsch overload with a towering “pig hall of fame” hill and hand painted signs and cars. We pulled into the parking lot and were immediately greeted with the fine smell of hickory. Poole’s has outside seating, so we were going to have our dogs eat with us. We opened the back to let them out and immediately discovered Rainah had chewed her leash into bitesized chunks. Load them back up and travel to Ingles for a replacement leash. Back to Poole’s ~7:30. We ordered our standard:

Punkerdoo: Pork Plate with slaw & potato salad
Husband: Pork Plate with slaw & stew

They had 2 sauce choices on the “to go” counter, so I obtained portions of each. When we opened our containers, we found that our pork had been pre-sauced. If you have read any of my previous posts, you know that I think that pre-sauceing is evil. So then, strike one. The pork was not too moist, nor too dry, not really anywhere so I guess it was OK. There was more smoke in the air from the pit than was in the meat, but there was some evidence of smokey flavor. The slaw was not my favorite, though I cannot remember why. The stew was 1st rate, but no one remembers the potato salad. I guess that pretty much sums of the food, edible, but not memorable. Oh yeah, why do people serve toasted buns as bread? Buns are buns, things to contain sandwhich items, NOT to be eaten as bread. We did hit them near closing, so I suppose they need some compensation for that, but not much. We would eat at Poole’s BBQ again, but will try some of the others in the area before returning.

Ambiance rating: 3 Squealers

(Smells great outside, 1000′s of pigs with customer’s names)

Food rating: 2 Squealers

(ok smoke, 2 sauce choices, meat ok-moist but pre-sauced, stew was remembered)

Beer rating: 0 Squealers

(Nada)