Barbecue is not putting meat on a Weber kettle. It’s a serious culinary technique traditionally centered around pork. In Kentucky, however, mutton is the meat of choice, and in Texas, it’s beef. Most barbecue variations are geographically rooted.
Simple vinegar sauces are common in the Southeast because that’s what early settlers used. But as barbecue migrated, tomatoes and sweeteners were added as chefs in Memphis and other river towns had access to a more diverse group of ingredients. Memphis is a hotbed of dry-rub cookery, with a spicy-sweet red sauce served on the side to keep things moist. Kansas City adopted this technique, serving ribs basted and mopped, while “St. Louis–style” is merely a reference to a well-trimmed, squared-off rack of spareribs, with uniformly sized bones.
Almost all barbecue in our towns is Memphis– or Kansas City–style barbecue. Most meats are slow-cooked for a few hours in braising liquids or a commercial cook-and-hold machine, then finished on a grill or oven. The result can be awfully tasty, but it isn’t real barbecue. Only one joint in town serves authentic rubbed meats slow-cooked over wood in a real brick pit and that’s Market Bar-B-Que, which is approaching its sixtieth birthday.
Though only a fraction of what we sampled around the metro ranks with the best barbecue we’ve eaten in noted barbecue capitals, the Twin Cities boasts a wide and deep range of very good barbecue-style restaurants. It’s hard to argue with greatness on a plate, whatever the technique that delivers it. We went home happy many an afternoon.
THE TOP TEN
1. Redstone American Grill
The dining rooms are more reminiscent of the Parade of Homes than typical roadside honky-tonks, but you have to be impressed by the exacting standards and meticulously consistent quality of Redstone’s kitchens. Baby back ribs and herb-rubbed natural chickens are slow-roasted over apple and cherry woods to produce a pliant and perfect product. The meats taste lightly smoked from careful cooking, while a last-minute turn on the wood grill imparts a slight char. During the final stage of cooking, the meat is basted with a sweet-tart Memphis-style sauce. 12501 Ridgedale Dr., Minnetonka, 952-591-0000; 8000 Eden Rd., Eden Prairie, 952-903-9500, redstonegrill.com
2. Cap’s Grille
At this rustic, plank-floor diner across from Minnehaha Park, the country-style ribs and apple-wood–smoked spareribs, chickens, and beef brisket are all grill-finished, creating a nice light char. The pork shoulder, shredded and sauced for sandwiches, needs a lot of work to bring it up to the high standards set by the rest of the menu, especially the incomparable spareribs. Slabs come hot off the grill, brushed with Cap’s signature tomato-based sauce, and have some of the best pork flavor we found. Now that the LRT stops about 100 feet outside the front door, everyone will soon be talking about this once well-kept ’cue secret. Expect some of the sassiest servers in town. 5000 Hiawatha Ave., Mpls., 612-722-2277, capsgrille.com
3. Ted Cook’s
Steamed-up picture windows, a giant iron smoker and grill, a chin-high linoleum counter, and the imperious gaze of pit masters dominate this small, authentic, neighborhood barbecue joint that only serves to go. Nitpickers can argue all they want about the lineage of Cook’s ’cue (a neat hybrid of Memphis and Kansas City styles), but the cherry- and hickory-smoked spareribs, beef ribs, chicken, and rib tips and the sweet-hot glazy sauces are the real deal. If you like heat, check out Cook’s hot sauce—it’s only for the bold. All the BBQ is served really wet here, so if you take your ’cue dry, say so. And while it wasn’t part of our official taste test, some of our gang thought the cottage fries (Jojo potatoes) complemented the meat and heat perfectly. 2814 E. 38th St., Mpls., 612-721-2023
4. Market Bar-B-Que
One of Minneapolis’s oldest restaurants still in the same family, Market is the only barbecue in the Twin Cities that cooks (over hickory, apple, oak, and cherry woods) in a real brick pit, the way purists insist delivers the true barbecue experience. It works. The spareribs, baby backs, and brisket have the telltale pink ring, a reaction indicative of the true smoking process. The chicken has a crisp exterior and a light smoky flesh that is astonishingly moist. Meats are served dry, with squeeze bottles of “classic” and “hot” sauce on the tables. Market would have scored highest all around if its pulled pork and beef ribs hadn’t disappointed us. But if you are looking for real-deal toothsome pork ribs and melt-in-your-mouth brisket, this is the place. 1414 Nicollet Ave., Mpls., 612-872-1111; 15320 Wayzata Blvd., Minnetonka, 952-475-1770, marketbbq.com
5. Scott Ja-Mama’s
Scott Woolsey’s teeny eight-seat storefront can be easily missed if you aren’t careful, but his barbecue haunts us. Woolsey has no smoker, just a hot grill and a deft touch with the chicken and baby backs he chars to perfection. His three heat levels of sweet-tart sauce are all outstanding, though meats come to the table fairly dry. Over the years, the space has been chaotically decorated by customers (he swears when he opened the walls were bare), so Ja-Mama’s has the feel and spirit that just can’t be replicated or focus-grouped into existence. This place was the only joint in town that gave us hot wet cloths when we finished eating. Nice touch. 3 W. Diamond Lake Rd., Mpls., 612-823-4450, scottjamamas.com
6. Baker’s Ribs
Tucked into a teensy strip mall, this is the only location outside the Lone Star state of Baker’s, a six-unit, family-run, cafeteria-style Texas BBQ outfit that uses custom-made hickory and oak smokers. The majority of the meats—and there are many, including a great smoked ham—are good but not great, lacking the smoky intensity, crustiness, or pink smoke ring you typically see from this method of cooking. Perhaps that has something to do with Baker’s penchant for holding meat in plastic wrap, which steams out the flavor? The best of Baker’s output is a trio of power hitters—spareribs, sausage links (the only top-grade BBQ sausage in the metro), and sauce—that makes it a must for barbecue nuts. 8019 Glen Lane, Eden Prairie, 952-942-5337, bakersribs.com
7. Rooster’s
If you like ribs fall-off-the-bone soft, don’t mind a gritty and visceral atmosphere, and love a unique style of sauce, then Rooster’s is for you. Dominated by a counter, an army of fryers (they do a mean fried chicken), a hickory smoker, two booths, and two tables, Rooster’s doesn’t seem like much at first, but its pulled-pork sandwich drenched in a sweet, fragrant, sauce—it evokes Mexican mole as much as barbecue—is as good as it gets. The baby back ribs are smoky and meaty, with a strong fresh pork taste. Had the barbecued chicken been anything other than dreadful, Rooster’s would have been a top-five contender. 979 Randolph Ave., 651-222-0969, St. Paul, roosterbbq.com
8. Famous Dave’s
The only megachain—albeit a local one—to make it into our Top 10, Dave’s has 105 locations around the country, every BBQ dish in the pantheon, a bevy of signature sauces, and a kitschy roadhouse atmosphere. All meats are house-smoked on-site over green hickory. Authenticity buffs may wince at this behemoth, but when tasted “blind,” Dave’s delivers. Best in show are the grilled St. Louis–style spareribs, served appropriately wet, with good char, deep pork flavor, and just the right amount of tooth-iness for bone-hewers. Dave’s sauces rate highly as well, which, for a mass-produced product, is a good indication of how serious Dave Anderson is about BBQ. Numerous metro locations, famousdaves.com
9. Whitey’s World Famous Saloon
This long-standing Minneapolis tavern recently added a hickory- and apple-wood smoker and is turning out tasty barbecue accented with a peppery sauce, delicious homemade slaw, and some of the best beans in town. The baby backs, chicken, and the pulled-pork sandwich are all Top 10 worthy. Whitey’s smokes lightly, then chars on the grill. Whitey’s is thick with tobacco smoke, a noxious side dish that will be off the menu come March 31. 400 Hennepin Ave. E., Mpls., 612-623-9478
10. Dixies Calhoun
The puzzlement of our survey. Dixies Calhoun is a great BBQ restaurant at lunch, a miserable one at dinner. It would have garnered second place overall, but every platter of ribs we ate at the dinner hour was burnt and near-inedible. At lunch, the dry-rubbed baby back ribs and chicken, slow-cooked over hickory, to impart a bold smoky taste, are wonderful—the meats plated dry, with thick, hot-tart Memphis–style sauce on the side. The pulled pork (“Shack”) sandwich is one of the best in town. (Despite previous ties, Dixies on Grand in St. Paul is not affiliated, and its barbecue is not that similar.) 2730 W. Lake St., Mpls., 612-920-5000, dixiescalhoun.com
SPARERIBS
The ribs against which all others are measured, spareribs are the meatiest of all the pork ribs. Thirteen bones from the belly of the pig make up a full rack. After the belly (the bacon) has been taken off, the ribs are left with a thin veneer of meat on top. The wide end of the rack has big, round-bone meaty ribs with chunks of meat wound around connective tissue that is often cut off to make rib tips, or “riblets” in Applebee’s parlance. Many supermoist, fall-off-the-bone ribs (the most prevalent style these days) are cooked wet. Purists go for racks slowly dry-cooked, allowing the fat to melt naturally into the protein, producing a chewier rib that pulls off the bone nonetheless.
Cap’s Grille
These apple-wood–smoked, grill-finished racks are meaty, chewy, and loaded with big pork flavor. Right before being served, they are swabbed with Cap’s (yes, there really is a Cap, and he’s there every day) signature tomatoey sauce. Cap’s spareribs are the perfect balance of chew and easy eating.
Ted Cook’s
If you like your ribs with a deep smoke flavor, give points for size, aren’t squeamish about big knuckles on the end, and don’t mind getting into it up to your elbows (pit masters Moses and Hernan like to serve their ribs very wet), then Ted Cook’s is for you. Don’t be afraid to order your ribs dry, their crusty mantle has all the great charred pork flavor that makes memorable barbecue dreams.
Lone Spur Grill & Bar
This strip mall Tex-Mex sports bar does a good job of producing meaty, porky, apple- and oak-smoked spareribs, slow- cooked and served dry, with a moist smoke-tinged pink meatiness. If dry-rubbed ribs are your thing and you don’t care much about sides (we didn’t like much else here), then Lone Spur is worth checking out. 11032 Cedar Lake Rd., Minnetonka, 952-540-0181
Lee and Dee’s (tie)
These spareribs are unique in many ways. Fall-off-the-bone tender and supermoist, they are wet-cooked prior to being smoked over hickory and charcoal, producing a soft texture. The flavor, helped along by grill finishing, is smoky, porky, and the ribs are crusted with a mahogany mantle of caramelized fat and sauce that makes Lee and Dee’s one of the more popular no-frills joints on the east side of the river. 161 N. Victoria St., St. Paul, 651-225-9454
Lou B’s BBQ (tie)
This Bloomington newcomer offers only counter service, and like several other full-menu barbecue joints we visited, delivers many things—but really only executes one of them well. These meaty oversized spareribs are dry-rubbed, smoked over apple wood and charcoal, and served with sauce on the side. Great texture and superb pork flavor. 7814 Portland Ave., Bloomington, 952-224-7646
Market Bar-B-Que (tie)
Everything is done the traditional way here. The ribs are hand-rubbed and slow-cooked over apple, cherry, oak, and hickory woods in a real pit and served dry. Ribs have deep pork flavor and a natural crust that is the result of pit cooking. These ribs are a toothsome, chewy experience by intent, the product of slow, dry heat that real barbecue enthusiasts prize.
Rudolphs (tie)
Rudolphs’ ribs are rubbed with a unique blend of herbs and spices, then roasted and slow-cooked, producing a singularly unique crust that has made them legendary. Ribs are well trimmed and uniform, the knuckles removed to make rib tips. Rudolphs’ spareribs have a light smoke flavor, but are not cooked over wood. 1933 Lyndale Ave. S., Mpls.
West Indies Soul
The best Jamaican-style jerk and Jamaican-American barbecue is purveyed at this clean, brightly lit storefront on University Avenue. Every Tuesday and Wednesday, the cooks load up the smokers and slowly smoke the porkiest ribs we have ever tasted, producing fall-off-the-bone, intensely smoky spareribs with bright pink smoke rings descending down to the bone. The rub is traditional, redolent of vinegar and allspice. The sauce is sweet and hot, tinged with a sharp acidic edge that screams of tropical fruit without the phony mango-centric flavors that cheapen so much Caribbean food these days. There are jerk sauces and a really “hot” sauce to choose from as well. Do not fail to wash it all down with iced homemade ginger beer. Go early, and get the ribs right out of the smoker, as the less they sit around, the better they are. If you miss the midweek rib fest, the jerk chicken platter is worth the trip any day of the week (save Sunday and Monday, when West Indies Soul is closed). 625 University Ave. W., St. Paul, 651-665-0115, members.aol.com/westindiessoul.
HOT LINKS
Most hot links at BBQ joints around the country are created in “central Texas meat market style”: In Texas, many barbecue establishments started out as markets and butcher shops and would turn their pork scraps into smoked sausage in German (think bratwurst) or Eastern European (like a ringed kielbasa) formats. In Texas, the well-seasoned but far-from-spicy sausage is smoked over pecan wood, but that is purely a local convention. The meat cutters (often German and Eastern European immigrants) were merely following the traditions of their homeland, but soon everyone was calling it barbecue. Good links are hard to find locally. The grind and fat content should create a pleasing texture in the mouth. The casing should be a natural one, allowing for plenty of snap.
1. Baker's Ribs
Baker’s Ribs Baker’s is far and away the best of the local bunch. Its Texas ties showing proudly, the smoked-beef-pork link, served sliced, has an incredible snap, meltingly good texture, and a nice balance of smokiness. It’s so tasty it can be enjoyed naked without sauce. The link alone makes Baker’s worth the trip from anywhere in the metro.
2. Famous Dave's
Famous Dave’s These links, served sliced in a sandwich or whole as a side, are darn good. The grind is larger than Baker’s and the texture coarser and grittier, but good pork flavor carries the day. These links are best with Dave’s “Rich & Sassy” or “Georgia Mustard” sauces.
BABY BACK RIBS
Contrary to the popular mythology, these aren’t ribs from baby piglets. Baby backs are really just pork bones cut from the topmost portion of the rib section of the loin, with all the boneless meat removed. Baby backs are less meaty and have less pork flavor than spareribs and owe their popularity to their lean succulence and clean visual appeal. The meat is tender, because it is cut from the loin. Baby backs don’t take to pit-style production the way spareribs and other cuts do and dry out easily, which is why Market Bar-B-Que shunned them for decades.
1. Scott Ja-Mama’s
Crusty and charred can often be indicative of a dried-out rack of baby backs, but not here. SJM’s serves a baby back so moist and porky you can’t believe your mouth! These well-seasoned, hand-rubbed ribs are slow roasted, grilled, and served dry with sauce for dipping, achieving a near-perfect balance of texture and flavor.
2. Redstone American Grill
Redstone’s baby backs are smoked delicately over apple and cherry woods, then grilled lightly, eschewing heavy char for a buttery, soft texture. They are served wet and brushed with sauce before serving. Redstone’s ribs are handled delicately, well trimmed, and worth the premium price.
3. Dixies Calhoun
Dixies Calhoun serves a rack that is more aggressively seasoned than its peers’, smoke-roasted over hickory, and served dry, with sauce on the side. The result is more of a true pit-style rib, notable for its lean succulence and bold flavor. When the kitchen isn’t paying attention (which is anytime but lunch), ribs come out grievously overdone. For all our sakes, send those back.
4. Dixies on Grand (tie)
Dixie’s in St. Paul serves a very good plate of baby back ribs—dry-rubbed and slow-smoked over hickory for a light smoke flavor, but cooked long enough to develop a crusty exterior. Not a lot of pork flavor, but only spareribs fans are likely to find that disappointing. 695 Grand Ave., St. Paul, 651-222-7345, dixiesongrand.com
4. Market Bar-B-Que (tie)
The only “authentic pit-roasted baby back ribs in town,” according to owner Steve Polski, aren’t even officially on the menu. First served as a special, they've been so popular, Polski has offered them ever since. The baby backs are dry-rubbed, slow-cooked over hickory, apple, oak, and cherry woods and served with sauce on the side. The result is a signature Market-style rib—chewy and full of big pork flavor.
COLESLAW
All great foods are made better served alongside a dish that is contrasting in flavor, temperature, and texture. There is no better example than barbecued meats—hot, spicy, smoky, and fatty—served with crisp, crunchy, tart coleslaw. The name is a variation on the Dutch phrase kool sla, literally translated as cabbage salad, a dish traditionally served hot. Richard Hellman’s invention of bottled mayonnaise in 1903 made it easy for small roadside cafés to dress and serve cabbage—a cheap vegetable that doesn’t spoil easily—as a side dish for sandwiches and burgers. Many think the best slaw is the simplest, but great slaws are made with all manner of fruits and vegetables, from apples to zucchini.
1. Redstone American Grill
A simple thin-cut cabbage slaw, seasoned with a scratch mayonnaise-based dressing without a touch of sweetness. This slaw is clean, bright, and fresh-tasting. You get a small ramekin of it with ribs or chicken, but order it by the bucket if you are a slaw fan. Far and away the best slaw we tasted.
2. Dixies Calhoun (tie)
A great traditional cabbage slaw with superior tang, rough cut, and eye appeal thanks to a confetti of carrots.
2. Whitey’s World Famous Saloon (tie)
A fresh cabbage slaw with a fruity snap and a nice celery-seed kick.
4. Scott Ja-Mama’s
A clean, straightforward coleslaw, with no flaws and a fresh dressing.
5. Twin City Grill
Very average barbecue, but one of the best slaws we found on our journey. Freshly made, with a scratch dressing. 130 North Garden, Mall of America, Bloomington, 952-854-0200
CHICKEN
Barbecue chicken is ideally more than just grilled chicken brushed with barbecue sauce. The ultimate BBQ chicken is brined, rubbed, and then slow-cooked, creating crisp mahogany skin and meltingly good smoke-tinged meat that is the perfect canvas for good sauce. Alas, most local barbecue restaurants show little interest in slow pit-cooking bone-in half and whole chickens.
1. Market Bar-B-Que
Market’s chicken is the best in town—cooked low and slow in a brick pit over real wood, which produces a lightly smoked, crisp-skinned bird that is moist at the same time. It’s served dry, with sauce on the side.
2. Cap’s Grille
Cap’s has great chicken, choosing to smoke it slowly over apple wood, toss it on the grill to finish, then baste it with a killer sauce. All the smoky goodness is there, and if you like a little char, you’ll love Cap’s chicken.
3. Dixies Calhoun
Crispy on the outside, smoky on the inside, and served dry, Dixies chicken is well seasoned before going over the hickory, and the extra step makes for a nice crusty exterior. Grill-finishing creates the crisp char.
PORK SHOULDER
For some purists, barbecue is a noun that refers to pork shoulders, butts, and legs rubbed and slow-cooked over wood. Sliced, pulled, or chopped, the pork is served au naturel or on sandwiches, wet with sauce or dry. From the famous tacos al pastor and carnitas of the South and West to the vinegar-mopped Carolinas, pork is barbecue. Pulled pork is uniquely American. It’s found throughout the South and Midwest but is synonymous with the Carolinas. It should be fall-off-the-bone tender so it can be pulled apart by hand. Long, slow pit-cooking results in crusty exterior meat that, when mixed with soft interior meat, gives great textural contrast. What isn’t acceptable is wet-cooked, braised, or boiled pork. In Kansas City, pulled pork is served sauced, on butcher paper with white bread. In North Carolina, it’s tossed with a tart, thin vinegar sauce, but some western Carolinians add ketchup as well. All throughout the South, you’ll find it served on buns with coleslaw. Twin Cities barbecue restaurants serve their pulled or chopped pork as a sandwich, sauced with a Kansas City–style sauce.
1. Rooster’s (tie)
It’s no surprise that the one joint in town that specializes in custom-cooking whole hogs also offers the most authentic pulled sandwich in town. Rooster’s pork arrives in big crusty chunks, exploding with pork flavor. The sandwich comes large or small, with a unique fragrant sweet-spiced sauce, and is available topped with cabbage slaw.
1. Rudolphs (tie)
Rudolphs has one of the top sandwiches we tasted. How so? Smoked over hickory, great texture, crusty and soft, hand-pulled (or chopped), piled high, and crowned with slaw. The pork is exceptionally well seasoned with great pig flavor.
2. Dixies Calhoun
A real western Carolina–style sandwich, thin shavings of raw cabbage and onion served atop a crusty and yielding mélange of hand-pulled pit-style roasted pork cushion, packed with plenty of flavor. Dixies hot-tart sauce is the perfect foil for one of the best sandwiches in town.
SAUCE
Every cook who ever put meat over an open fire has an idea of what great barbecue sauce should, or shouldn’t, be. As far as we’re concerned, real barbecue is served with a barbecue sauce that is distinct from rubs, marinades, cures, bastes, glazes, mops, and slathers. Sauces can be sweet, smoky, and red Kansas City–style concoctions, or vinegar-based puckerers from North Carolina, or Alabama’s traditional mayonnaise-based white sauce. Most are meant to go with the meat preferred in that region. The thin, tart (mustard-infused) sauce of the Carolinas is the perfect foil for their pork, pulled or sliced. In our region, barbecue sauce is a hybrid of the Kansas City and Memphis styles: red, smoky, spicy, and tinged with a vinegar tartness. It’s served thick and is not as sweet as the sauce preferred in St. Louis.
1. Redstone American Grill
We were as surprised as anyone that a restaurant that doesn’t specialize in barbecue won out over so many specialists for best sauce in town. Redstone’s is thick, tart, and sweet with a subtle smoky finish and a heat that lingers.
2. Baker’s Ribs
This Texas-based outfit makes a Texas-style sauce with a little bit more ketchup and less spice than most Texans would recognize. In the Lone Star state, sauce is meant for beef brisket, and it’s thin, spicy, and tart. Baker’s accentuates more of the black pepper and brown sugar notes, but still comes up with a winner.
3. Cap’s Grille (tie)
Cap’s is proud of its sauce—and should be. The stuff is great—traditional, tomato-based, without a lot of heat or tartness, a sensible sturdy companion to Cap’s ‘cue.
3. Ted Cook’s (tie)
Syrupy and vinegary tasting, Cook’s sauce is a tart-sweet hybrid that bears little resemblance to the other sauces that predominate locally. If you like it hot, try the medium, and, if you dare, ask for the hot—it’s wicked.
Close Behind: Dixies Calhoun, Market Bar-B-Que (tie)
BRISKET
The prevailing beef cut used for Texas-style barbecue is brisket, a very tough and rascally muscle cut from the steer’s underbelly. Beef briskets are huge, weighing up to sixteen pounds. Like most working muscles, brisket needs to be cooked low and slow until tender, lest it end up tough and dry. The true test of great barbecued brisket is taste, but barbecue experts also use the pink ring of smoke-tinged flesh as harbinger of how low, slow, and perfectly handled brisket should be.
1. Market Bar-B-Que
The only local barbecue item to receive a perfect score from our tasters, Market’s pit-fired brisket (served thin-sliced) has a noticeable pink ring, deep beefy flavor, exceptional moistness, a smoky perfume, and melting grain when eaten. The only thing separating this from the Texas gold standard is the absence of charred crust.
2. Cap’s Grille
A great beef sandwich. The meat from a thick brisket is thinly sliced, placed on the grill to give it a brief char (not authentic, but a nice touch), then piled high, and drizzled with Cap’s Kansas City–style sauce. There’s no smoky flavor or pink smoke ring.
RIB TIPS
Pork has always been inexpensive relative to other meats, and ribs have always been cheap pork. In St. Louis, they love to trim large ribs down, squaring off the rack and cutting off the gristly “knuckle” that some rib fans find fatty and difficult to eat, but many of us think contains some of the best-tasting and unctuous bites found on the rack. Considered poor man’s food before Applebee’s made them popular, great rib tips, like great chicken wings, are worth the work.
1. Ted Cook’s
Ted Cook’s tips are identical in preparation to their ribs, which is why they are so awesome. Big fat tips, crusty and loaded with fatty pork flavor, are two-bite babies, just the way God intended.
2. Lee and Dee’s
More oversized tips, with meat falling off the connective tissue and small bones, deep sweet, and smoky, served dripping in Lee and Dee’s sauce. The gritty urban vibe here isn’t for the Redstone crowd.
3. Famous Dave’s
Big tips, swaddled in Dave’s “Rich & Sassy” sauce, are crusty on the outside and melting on the inside.
Close Behind: Lou B’s BBQ, Market Bar-B-Que (tie)
COUNTRY- STYLE RIBS
We include these hugely popular little chops with some reluctance. Because they are really butterflied or split-blade chops from the loin, they contain meat from both the working and nonworking parts of the pig. This means the small disks of loin meat attached to the ribs don’t take to low-and-slow cooking, which is nonetheless a prerequisite for making the rest of the rib tender. Consequently, while popular for their meaty size, country-style ribs always are dried out on one end or not cooked enough on the other. They’re really more gimmickry than good food. The Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest, the Academy Awards and Super Bowl of barbecue, will not allow them in the competition. Nonetheless, for the partisans:
1. Cap’s Grille
The best locally. Charry, meaty, in a sauce well suited to the cut. If you like country-style ribs, Cap’s is the place to enjoy them.
BEEF RIBS
In what seems like a search to find the next big thing, everyone seems to be adding beef ribs to their menu. Foot-long beef ribs are what’re left behind when the meat cutter bones a standing rib roast. Beef ribs are, you guessed it, most popular in Texas. Cooked well, they are a transcendent experience, tender and crusty, with vastly more intense flavor than pork. Beef ribs are the perfect mate for a tart-sweet sauce. Cooked poorly (most are) with inferior beef (ditto), and you have a greasy, coppery tasting product that is distinctly unpleasant. No barbecue restaurants in our neck of the woods really nailed this one, but ribs at a couple were worth a taste if you’re in the neighborhood.
1. Ted Cook’s (tie)
Cook’s ribs, crusty and smoky, with decent beef flavor, were the favorite of the majority of our tasters. The ribs were a little fatty and greasier in the mouth than some, but the spicy-tart glaze of Cook’s sauce helped make the overall experience one of the best in class.
1. Tonka Grill & Bar-B-Que (tie)
Smoky and roasted within an inch of their life, these beef ribs have very good flavor, a nice crust, and are basted in Tonka’s mild, ketchupy sauce. As good as you’ll find ’round these parts. 4016 Shoreline Dr., Spring Park, 952-471-7447
1. Tony Roma’s (tie)
To much of the Western world, this Texas-based chain (260-plus restaurants in twenty-seven countries) embodied barbecue. Not anymore. Nevertheless, Roma’s beef ribs, which come glazed with your choice of five custom-made sauces, had the cleanest beef flavor of all we tried. 346 South Ave., Mall of America, Bloomington, 952-854-7940, tonyromas.com
BAKED BEANS
A traditional BBQ side dish, baked beans are snuggled up to great ‘cue the world over. The tradition was started by American Indians, then carried west by immigration waves throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. From smoked brisket to ham, hamburger to pork rib tips, all types of meat and seasonings are teamed with baked beans these days. The key is long, slow cooking from scratch, ideally in the pit along with the rest of the barbecue. We found no joint locally that bakes its beans that way, but we did find a troika of great baked beans right here in the Twin Cities.
1. Scott Ja-Mama’s
Made with a sweet barbecue sauce, loaded with onions and pork, and hotter than the Hilton sisters, these tender beans are the ones against which all others should be measured in the North Star state.
2. Whitey’s World Famous Saloon
A close second. Whitey’s beans aren’t as smoky, spicy, or rich, but they are flecked with bits of pork and eat like a sweet chili.
3. Redstone American Grill
Made with ground hamburger, these beans get most of their flavor from Redstone’s awesome Kansas City–style sauce.
INTERNATIONAL ’CUE
Cooking over fire, the mother of modern-day barbecue, is as old as the hills and practiced on a global level. From Indian tandoori to the French rotisserie, there are plenty of worthy open-flame culinary traditions to check out in and around the Twin Cities. When it comes to poultry and pork, if something Memphis-style isn’t exotic enough for you, try these lesser known hot spots.
ASIAN DELIGHT
With growing local populations of Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, and Hmong immigrants looking for quality Asian barbecue, local shopkeepers, restaurateurs, and market owners have responded, offering some terrific barbecue pork and whole-roasted pig, duck, and chicken. These little shops dot Nicollet or University Avenue and cook in a hybridized pan-Asian style (think Chinese-style lacquered duck served with traditional Vietnamese table sauces and Thai side dishes). Go early, before 1 p.m., if you are looking for the best pieces of pig (ribs, cheeks, haunches), as these stores tend to roast only one pig a day.
Hiep Thanh Hiep
Thanh is an Asian grocer that most people would stroll by a thousand times without walking in. Dingy and sleepy, the appearance belies reality—in the back corner of the market is a counter serving some of the best barbecued Asian food in town. Charred, glazed, Chinese-style char siu, the real deal, is scooped up by passionate pork lovers. On weekends, the kitchen puts out sturdy soy-glazed chickens and ducks, while simpler roasted versions are available every day of the week. 2534 Nicollet Ave., Mpls., 612-870-0905
Shuang Hur
This oversized, full-service Asian market also boasts a barbecue counter, right next to the butcher case. Shuang Hur’s whole-roasted hog (available whole or by the pound) is the best we have tasted in the Twin Cities. The rear haunches and ribs are particularly tasty. With the dexterity and finesse of a dancer, the countermen are the most adept we have seen at cleaving apart a whole side of pig. Two of Shuang Hur’s dipping sauces, a Vietnamese sweetened fish sauce and a sturdy chili-paste concoction, are particularly great companions for the pork. The rich, butterflied ducks are the best of the poultry. In China, most street stalls serve similar split ducks, which are drier and leaner than their whole-roasted cousins. 2710 Nicollet Ave., Mpls., 612-872-8606
Tai Hoa BBQ
Specializing in Vietnamese and Chinese barbecue, this gritty little storefront doles out some of the best roasted and barbecued meats in town. Skip the steam-table curried pork stomach and fish maw and head straight for the barbecue counter. Try the pork (you pick the cut), and watch it hacked off a whole salted roast pig hanging in the window—superb. BBQ-glazed duck (split and brushed with sweet soy), whole roasted duck, and special duck stuffed with mushrooms and lily buds are off the charts. All meats and poultry (including several types of barbecued chicken) are served with a few thimbles of a bean-based dipping sauce, a superfluous addition—the barbecue is that good. 854 University Ave. W., St. Paul, 651-298-8480
JAMAICAN SMOKE
In Jamaica, cooking-huts and stalls dot hillside roads and offer smoky jerk-style meats, poultry, and seafood to customers who line up for a seat at counters surrounding the cooking drums. This is the famous Jamaican barbecue. Smoky green allspice (pimento wood) branches are integral to the process. A slow smoke (the ancient Caribbean practice that is the forefather of our modern-day barbecue), a unique rub, and potentially blistering heat from Scotch bonnet chilies are all signatures.
© 2011 MSP Communications, Inc. All rights reserved