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Tue, 09 Aug 2005

Barbecue pilgrimage

Trying to remain calm, I surveyed the table in front of me. To my left, an enormous mound of "burnt ends", the smoky, charred, fatty, crusted parts of a barbecued beef brisket, tossed with sauce. In front of me, possibly the best barbecued ribs on the planet. And to my right, the largest sliced barbecued pork sandwich I'd ever seen.

Yes, this was Arthur Bryant's in Kansas City. With Maggie supervising the pork sandwich, I tucked into the ribs and burnt ends. They were heavenly. Bryant's ribs are the perfect degree of juiciness and smoke, with a tasty crust, yet never chewy or dry. These were the ribs that all ribs yearn to be. These were the ribs that made venturing out into the wrong side of Kansas City in the oppressive, 101-degree heat worth it. And the burnt ends, which were allegedly invented as a dish by Arthur Bryant himself, were pretty much the best and highest use for a beef brisket.

It was not long before I was gazing covetously at Maggie's pork sandwich, and generously granted access, I tasted something I'd not come across before -- not pulled pork, but thinly-sliced barbecued pork with an almost herbal flavor from the rub and smoke. Make all the "hog heaven" jokes you like -- this was the real stuff.

As many of you know, I'd been threatening to go on a barbecue pilgrimage for a number of years now. Sometimes it was a grand plan for an American heartland road trip, through the southwest, Texas, the deep South, Tennessee, back through Kansas City, and back West. I'd sit down with AAA road maps and try to put together an itinerary that would sample each regional style and get as much barbecue as possible with the least wasted travel or backtracking. And like many such things, it turned into a mythical quest that never happened, a victim of time and logistics.

But I managed, nevertheless, to fill in many of the blanks. Besides all the barbecue available in California and nearby, I managed to hit some famous Texas places, including the Old Coupeland Inn on two trips, Cooper's in Llano on a trip to see friends near Austin; some east Tennessee barbecue on a business trip to Oak Ridge; all the barbecue in eastern Nebraska, and lesser-known places too numerous to mention.

But I'd never been to Kansas City.

Ever since I read Calvin Trillin's 1974 article anointing Arthur Bryant's Barbecue "the single best restaurant in the world", I've had the niggling feeling that anything I might write on the subject of barbecue was tentative and incomplete, since I had never been to Arthur Bryant's. That era, I'm happy to say, ended last Tuesday night.

Since I was coming to Nebraska to visit Maggie, she suggested we take a short road trip down to KC and symbolically complete my barbecue pilgrimage. It's three hours on the Interstate, and two days there ought to afford the chance to eat at Arthur Bryant's and at least one or two other places, not to mention sample Kansas City's other blandishments.

So we headed on down, checked into a hotel (long story there, but it's of a pedestrian and predictable nature so we'll skip over it, except to note that if you stay in KC you might want to avoid the Raphael Hotel), and -- having skipped lunch -- rested up for the trip to Arthur Bryant's. Being hungry, we headed out early, and it was 101 degrees when we left the hotel. The tour books touted something called the 18th & Vine Historical Jazz District, so we headed there first. It was a couple of blocks of restored and new buildings in an otherwise downscale part of town. There are some new museums -- one for baseball's Negro Leagues, another for jazz, and some new clubs, and it looks like a good start for building a tourist-friendly, newly-revived entertainment district. Unfortunately, on a late Tuesday afternoon with the temperature around the century mark, it was scarily deserted.

Just a few blocks away is the original Arthur Bryant's. Looking at tour maps and guidebooks, I expected something like a gentrified tourist district, complete with Starbucks, ice cream shops, chain stores, knicknack vendors, and the like, stretching all the way from 18th and Vine to -- and including -- Arthur Bryant's at 18th & Brooklyn. This is emphatically not the case. The optimism of 18th St. at Vine quickly gives over to vacant lots, boarded up buildings, and when we got to Brooklyn Ave., I was wondering if we'd taken a wrong turn somewhere. (As I've read since, everyone else thinks the same thing.)

The moment I walked in the door, though, I knew I was "home": this was the place. What struck me first was that despite 30 years of hype and visitors ranging from Jimmy Carter to Steven Spielberg, Bryant's was still firmly un-gentrified, and even though you can now get t-shirts, caps, and bottled sauce, it remains pretty much a generic-looking barbecue joint in a bad neighborhood on the east side of Kansas City.

I was prepared to be underwhelmed -- after all, I've eaten a fair amount of barbecue in a lot of places with decent pedigrees, and after all, what place can keep its "A" game for decades, especially in the face of incredible hype? But Arthur Bryant's keeps the barbecue crown, as far as I'm concerned. I'd say Cooper's comes close or equal with its brisket, and Lincoln's (late, lamented) Haggan's Holy Smoked BBQ nearly matches Bryant's ribs. But overall it's gonna be tough to beat the wily old champion.

Thus fortified, we could have returned victorious to Nebraska. But I wanted to get a little perspective on the KC barbecue scene, and since it's not a place on my regular travel circuit, I might not have another chance for years.

The traditional rival to Arthur Bryant's is Gates Barbecue, with a location near the original Bryant's, as well as some outlying locations (including one near the Raphael Hotel). But in recent years a new place, Oklahoma Joe's, has been attracting attention, and it placed second only to Arthur Bryant's in a number of polls, as well as garnering some media hype including a visit from Tony Bourdain, and mentions by a number of writers including one mentioned in an entry below.

The original location of Oklahoma Joe's is a gas station and convenience store on West 47th St., across the state line into Kansas City, Kansas. It was crowded even early on a Wednesday evening, and the clientele -- mostly upscale suburbanites -- was very different than Arthur Bryant's. Inside, it's pretty much the same as a few dozen barbecue places I've seen spring up in the last decade or two: corrugated tin siding with humorous signs, photos and memorabilia from other barbecue places, and the like. Unfortunately, that same genericity of decor carried over into the food.

We summoned up ribs and burnt ends again (at Oklahoma Joe's, burnt ends are a special only available on Wednesdays), and while everything looked great, both were somewhat of a disappointment. The ribs came as a very generous-sized slab, but were more than a little dry and chewy, though with a good smoke flavor. Perhaps that slab was on the lean side, or overcooked, or both. The burnt ends, unlike Bryant's, were served unsauced, which initially excited me, but even though they were a magnificently piled mound, they lacked the deep smoky, flavorful nature of Bryant's. Yet the place was packed, with a long line at the counter. Don't get me wrong -- Oklahoma Joe's is not bad barbecue; most any town would be lucky to have it. But Kansas City sets a high bar, and it was difficult to agree with the critics that rank it up there with Arthur Bryant's.

We checked out of the hotel the next morning and were anxious to get back to Nebraska before a line of thunderstorms met us on the road. Nevertheless, lunchtime rolled around as we were passing the northwest part of KC, near the airport, which provided the chance to eat one more barbecue meal before leaving the scene. That was the Smoke Box Cafe, which is in a small strip mall at the Tiffany Springs exit off I-29, near the airport Embassy Suites.

The Smoke Box appears to cater to locals and travelers alike, and at least one guide to KC said that if you're at the airport, and have a car, it's a good place to check out. In addition to barbecue they offer Italian subs, fried fish, and fried chicken. I couldn't resist one more shot at the burnt ends -- the Smoke Box has them as a lunch special, and while the portion was smaller than Arthur Bryant's or Oklahoma Joe's, they held their own, fortified by a thicker, sweeter, molasses-based sauce. Not a place you would want to drive to (or across) KC for, but if you're nearby, it's tasty barbecue.

By the time we hit the road, I was ready to forswear barbecue for at least a week. (As it happened, it turned out to be 4 days.) Besides, the Czech Festival in Wilber, Nebraska would be coming up in a couple of days, so I needed to get back into training. Onward!

Posted at 18:23 | permanent link

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