When you live in a small town, your options for eating out are limited. We have a fine dining restaurant, a family restaurant, a pizzeria, a burger drive-through, and something like 37 Mexican restaurants (give or take). Unless you want to eat Mexican for a month, you only really have a week's worth of variety (and even that's pushing it, because they all feature mostly hamburgers on the menu).
And if you're vegetarian like me, only about 3% of what they serve is edible to you.
Last year a new restaurant opened up selling "Authentic Pulled Pork BBQ" which has since turned out to be a fairly popular place to eat. If you like shredded dead pig and loads of barbecue sauce on a bun, it's the restaurant for you.
I affectionately refer to it as the "Little Shop of Horrors". Mostly because of me doing the vegetarian thing, but the fact that they blast country music at full volume and have redneck decor everywhere is the real kicker...
Frightening.
And yet this is probably what everybody from outside of the US thinks that all restaurants here are like (at least the ones that aren't McDonalds or Kentucky Fried Chicken). They could be right. I'm pretty sure that this is what the cafeteria at The White House looks like now.
But they make a decent potato salad and have good cornbread (with honey butter!), so I drop by every once in a while when I can't think of anything better to eat for lunch.
I just ignore the stench of roasting animal carcasses and try not to think of what goes on in that kitchen...
Or what they have to do to get their "pulled pork"...
Which ends up looking like something that dropped out of a diarrhetic yak's ass...
Bleh. It's Rush Limbaugh on a bun! Bon appetite.
Looks like every single restaurant in Oklahoma. Even the mexican and italian places have cowboy hats and dead animals on the wall. Yeehaw.
Sorry, though, piggy. I like me some bbq pulled pork. I think it's a requirement if you live anywhere near the Texas border, so you can't really blame me.
No kidding - I admire the folks that do the vegetarian thing. I could probably do it if I wasn't so lazy.
I'm the type of person... if they told me the veggie and dip tray was all we were getting at the party and there's no beef or chicken coming... it really wouldn't bug me. I'd just pitch in.
Plus I know it is beneficial.
Well Dave, restaurants - that's my territory. You have a standing invitation to come along with my wife and me if you are ever in Chicago looking for a place to eat to fill your "habit." I know some places that are nothing like McDonald's, and won't mind your prejudices... :-)
Chase: Yep, them Texans do love their barbecue! Fortunately for me, I managed to find some BBQ places there that serve incredible BBQ vegetables, so it was all good.
Adena: Yep. Jackalope it is. I think they're extinct now. Hunted into oblivion so barbecue joints can decorate their walls.
RW: There are restaurants in Chicago other than Giordanos and Johnny Rockets?!? How interesting! I don't think that I've ever eaten anywhere else whilst visiting the Windy City! See you in July. :-)
good god man, where in the hell do you live? i thought you lived in seattle? clearly, no. :)
this post has made me want to revert to my vegetarian days. ugh!
:) sizz
Posted by ms. sizzle on March 16, 2006 | Reply
Nothing says class like a jackalope! And I love pulled pork. Gary Burbank of the AM radio show has a place called Burbank's Real Barbecue here in Cinci. It's so good, I'm sure you would love the cornbread and coleslaw, not sure if they have a veg dish or a jackalope
That jackalope on the wall is just too much. Looks creepy with that vague smile on its dead face, like it was happy to be stuffed and mounted on the wall.
I know in Australia they think American restaurants look pretty much like that. I've been to a couple and I just giggle to myself. Kinda like the Outback in the US, so not Australian. Trust me.
Do you eat fish Dave? Lots of sushi places here, and good asian stir fries. Yummy, even the vegetarian ones. Come visit and I'll take you about.
Well, I've recently moved (back) to South Carolina and luckily don't have the pleasure of visiting any locales as decorative as the one pictured. Although I have seen some horribly amazing things mounted on walls in people's homes but I can't really talk about it because the trauma is too fresh. There are non-country radio stations here but I don't even bother with the radio so my ipod is on 24/7.
Favorite DM = Enjoy the Silence, Everything Counts, But Not Tonight, Behind the Wheel, Black Celebration (actually I could go on but I won't)
Posted by Brittopia on March 16, 2006 | Reply
Harold took me there last time I was in town. It was great. Juss wish day wooda let us hep with da pullin a da pork. Wait a minute, did I say I wanted to help with pulling the pork?
Posted by Art on March 16, 2006 | Reply
As a non-native veteran of Texas, I evidently have achieved some sort of automatic certification that enables me to diss non-Texan BBQ and sound like an expert. What follows is a concise review of all BBQ located, generated or otherwise existing outside the borders of the Lone Star State and bears the power of brevity unknown outside Calvin Coolidge's autobiography.
--> Non-texan BBQ Sucks
I'll go further and specify that the really good Texas BBQ is the non-chain stuff. Here in Austin we have the "tourist favorites" such as Salt Lick (you'll find it in the Austin "Int'l" Airport, thank you very much), County Line, and Rudy's.
Side note: our airport is "international" because it can send you to Mexico. But so can a mighty strong jonesing for cheap illegal drugs, but I digress.
I've found that the BBQ places I really enjoy the most are the ones that aren't so chainy. My fave is "House Park BBQ", a place that's been around I think since the 40's and is only big enough to have 4 tables inside and a counter. Another is "Iron Works" but I haven't been there in ages. It might not even be there any more, so maybe it's "Iron Doesn't Work" or worse, "Iron Works Not" but don't say the name too fast.
And I think Nicole might be hiding her secret desire for pork by calling it pr0k like sex addicts use the name pr0n. She didn't want to show up on any of the CIA's automated blog readers that could link her to the pulled pork underground that Dave is running behind this supposed "blogograhy" front.
And Dave's use of steganography (or should I say, steganHOGraphy) by encoding the World's Best BBQ Sauce recipe into a picture of an about-to-be-drawn-and-oh-so-succulantly-quartered pig is, in my opinion, truly stellar use of technology. And food. Bravo, Mr. Dave; Bravo.
Good thing your last name is "Simmer" and not some other foodprep-related word that is not as open to be vegetarian, like "Braise," "Tenderize" or "Dousewithsteaksauce".
Oh wait, my bad. Simmer is your middle name. Your last name is just two letter "I"'s put together. How is that pronounced, anyway? Eeeeeee? Eye-Eye? "The Great?"
It's becoming evident that blogcode, who "analyzed and compared with utmost accuracy and aplomb" our two blogs is not that accurate after all. I was thinking it was the eHarmony of blog sites, and that yours and mine were somehow a match. But that cannot be. For I am a Rush-liking, Windows/Unix-using meat addict. I'd probably add something about "gun-toting" for effect, but your stance on the topic isn't in your FAQ.
Posted by Wayne Hall on March 16, 2006 | Reply
Ummm... you do realize that Rush Limbaugh is a Mac user, do you not??
And I totally love guns. My fully-automatic HK MP5SD submachine gun will be my best friend when it comes time to enact my plan for global domination.
See? BlogCode IS the eHarmony of blog sites! All it took was deadly firearms to bring us together in the spirit of blog compatibility!
Guns are good for things like that.
Thank God for the unreligious bearded semi-automatic-owning vegetarian steganographers I meet through Blogcode. See, it's the unreligious part that makes me not fear you as a terrorist.
I thought for sure you'd take my bait on the "going to Mexico for illegal drugs" and my Rush fanhood. You didn't. However, you pointing out Rush's use of Mac was mighty high road of you, so good job.
And I'm not anti-mac btw. I was a maccie on the II, IIcx, II se, SE-30 and II ci back in the day, and all my graphic design work was done on the Mac. Aldus Freehand, Pagemaker, Photoshop... all good stuff. but I was a DOS user before that, lots of unix on the way, and of course the adoption of windows due to enterprise computing.
I will say, however, that the daunting experience of trying to manage 1200 Appletalk zones across tiny network links across the world back in the mid 90's placed a firm distaste for the mac for me when it came to corporate computing.
Ok, challenge time. I either gotta find a way to tie all this mac-talk to pulled pork, or I gotta shut up about it.
[time passes]
Ok I give up. Maybe I'd be more inspired if I had a good chopped brisket sandwich and a powerful mac to made good graphics on.
Posted by Wayne Hall on March 16, 2006 | Reply
When we stayed in a very small town in Arizona, we ate in a steakhouse much worse than your bbq pig place. There was an actual massive bull's head on the wall which was scaring the crap out of me. I couldn't stop humming the duelling banjos from Deliverance! I ordered a salad and it had bacon all over it, and when I asked for one without bacon the waiter looked at me like I was a complete lunatic! I honestly didn't think that there were still places like that in the US (I'm a brit), cos we've watched too much 'Friends' now, so our stereotype of the US has shifted somewhat! I live in a village in the UK though, and we only have an Indian a Chinese and a Kebab restaurant/hut. I never eat out locally.
Posted by serap on March 17, 2006 | Reply
Ms. Sizzle: I'm across the mountains, 3 hours from Seattle. It's a different world over here. :-)
Liz: Sorry, but you aren't allowed to eat meat or smoke if you live in L.A. - you can drink and have all the drugs you want, however. :-)
Kevin: I hear that jackalope tastes like chicken, and is delicious when served with an apple chutney.
Bre: It may smell like cat food, but it looks like cat barf! Oh wait... if a cat were to barf, it would be barfing cat food, so I guess you're right!
Rob: I was in Cincinnati once, but I ate at "Dick Clark's All-American Grill". Instead of jackalopes on the wall, Dick had stuffed and mounted Diana Ross and The Supremes.
Mooselet: Nope... no fish for me. I eat no living creatures, whether it be fishes, birds, bugs, reptiles or mammals. I would eat dinosaurs, however, but they're kind of extinct and all.
Apryl: I classify any city without a McDonalds to be a town. You gotta have Ronald to qualify for big city status. :-)
Ben: Yes, but you Aussies will eat anything... you probably had kangaroo hash with a little koala bear steak for dinner, didn't you?
Robin: Hey, for all I know, there could actually BE bones in that mess of piglet guts!
Brittopia: Yes, but you've got Myrtle Beach, with one of the most awesome Hard Rock Cafes ever! They mount guitars on the wall there, but I think they all died of natural causes, so that's okay by me.
Nicole: I think you guys invented it. Though, I must admit, I am not anxious to know HOW it was invented! :-)
RW: I don't have a date, but it will most-likely be in mid-July. YOU'RE on! :-)
Art: I'm sorry sir, but this establishment is not one of those "pull your own pork" kind of places. You have to go to Idaho for that kind of thing!
i8toomuch: Yes, but you should see it when it comes out the other end!
Wayne: I don't know if you heard, but the USA lost the war on drugs... there's no need to go to Mexico anymore. AppleTalk?? That's old school Mac! OS X is Unix-based, and uses proper TCP/IP networking. So it's now safe for you to come back to the Mac faithful. OH, and installing Windows on a PC is like putting lipstick on a pig. And then taking that pig, roasting it until the meat falls off the bone, then using that meat to make pulled pork sandwiches. See, you CAN take networking back to pulled pork if you really try!
Karla: Apparently it's just you and Art. And if that's not a sign of the Apocalypse, I don't know what is!
Serap: The nearest Indian restaurant is 3 hours away. That's quite a drive for sag paneer and some bartha!
TheMike: Oddly enough, yak dung IS a vegetarian dish. I'm pretty sure that Rush is some kind of vegetable, so he's vegetarian-safe as well. Sometimes irony can be so ironic!
Okay, now I wanna barf. You've ruined pulled pork for me forever. Good thing I've never had the slightest inclination to go there...
I'm with Karla-- but here in Texas we prefer to jerk our pork (har har).
So is Rush really a mac user? That is incredibly depressing. Now I REALLY wanna barf.
Chanakin: Gah! What would Winnie the Pooh say if he knew you wanted to kill his bestest friend Piglet? :-)
Amamgets: Jerked pork? Okay, now THAT sounds just wrong somehow. Pulling a pig is one thing, but jerking a pig seems like animal abuse. Well, I suppose the pig might have a different view, but still...
Sandra: Gee... exactly how many readers are in the greater Chicago area? Kevin, Katie, You, Jen, RW... wow, that would be kind of cool. Once I have a date, we'll have to plan that out.
Thanks Melina! If I didn't get a bill for $3000 in the mail today, I probably would. :-(
That's not a deer, Deb... that's a Jackalope (which is not a real animal, but a joke animal built from a dead rabbit with dead deer horns stapled on its head). Ha ha ha. :-P
The good news Bec? Chocolate cake and beer are still on the vegetarian menu!
Let's see- "shredded dead pig", "stench of roasting animal carcasses" "Rush Limbaugh on a bun", your bloody drawing of animal parts and drawing of a tortured pig.
I thought you were one of those vegetarians who aren't judgmental and high and mighty towards us barbaric meat eaters.
I swear, if I never see another stupid "jackalope" for the rest of my life it will be TOO SOON. And around here, that sign would say "bass boat and motor" instead of "horse and saddle."
But our fave local BBQ place? "The Mean Pig." I know. You see, it's more PC to eat pigs if they are mean pigs. Why, you're doing society a favor! Bella and I stick to beef and beans and coleslaw, but Alex is a pork BBQ man. And dude, even the beans, which are *patented* (well, the recipe, you know), they're so good, have meat in them.
So what DO you eat at a joint like this? Coleslaw and potato chips? Yumm.
Oh, and just by the bye? CURSES. Heaped on your head. Because I just for the first time, all because of you, had some Cheesy Fiesta Potatoes from Taco Bell, and now you must die, they were so good.
Erin would love to visit Cashmere if only to try out the many Mexican places there. A native of Omaha, NE, she has long experience with authentic Mexican cuisine, and that's the one cuisine we seem to be short on here in Kitchener-Waterloo, ON. Even in Toronto, the Mexican places we find are either (a) Tex-Mex (a.k.a. faux-Mexican) or (b) extremely pricey.
On the other hand, the lack of any Chinese restaurants would gnaw at me. When you're down Kitchener-Waterloo way, I can show you around to some vegetarian places, and we could also try Chinese. I know an excellent pastry shop that sells some good vegetable buns. It's a fraction of their menu, but just about everything they do is good. Can you eat shrimp? Even on special occasions? If so, then your options expand.
I am a shameless meat eater, and would probably get a kick out of the restaurant you described. Recently, we've decided to avoid the chain restaurants while travelling and, in Walnut, IA, we bypassed an obvious McDonalds and tried a restaurant that was much like the one here. I had a beef briscuit sandwich, and it was heaven. I don't think I'd like pulled pork (too fatty), but I did take the opportunity of visiting Arthur Bryant's BBQ while in Kansas City. The burnt ends sandwich was just shredded meat and an excuse to hold sauce, but WHAT a sauce!
The best Mexican food I've ever had was in San Antonio, Texas (so many to choose from!)... so that's probably a better bet for Erin than here. :-)
Chinese I can do without (there's 3 or 4 in Wenatchee, 20 minutes away)... it's the INDIAN food that I need. We have nothing in the entire valley. I have to drive 3 hours to Seattle!
Whoa. That place looks totally cheesy, and the sandwich looks just plain wrong, but I feel compelled to defend the honor of barbeque.
Vegetarian leanings aside (I don't eat a lot of meat compared to most people), barbeque is folk food made from cheap cuts of meat by people with the time to spend on the long preparation process. The result, while lacking the aesthetics of Thai vegetable carvings, is quite delicious. Personally, I favor NC style BBQ, with the peppery, vinegary sauce.
As far as Indian food goes, you don't have to go all the way to Seattle. There are quite a few good places in Bellevue, saving you the last 10 miles of the trip. Of course, you'd be surrounded by workers from that software company you sometimes grumble about, but all things have their price. I suggest either Mayuri or Udupi Palace, the latter is all veg all the time.
No flippin' way. If I didn't see Seattle mentioned, I would have thought that we live in the same town. The photos of the BBQ reminded me of our Hotel. It screams, "HICK SANCTUARY!" I mean, you've got snake skin streched of the walls and a bobcat riding a wooden Harley. Dear heaven. And they don't sell cornbread.
I wanted to give you all a little update. Red Robin, the gourmet burger place, has a, get this.... Pulled Pork Burger. Sure, they mask it's real contents by calling something like "The Carnitas Burger".
I'm now noticing that it's not on their online menu, so maybe it's going out of style, so if I were you, I'd hurry in and getcha some!
Posted by Wayne Hall on March 27, 2006 | Reply
funny story there dave. and props to you for being a vegetarian! i find that there are not enough of us out there.. and especially with all the obesity in america, increasing health risks, and pollution.. ugh i just read an article in the ny times about how much pollution the consumption of meat really causes; and the numbers really discussed me since its all about the factories and transportation.
but to comment on the difficulties one can have with our lifestyle, at least you live in america and can go to your local grocery store and find fake meat. i am currently living in germany and it is a b*tch to be a veggie head here... i cant find almost any fake meat products here, and when i do they are ridiculously pricey (and i soooo miss my veg breakfast sausages and boca burgers..) and when i go out to eat the vegetarian portion of the menu is so minuscule and french fries are almost always included there... as if its a meal for us!
Posted by natalie on March 03, 2008 | Reply
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