BBQgeek

Updated - Barker's Red Hots Roswell Location Closed

Update - Barker's Red Hot owner, Glen Robins, responded to our post this morning with the following message for all of Barker's loyal customers.  "Mike regrettably we closed the doors at Roswell. We had high hopes when we opened and unfortunately it just did not work out for us. We are not throwing in the towel yet. We have great product and I know there is place for us somewhere and we will find it. The food truck concept takes us back to our roots so we are looking at that closely. I will keep you posted. Thanks again for all of your support!! "

I received a very sad call tonight from a good friend telling me that he had ventured out to pick up some take out from the Roswell location of Barker's Red Hots only to find a note on the door stating that the restaurant was closed and that customers could visit them at their Windy Hill store.  The patio furniture and large Weber grill has been pulled from the outside deck and all signs indicate that the location is closed.  If this is accurate, then this is a very sad day indeed.  The Roswell Barker's restuaraunt was intended to be the flagship store in their burgeoning franchise taking the gospel of the chargrilled hot dog to a national audience.  For my two cents, Barker's has the best hot dog and onion rings in all of Atlanta.  Here's hoping that Glen can find a way to keep the grilled Sahlen's red hot dog dream alive.  Barker's got it's start as a food cart in Woodruff park in the early 80's.  Maybe the road back is a fleet of red hot food trucks?

ATL BBQ News - August 24, 2012

• Community Q owner and pitmaster, David Roberts, confirmed that Community Q will not be opening a second restaurant at the former Burger Joe's location on Marietta St.  Roberts cited numerous difficulties with the City of Atlanta's permitting process as the primary reason behind the decision to not move forward with the location.  The search for the next location is ongoing - "always looking", according to Roberts.  But it's a fair bet that he won't be spending much time looking in the city of Atlanta.
• Atlanta Barbecue Club founder, Bob Herndon, confirmed that Destination America's BBQ Pitmasters reality cooking show will be filming an episode for their next season during the upcoming Atlanta BBQ fest on September 14 and 15 at Atlantic Station. 

Pig Out at the Park - March 23,2010

Southern Foods will be sponsoring an event for food industry professionals at the Park Tavern in Piedmont Park, Atlanta, GA, on March 23rd from 3pm to 8pm to highlight their services and products.  Pig out at the Park will feature a BBQ cookoff competition between 13 of Atlanta's top chefs.  The competition will be judged by Allan Benton of Benton's Hams, David Roberts of Community Q, and yours truly (the BBQgeek!).  Here is the lineup of competing chefs:

1    Rathbun's  - Kevin Rathbun 
2    Dogwood Restaurant  -    Shane Touhy   
3    Serpas True Food  -   Scott Serpas  
4    Two Urban Licks   -   Cameron Thompson   
5    Holeman and Finch  - Jason and Ryan
6    4th and Swift  -  Jay Swift  
7    Miltons  -   Boyd Rose  
8    Haven  -    Stephen Herman
9    Valenza  -    Matt Swickerath
10   JCT Kitchen   -    Ford Fry   
11   Speakeasy  - Wes Chapman   
12   Prestige Gourmet   - Robert Guillou
13   Parker's on ponce   - David Hartshorn

More Patak Meats Fun

I recently received a great email from a reader named Garvey that had picked up on my original Patak Meats post. Apparently Garvey currently lives in Charlotte, but occasionally has to pass through Atlanta.  When his travels bring him this way, he packs a cooler with him and visits Patak.  The photo to the left is his receipt from a recent visit.  $152!  I've never gotten any higher than $60.  Garvey says he "grew up near Chicago (no slouch in the sausage category) and am of Eastern European descent (Hungarian, Slovak, maybe Rusyn, too) and have even been back to the "motherland," and Patak's is by far the best I've ever had."  This is such a typical thing to experience with Patak.  Every time I visit there, people are wheeling boxes of meat out on carts.  People stand in line with coolers in hand (it makes a nice seat when the line is long).   And everyone seems to speak some Eastern European language in addition to English.

Garvey asked a interesting question about Patak's liverwurst and spoilage.  Since Patak does a fresh style liverwurst, it does not hold long.  In fact, I can tell a difference within just hours once you expose it to air.  When I discussed this with one of the ladies at the meat counter, she explained the best method is to poke a little hole in the tube and squeeze it out.  Since the iron content is so high in the liverwurst, it oxidizes and spoils very quickly.  The less air exposure the better.  Generally, you only have 3 days to consume their liverwurst once you have opened it.  I have only found this fresh "deli" style liverwurst in one other place here in the South.  I think it is much more common in the Northeast. 

Thanks to Garvey for the photos and the inspiration for the post.

 

A True BBQ geek

Apologies!

Well, I've gone and done it again (Ollie!).  I let life get in the way of keeping you, my dear readers, up to date on all things BBQ.  Here's a little insight into food blogging.  It's a true labor of love.  For only the most talented and lucky like Pim, the gig can be a living.  For most, like Carol, it's a profitless act of passion rewarded by the adoration of fans and some cool emails from dudes like Michael and Thomas and the additional rewards found in challenging yourself and expanding your boundaries.  I definitely fall into the labor-of-love camp.

My most humble and sincere apologies go out to Justin Fox and the Fox. Brothers BBQ establishment.  These guys were gracious enough to buy me a meal so I could review them and all I managed to do so far is put up some pictures.  Telling you what a top notch, badass operation they are running down in Little Five Points is top of my to-do list.  But, if you live in ATL and follow BBQ, you probably don't need me to tell you that.  They just won AOL Citysearch's Best ATL BBQ for the second year running.  Also, they just got nominated by the Atlanta Journal Constitution as a top 5 contender for Best ATL BBQ.

If you are jonesing for some good, new content then I suggest you drift over and visit my friend Carol, my wish-he-was-my-friend-or-acquaintance Michael, or go get up to date on some Cue Confessions.  In addition to the Fox Bros. review, I've got recipes for Cornell Chicken, Fincham's Ribs, and Ruhlman's great Bacon experiment on deck and headed your way soon.  Stay tuned......

News!! Updates!! Winners!!

Well, first off BBQgeek.com needs to extend a big thank you to Richard Blais.  His interview on BBQ has helped me exceed 1000 page views in one week.  I guess a little molecular gastronomy and a reality series goes a long, long way towards generating some Hyperweb traffic.  Thank you, Richard.  I hope we can dig a little deeper into your idea of a nitrogen cooled smoker.....

In my little McCormick's Grillmates giveaway, we have a tie!  Congratulations to Jim "Jimmy" Cain and Tim "Geddy" Donehoo for submitting their winning responses.  Jim's won in the brevity category, coming in at just two words for the response, "Super Freak".  Tim achieved a tie on the promise to deliver the recipe for the bass sound that Geddy Lee achieved in the song "Camera Eye" on Moving Pictures by Rush.    Tim, I'll be awaiting my Fender Jazz and fuzz box in the mail any day now...

Finally, congratulations are in order for my competition BBQ buddy, Sam Huff,  and his Lost Mountain BBQ team for his feature in the Atlanta Journal Constitution on his Pork University (Pork U) barbeque class.   Sam is the co-owner of Sam and Dave's BBQ 1&2 in Marietta, GA - recently named by Zagat's as the best BBQ in all of Georgia. Sam got a great feature article and a picture spread on his all-day BBQ seminar.  The BBQgeek has been fortunate enough to "ride the train" (BBQ code for minding the smoker all day during the BBQ class) for a total of 4 BBQ classes.  I figure this makes me a Pitmaster Cum Laude (or a big sucker).  Congratulations Sam!

Quick News Updates

There's only one time a year that I envy NY'ers for their BBQ.  This weekend, June 7 and 8, marks the Big Apple BBQ Block Party, featuring 14 of the countries top cooks.  If I was lucky enough to be attending this weekend, I'd swing by Mike Mills booth for the babyback ribs, Chris Lilly's for the pulled pork, and Ed Wilson's for the beef brisket, and finally Tommy Houston's for the chopped pork sandwich.  If you happen to live in the area or will be in town, I would suggest you make every effort to attend this event.  It really is a fantastic list of cooks.  I hear it gets very busy, so go early.

It's grill season and all my favorite websites and tv shows are starting to run their new BBQ and grilling content.  Over at epicurious, they've scored the requisite Steven Raichlen article here.  In the article, he gives tips and names his favorite regional restaurants.  It's light on content and high on sexy pictures of Q.  My favorite part of the article was this quote from Steven, "While Raichlen takes no issue with the growing popularity and availability of Carolina barbecue, he's wary of a chain-restaurant-like effect: "What will make me sadder is if eventually I go to North Carolina and I start to see Texas-style brisket and Kansas City–style ribs....Everything [in America] is homogenized. Starbucks on every corner, P.F. Chang's in every mall. Barbecue used to be kind of the last bastion of regional taste—it still is to some extent, but the social forces that make everything one are definitely at play."

Product recall - Broil King Signet 90

  I ran across this product recall and thought it might merit passing on to those of you out there.    Apparently, the Broil King Signet 90 has some high heat issues.  According to Consumer Reports,

"In one of our routine tests to determine how well each grill handles flare ups from fatty foods, the firebox of the Broil King Signet 90 986784LP melted. The result: molten metal dripped down from the firebox onto the area beneath the grill, just missing one tester’s hand. The space beneath the grill is where the propane tank is stored. We subsequently tested two other samples of this grill: in one the firebox again melted and in the other the firebox had begun to crack and deform by the end of the test"

If you read the entire article, it appears this grill is primarily sold in Canada, but I was able to locate it in a quick search at several prominent online grill retailers.  The story from the company is that a retrofit device is required to make the grill safer.  I'm just throwing a guess in here, but I'm betting the flow valve from the propane tank is letting too much propane release and they are getting temperatures high enough to melt metal.  I was a bit disappointed that Consumer Reports didn't make any mention of what the temperature was in the cooking area when these grills started to disintegrate.  If it isn't a gas flow issue, then this company used some very shoddy materials when constructing these grills.

Biggest BBQ in the World!

I stumbled across this story this morning detailing how the country of Uraguay BBQ'ed 26,400 lbs. of beef to take the Guiness Book world record for World's Biggest BBQ.  Apparently, it took 1,250 grillmeisters and 6 tons of charcoal. 

This site has a few more great pictures of this event.