Monday, June 13, 2011

Jacks BBQ

After visiting 11 joints in 3 days, our tour of Carolina BBQ came to a close. We accomplished our mission of starting with the famous vinegary east Carolina BBQ and worked out way west adding more sweetness and tomato to the Q.

We even dipped our toes into South Carolina BBQ to taste their mustard/vinegar style BBQ . Unfortunately all good things must come to an end, so with a heavy heart and even heavier stomachs we left Carolina and headed for Nashville Tennessee, with a true appreciation for the the Carolina BBQ mantra, "low, slow and simple".





"We would drive 500 miles,
and we would drive 500 more.
To be the men who men who drive 1000 miles,
to taste Nashville B-B-Q."







After an exhausting drive, we crossed the 1000 mile mark and arrived in Nashville. We immediately headed for the most famous downtown BBQ spot, Jack's, in the shadow of Ryman Auditorium.

Jack's is a Nashville staple and resides on Lower Broadway, made famous by the four blocks of music venues packed together. This town takes it's live music seriously, bands start playing live music at lunch everyday.

The line at Jack's was out the door, so we waited patiently, and once in side, you can pass the time looking at the walls littered with famous music memorabilia.  Jack's definitely has a fun ambiance, plus you can't beat being served cafeteria style by this guy.




We ordered the pulled pork, brisket and some "bones". Jack's has 6 signature sauces to sample, but we really only liked the Kansas style because of the smokey flavor and sublet sweetness.  The rest were not good.



Ratings:
Pulled Pork -6- cold, harsh deep smokey flavor you could taste afterward
Brisket -4- dry, grey hunk of meat - no smoke flavor
Ribs -8-really smokey almost overwhelming, good char
Beans -7- good not too sweet
Coleslaw -7- rough cut so crunchy, vinegary with lots of pepper, well balanced

Sauces (in order of best to worst):
Kansas - smokey, sweet - paired well with the smokey meat
Texas - sweet tomato based sauce - OK
xxx-911 - supposed to be hot, but pretty much forgettable
Carolina - mustard based - not good
White - mayo horseradish based sauce - looked interesting - tasted horrible
Tennessee - major let down - it almost confused the palate - not good

Ambiance - 7 - Country Music and BBQ definitely pair well together

Overall - 6.5 - this is really because of the ambiance, location, ribs & coleslaw - otherwise skip this place

No comments:

Post a Comment