Smokehouse BBQ - Edmonton, AB

Smokehouse BBQ
10810 124 St NW
Edmonton, AB T5M 0H3, Canada

Smokehouse BBQ advertises authentic Southern BBQ based in Edmonton.  Amazing southern food, blues music in a relaxing atmosphere.  If you are in the Edmonton area, you may find their food truck at one of the big events around the city during the year.


I stopped in for dinner one night to sample some of their southern hospitality.


For appetizers they offer Corn Bread Muffins (loaded with jalapenos, bacon and cheddar cheese), Smokehouse Bacon Bomb (a house speciality - house made mild Italian sausage mix stuffed with jalapenos, bacon, rub, BBQ sauce and cheddar cheese wrapped in bacon and smoked with love), Jalapeno Poppers (fresh jalapeno peppers stuffed with cilantro lime cream cheese and cheddar cheese then wrapped in bacon and oven baked), Crispy Fried Dill Pickles, Deep Fried Green Beans, Piggy Tails (smoked rib tips), Hush Puppies, Smokin' Wings, The BBQ Sampler, Smokehouse Nachos, Cajun Calamari and Cajun Cauliflower. 

They have 3 different salads (no BBQ involved), Smokehouse Chili, BBQ in a Bowl, Pulled Pork Poutine and Big Kids Mac & Cheese.  They also have a Smokehouse Burger and an award winning Smokehouse Pork Burger.

Sandwiches offer the Bacon Bomb, Pulled Pork, Beef Brisket, Pulled Chicken, The Works and Po' Boys.  The Po' Boys offer Catfish, Cajun Calamari, and Sausage.

There are plates of Babyback Ribs, Beef Rib (weekends only), Cajun Catfish, Chicken & Ribs, St. Louis Ribs and Big Daddy Combos of any combination of Pulled Pork, Sliced Brisket, Pulled Chicken, Southern Fried Chicken, Daily Sausage, St. Louis Ribs, Bacon Bomb and Burnt Ends in 1 item, 2 item and 3 item combos with 2 sides.

And the sides are a plenty.  Corn Bread, Baked Mac & Cheese, Pit Beans, Cajun Potato Salad, Hand Cut Potato Chips, Cajun Cauliflower, Parm Fries, Gravy, Sweet Potato Fries, Carolina Coleslaw, and Garlic Mashed Potatoes.

I just had to try the Piggy Tails.

These smoked rib tips are flavorful and almost jerky-like in their texture.  I found them to be a mouthful of porkalicious goodness and was very please with them.

They had multiple sauces available, their Original BBQ Sauce, Rasberry Chiplote, Apple Butter and Carolina Mustard.  I wasn't really a fan of the rasberry or apple butter but the original and Carolina mustard were both good.

Since the Smokehouse was swinging a big Southern stick on their menu, I decided to try the catfish. I know it's not barbecue but it was fresh and succulently moist.  The beans were typical baked beans but the fried cauliflower were little golden nuggets of goodness.

Anyone looking for Southern food (not just BBQ), should feel free to stop in and try Smokehouse BBQ.  I think you will like what you find.

Slammin Jammin BBQ - Corning, NY

Slammin Jammin BBQ
37 E Pulteney St
Corning, NY 14830

I recently stopped in to Slammin Jammin BBQ as I was traveling through Corning, NY.  It was late afternoon and I had the place all to myself so I had plenty of time to look over the menu.

They offer Pulled Pork, Sausage, Chicken, Beef Brisket (sliced or chopped), and Ribs.  Each can be served as a sandwich with 1 side, a dinner with 2 sides and choice or bread (Texas Toast or corn muffin), by the pound (for pulled pork and brisket), ribs are either 1/2 rack or full rack, or the family specials that give you 1 lbs, 2 lbs or 3 lbs of meat with 3 sides and choice of bread. Additionally they have a Backyard Burger, Patty Melt and Chicken Tenders.  I have to admit that they give you the ability to get what you want any way you want.  So many places now don't have the 2 or 3 meat tray where you can truly mix and match. The question is...is the meat worth it?

I ordered the 3 item platter with Ribs, Pulled Pork and Brisket. Kernel Corn, Baked Beans and Texas Toast complimented the meat on the plate.  Here they don't put sauce on the meat as they smoke it but they do sauce the meat prior to serving.  I'm not really a fan of this as the customer should be the one to decide how much sauce is required.  It also tends to mask the natural flavor of the meat for me to evaluate.  I will say that the pulled pork was the clearest, purest pork I've seen in a long time.  In fact, it was so clean of any crust or impurities that it was void of flavor.  I'm a big fan of the crust as that's where the smoking spices are with the rub so either they removed it all or there was no rub.  In either case, it left the meat without a lot of flavor.  It was nice and juicy but still lacking.  The brisket was well cooked but again, no real character.  The ribs were not really any different than the other meats.  Just cooked...not filled with the barbecue flavor that I would hope to find.

The veggies were fine but nothing really special.

There was a Sweet and a Spicy sauce options but I found those to be a bit banal as well.

I'm finding that BBQ in Penn and NY state are often very bland...very Midwest in their lack of spices and kick.  I long for the strong smell of paprika, cumin and other spices that waft ceremoniously out of the smokers of the south.

The more we look to the cultural heritage of the south for our barbecue infusion, the happier we will all be.

Hog Father's Old Fashioned BBQ - State College, PA

Hog Father's Old Fashioned BBQ
1669 N. Atherton St.
State College, PA

http://hogfathersbbq.com/

Hog Father's barbecue started in 2005 by Frank Puskarich, his wife, Kathleen and their partner, Chef Josf Karst from Germany.  They started sampling their creations with the friends, mailmen and UPS drivers before heading on the road.  Soon they birthed a restaurant in Little Washington, PA. Now a decade or more later, they have 3 locations. 2 outside Pittsburgh and one in State College, PA.

The near Pittsburgh locations have a drive thru.  The State College location is part of a beer/wine store.

For starters, they offer Fajita Chicken Quesadillas, Smokehouse Chili, BBQ Pork Nachos, Chili Cheese Fries and more.  For salads, sandwiches and wraps there are a Southern Fried Chicken Salad, Hog Father's Brisket Salad, Old Fashioned BBQ Sandwich (beef brisket, BBQ ranch dressing, lettuce and grilled tomatoes), The Gourmet Smokehouse Bacon Burger, Hog Father's Spicy Italian Sausage, Brisket or Chicken Fijita Wraps and the Big BBQ Wrap (hand pulled beef or pork, cheddar cheese and creamy coleslaw wrapped in a grilled flour tortilla. 

For entrees, Hog Father's St. Louis Style Ribs or Baby Back Ribs. BBQ Roasted Chicken, Southern Fried Chicken Dinner, Chicken Monterey (BBQ chicken breast with applewood smoked bacon, melted pepper jack cheese, garlic mashed potatoes and BBQ beans. They have a 1/2 rack of ribs and southern fried chicken combo, BBQ Fish and Chips, Hog Father's Filet Medallions (14 ozs), Hand-Carved Smoky BBQ Beef Brisket Dinner (brisket, garlic mashed potatoes, baked beans, pico de gallo and a roll).  There's the BBQ Backyard Deal (Texas hot link sausage, St. Louis style ribs, fried chicken, baked beans and cole slaw). Then there is the Bacon Wrapped BBQ Shrimp caramelized with Hog Father's BBQ sauce.

They have a large offering of sides.  Cole slaw, baked beans, fries, sweet potato fries, cornbread, fried onion basket, garlic mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, potato salad and green beans.

I had the BBQ Backyard Deal. The Texas hot link sausage were that in name only.  This is just a rebranded Italian sausage (you can even see the onions and peppers lying as a support bed to it's Italian heritage.  The Baby Back Ribs were perfectly fine but nothing but average.  However, the surprise meat on the plate was the fried chicken.  I cannot emphasize how juice and flavorful this boneless chicken breast was.  Every bite melted in my mouth.  The beans were average and the coleslaw was forgettable.

The culture of BBQ and all of it's heritage comes from the south. When that gets transplanted to other regions, the creators have a choice...you stay true to the originating culture or to adopt it to your local tastes.  The Pusharich's clearly decided to adopt to their own local culture.  Just look at the Italian Sausage / Texas Hot Link and the BBQ Sandwich with BBQ Ranch dressing, lettuce and grill tomatoes.  While that seems to be successful enough in Pennsylvania to warrant 3 different locations (and I applaud them for it), this is not standout barbecue and wouldn't hold water down south.

Madison's Smoked BBQ - Newark, DE

Madison's Smoked BBQ
4154 Ogletown Stanton Rd
Newark, DE 19713

Madison's Smoked BBQ has been around since the summer of 2016.  It's a clean restaurant settled into a strip mall in Newark, Delaware.  Basically everything you don't want a barbecue place to be. I'm always dreaming of that little run down shack that has been peddling barbecue for decades making it the way their daddy taught them how to.  This is not that place.

Now I don't mean to start off on a bad note as the restaurant is pleasant, clean the staff is very nice and helpful.  Kind of like a bike shop employee is helpful when you need to learn how to change a tire after your first flat.  So if this is your first barbecue experience, I'm sure you'll enjoy your meal.  However, I'm always searching for that elusive rare gem hiding in the woodwork of some small town.  For that, I will continue to search but that doesn't mean that I can't enjoy every bit of the journey.

I went there with friends and we each ordered a 2 item plate of Sliced Brisket and Pulled Pork each with 2 sides.  I got the house special greens and baked beans while others had Cole Slaw, French Fries, and Sweet Potatoes. In addition we added St Louis Ribs to get a good sampling.

As you can see, the meat came presauced.  While I usually want my first experience with a restaurant to be how "they" serve it, I may change that as presauced meat is not appropriate. Especially when it is not cooked with sauce. Sauce should be on the table and applied as the user sees fit, not the server.

The meat (brisket, pulled pork and spare ribs) were all pleasantly cooked but there was no real barbecue flavor in the meat.  It was just cooked. I now have a better idea why the sauce is applied by them.  

The greens were...fine.  The beans were actually a little better than fine.  The consistency was thick and felt like they were twice baked which always adds a bit more to the beans.

Barbecue is not just about cooked/smoked meat, it's about the flavor of the culture and this, unfortunately, didn't have much culture to it.