Friday, May 8, 2009

bbq; salisbury, nc, and atlanta, ga; may 3-4


we spent sunday driving from DC to atlanta, and in salisbury, n.c. -- home to cheerwine soda -- we decided to stop and look for bbq. first we found richard's, but being sunday evening, it was every bit as closed as almost everything else in salisbury. but college bbq was open. so we went there. it is "college bbq" because it is near catawba college. who knew?

to be clear: not fancy. looked like the building had probably been a convenience store in a previous incarnation. and it looked like there was at least one too many booth in the place. the first booth we sat at did not allow us to actually put our feet on the floor without entangling them with our boothmates. crazy. luckily, before we got our food, a table opened, and we jumped on it.

i got the small chopped bbq tray. that gets you a little paper boat half-full of pork and half cole slaw, wrapped in paper.on the side, you get a bun and two hushpuppies. when i opened the paper, i thought that the cole slaw was a pork tartare. i never would've guess slaw. it was interesting, tho. minced cabbage and onion with a heavy hand of horseradish. never had anything like that before. i made a sandwich out of mine, adding plenty of the vinegar-y bbq sauce as i went. it was different. i liked it. and i had cheerwine. in fact, we stopped at a k-mart leaving town and bought a bunch of cheerwine straight from the epicenter of cheerwine. we bought four cases because they had four cases. we left the diet.

once in atlanta, our lunch monday was at fat matt's, an establishment that jeremy may have mentioned once or twice, on occasion, in passing, suggesting that he wouldn't mind going there if it all fit in the schedule and everything. ok, he may have mentioned it more than once or twice. and we may have built a part of the trip around going there because of his interest level. or something.

fat matt's is big with the sauce. it was very tangy and spicy, and burned my lips. it was good, but my lips actually hurt for hours. in a good way. mostly. the ribs were very juicy and tender. the chicken was good, and baked beans were based on the bbq sauce. and they had mac and cheese. all good.

and jeremy was happy.

1 comment:

Ronnie said...

Cheerwine is the best! But they need to work on their marketing department because it's hard to find. At least I know where I can find 4 cases or maybe less...