Text 14968, 144 rader
Skriven 2014-07-20 23:47:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: Q 690
=============
Two BBQ joints and one meal that in retrospect would have
been better if we'd gone to a third.

Willie Jewell's, North Charleston

The layout looked kind of familiar - in fact, it could
have been a clone of Sugarfire in St. Louis. Not that
that's a bad thing. The food is also quite similar, a
pretty good beefy beef enhanced by a moderate stint in
the smoker after a rubbing with a sugar-salt-pepper-
based dry rub.

We went no-nonsense and got a half pound of extra
moist brisket and a half rack of ribs. The brisket was
as expected, perhaps even a bit greasier than normal,
quite tasty and almost falling-apart tender. The ribs
were excellent, though they had been reheated after
being cut into individual ribs, so a little dry on
the sides. The smoke presence was more pronounced on
the ribs. Speaking of sides, we didn't order any, but
the staff, feeling sorry for us poor folks and
perhaps inspired by my putting a couple green ones
into the tip jar, put some Texas toast on our platter;
this was extremely buttery and extremely garlicky, on
sweetish white bread. Sauces on the side:

classic, which meant SC classic, which means sour
mustardy tang, unsuitable to my taste as food;

hot hot, the SC classic mixed with maybe 10% Texas
Pete or at least some similar undistinguished hot sauce;

traditional, a tomato-based sauce heavily laced with
celery seed and lightly with cumin; pretty good, though
the meat didn't really need any sauce;

and sweet, which reminded me of a thinned-down version
of the stuff you might find on sweet-sour pork at a
cheap Chinese restaurant.

We didn't do much with the sauces.

The staff - college kids by the looks of them - were
friendly but klutzy - one of them spilled a big tub
of some liquid on the floor near us.

==

Melvin's, Mt. Pleasant

The founder of this small chain (2, some report 3
locations) was (he died this year) a brother of the
famed and controversial Maurice Bessinger, who owned
Maurice's Piggy Park but was best known for his
devotion to all things white supremacist. The Q
at Piggy Park was fairly decent, though it came with
that mustard sauce pre-applied; I am happy to report
that Melvin's, endorsed by the NAACP by contrast to
the brotherly place, serves somewhat better food.

I ordered brisket extra moist; unfortunately, I got
only a couple moist (fatty) pieces; what came out
was mostly burnt ends, with the burnt underscored,
not much fat at all. Well flavored, though, with a
nice caramelly edge to the blackened bits owing to
the meat having been sauced during the cooking. The
food came with additional sauce, which was similar
to the traditional at Willie Jewell's, only with
more spices and less sugar, which means that it was
in fact a very nice sauce. Melvin's is actually
known for its mustard sauce, but I figure that the
guy at the counter sized me up as a northerner who
didn't appreciate the yellow stuff. If he did, he
was right.

==

There was a whisper of trying another Q place, but
I'd felt the need for some seafood, so we cast about
for a place that would satisfy that but also serve
something that Lilli could tolerate. Much research
on the Internet pointed to this place that supposedly
serves the best soul cooking in town.

Gullah Cuisine, Mt. Pleasant

The bad sign was that the room was antiseptic and
didn't smell like food. But the proprietress greeted
us warmly, so there was no backing out now.

Lilli got fried chicken (I was leaning on her to get
fried pork chops), which came as a smallish breast
half and a pullet wing, overcooked, in a salty but
otherwise bland coating that managed to be soggy
while the meat became dry. I'd give it a C- or a D+
- nowhere as good as Church's or Popeye's and giving
preprepared supermarket chicken a run for its money.

Candied sweet potatoes were the best thing on her
plate; she'd got these because inquiry over mashed
potatoes yielded the info that they were out. She
also got a very ordinary gslightly wilted arden
salad with ranch dressing.

I got fried shrimp, oysters, and scallops: about
8 oz of protein for my $20. The shrimp were small
but possibly native - a pretty intense flavor but
well overfooked in a negligible breading. The
oysters were overbreaded, by contrast, in a hugely
salty coating and were cooked until there was little
oyster left, just six jerkylike blobs of fishmeat
with almost no flavor. The scallops were if anything
underdone. They had a weird mushy texture (certainly
not drys) and tasted moderately of ammonia - I'm
tempted to imagine that semi-spoiled scallops such
as these were the origin of the skate meat calumny.
I'd almost have been tempted to believe that but for
a couple bits of that nasty tough part on the edge.
I should have been clued in when the waiter asked
me repeatedly if I wanted ketchup, tartar sauce, or
lemons.

Fried okra probably came out of a bag but was quite
good, crisp and not too salty; my other side was
red rice that tasted made from bouillon, celery,
and ketchup. It was nasty enough that I was tempted
not to eat it; but the main dish portion was small
enough that I had to.

What can I say? There are some people who just can't
cook, and some of them work in restaurants.

Here, the best thing was the sweet tea, which kept
coming until I'd had somewhere over a half gallon.

If the food had been any good, I'd have been tempted
to try a cup of she-crab soup or maybe even some
dessert, but no.

We passed by Sticky Fingers on the way back to the
hotel. It's a chain, but I wish we'd gone there.
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