Barbecue is good for us.

5250 Foothill Blvd
(between Congress Ave & Fairfax Ave)
Oakland, CA
(510) 261-1299

Hours: 7am to 8pm, Mon. – Sun. (though they closed at 7pm on a Sunday when we went)

The Nutshell

Edible. Pork ribs were just ok. Sliced beef was our favorite. Sides were decent to awful. You can do better elsewhere.

The Place

Simpson’s is on a corner right on Foothill Blvd., not far from High St. It’s quite easy to get to, just down 580 to High St., left on Foothill. Simpson’s definitely has a vintage storefront, and inside it’s pretty quaint. There’s a small dining room, brightly lit, maybe 10 tables covered in red table cloths and plastic. I’d sit there gladly, but we did take out. We showed up at about 6:30 on a Sunday, shortly before closing, and were the only ones there. The folks who work there were very nice, and gave me a cup of sweet pink lemonade while I waiting about 10 minutes for my order.

The Sauce

Andrew, Rachel, and I agreed on our opinions of most things we ate, but on sauce we differed a little. I appreciated the sauce. It’s thick, deep, molasses brown, and sweet. Too sweet, but only just for me, more so for the others. It doesn’t have a lot of character beyond sweetness, unfortunately, but if you like that kind of sauce, it agreed with the pork ribs well enough.

There was some debate about whether the pork and the beef actually had different sauces. Our order of sliced beef came swimming in a pool of sauce that I think was different. It wasn’t quite as sweet and had more of a brown gravy flavor. Actually, it complemented the beef quite well, I thought. Still not much in the way of character, though.

The Meat

We tried the pork ribs and the sliced beef. We got generous portions of ribs, but the best we can say about them is that they were… diverse. Some were very chewy, dry, others fatty and thick. Several were just right – tender and moist. They’ve definitely seen some smoke – there’s a nice pink ring on some of the ribs, and a hint of the smoke flavor. Andrew commented that the meat itself seemed to be of pretty high quality, though I’m not sure I agree. Unfortunately, any pork or smoke flavors were overpowered by the sickly sweetness of the sauce. In the end, we happily ate our ribs, and admitted that there wasn’t anything overtly bad about them taken together, though that’s not much of a recommendation.

The sliced beef we liked somewhat better. The portion was slightly smaller than the ribs, and it came swimming in sauce. Again, the quality varied a bit from piece to piece. Some were thick and tough, others mostly fat, and a few tender and lean. We all agreed that the beef was better than the ribs. I took a bit home to Tamar, our expert on sliced beef, and she agreed that it was ok, but immediately noted that there was almost no smoke flavor. Actually, there wasn’t much flavor at all beyond the sauce. Again, not much of a recommendation.

I want to give Simpson’s the benefit of the doubt. It was late on a Sunday, and our food was clearly reheated after sitting around all day. Maybe if we had come at a different time we’d have gotten fresher stuff. However, I’m still skeptical. The variable quality of the meat and the lack of flavor wouldn’t have changed, and whatever flavor was there would have been overpowered by the sticky sweet sauce.

The Sides

By and large we were not fans of the sides. The potato salad was interesting – full of mustard and dill (??) – but too sweet. The greens were much too salty, and the black eyed peas were a little bland, though decent. The slaw was just plain awful – none of us could take more than one bite. It was like sugar with a little cabbage. Yuck. The baked beans might have been the star, but we were pretty sure they came from a can, so that’s not saying much.

In the End

I doubt we’ll be going back Simpson’s. We can get much better BBQ in the East Bay, without having to drive down to East Oakland. Mostly we hated the sides, and thought the whole meal didn’t have much character. That said, the people at Simpson’s were very nice, and they serve a wide variety of soul food. Looking at the reviews on Yelp, a few folks say their breakfast is good. But here we’re all about BBQ, and judging Simpson’s on BBQ alone, we’re not impressed.

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Check out this 2 part short documentary film about Barry (Alex) and Carolyn Alexander who run the Brick Pig’s House in Oakland. Andrew and I visited this joint just a few days after it opened and didn’t think very much of it. More than two years later, though, it’s still around, and gets pretty glowing reviews on Yelp. I’m not one to put too much stock in Yelp, but then again the Brick Pig’s House is rated higher than a lot of other area places that we like, so we’ll have to give it another shot. And everyone notes the same thing that we did when we went in there: Alex and Carolyn are about the two nicest people you’ll ever meet.

Anyway, these 10 minutes cover some interesting ground, including a view of Oakland’s BBQ history:

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630 Weaver Dairy Rd.
Chapel Hill, NC
(919) 932-7904

The Nutshell

BBQ with a gourmet twist. Good but not great pulled pork, delicious sides, delectable desserts.

The Details

The Barbecue Joint in Chapel Hill was the second BBQ stop in our recent field trip to my home state. We sneaked out of lunch at the conference we were attending (the nominal reason for this BBQ junket) with a mix of native North Carolinians and curious Californian friends to sample the fare at this unassuming spot in a strip mall on Weaver Dairy Road. (Amusingly, the place is right next a Curves fitness center. The owner told us that the Curves used to be a Weight Watchers until the frustrated members, tempted by the smell of BBQ wafting over, decided to move their franchise elsewhere.)

The first thing we noticed about the ‘Cue Joint was a decidedly unorthodox menu. Of course they serve the usual pulled pork platters and sandwiches, but they also include such non-pork delicacies as duck confit and sweet potato bread pudding with whiskey sauce. Hey, no problem there — I’m all for gourmet touches as long as the BBQ is up to snuff.

We sat in the sun on the patio and sipped sweet tea (a delicious clue that they hadn’t strayed too far from Carolina orthodoxy) while we waited for our meat to arrive. We weren’t disappointed: the pork was tender and juicy, with a nice pink smoke ring testifying to its time in the smoker. The sauce was typical eastern North Carolina vinegar-based. My only complaint about the ‘cue was that it lacked the full complement of smoky goodness — there were no visible “outside brown” bits, the chewy pieces from the outside of the shoulder that pack much of the flavor.

As for the sides, the baked beans were spectacular, sweet and spicy with hefty chunks of ham. The slaw was light and crunchy, a perfect complement to BBQ. The thick-cut fried green tomatoes had a tasty cornmeal crust fried up right and crispy, a substantial improvement on the adequate but unremarkable version at Mama Dip’s. And in a subtle but inspired touch, the BBQ entrees came with a few apparently homemade sweet pickled cucumber slices. Usually I’m a dill pickle partisan, but these pickles made me reconsider my stance. They were crisp and lightly sweet, not soggy and cloying like store-bought sweet pickle rounds.

Just as we finished our meal, the owner came out with three desserts on the house: the sweet potato bread pudding with whiskey sauce we’d been eyeing earlier, a slice of key lime pie, and some banana pudding. (We hadn’t even dropped the bbq.isgoodfor.us name yet, so chalk it up to genuine hospitality!) The key lime pie was well-executed but perhaps the least notable of the three. The banana pudding hit the spot; it’s a North Carolina classic with chunks of banana and vanilla wafer cookies. The real superstar, though, was the bread pudding and its delightful interplay of caramelized sweet potato goodness with whiskey fire. We passed around all three plates, but the bread pudding drew the most longing stares as it made the journey around the table. (Will there be one more bite for me?)

Add the Barbecue Joint to the list of must-eats in Chapel Hill. It’s not quite the same genre as old stalwarts such as Allen and Son’s, but there’s room for both under the BBQ big tent.

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The bbq.isgoodfor.us crew is on a field trip to North Carolina. For our first culinary stop, Tamar, Andrew, and I head for lunch is Mama Dip’s Country Kitchen in Chapel Hill. This restaurant is a classic for southern country cooking, and while it’s not strictly a BBQ joint, they do make BBQ, and we tried it, so we’ll review it here.

We started off with a quick hit of fried green tomatoes. We all thought they were good, but not as crispy as they could’ve been. The corn meal batter had a nice flavor, though they served the dish with a side of ranch which overpowered everything else.

For lunch, Tamar and Andrew both had fried chicken, which is the real rock star of this Chapel Hill institution. Tamar chose white meat, which was quite tender and juicy, not overdone at all the way a lot of white meat fried chicken is. Andrew’s dark meat (also my favorite) was amazing, with a perfect, dark brown, nutty, crisp crust. (Andrew says: The fried chicken at Mama Dip’s is indeed nearly perfect — but I would add that I’ve made my own fried chicken with the recipe in one of the restaurant’s cookbooks, Mama Dip’s Kitchen, and the simple coating in that recipe of flour, salt, and pepper does not fry up nearly as hefty or crunchy as what they now serve at the restaurant.)

The sides were impressive too. I had a side of fried okra, which was tasty, though I was a little confused about how each of the crispy nuggets got to be exactly the same size. Andrew and I both tried the greens, which were the tastiest I’ve ever had, nicely seasoned with little bits of pork. Tamar tried the yams, which were the disappointment of the bunch, mushy and overly sweet. Andrew had black eyed peas which were also not great, mushy, but at the same time grainy / chalky the way beans can get.

I ordered the chopped pork plate, and was reminded that just because NC is a hotspot for BBQ, not every worthwhile restaurant around here makes good BBQ. The pork was the consistency of sloppy joe, looking like it had been stewed in a steam tray for quite a while. There were no brown bits, no texture to the meat, no smoke, and little flavor. Pouring on extra sauce, which seemed to be a hybrid with vinegar and quite a bit of mustard, helped the dish quite a bit.

Still, we all agreed, if you’re in Chapel Hill go to Mama Dip’s, enjoy the classic southern dishes. Drink a gallon of sweet tea and feel the sugar buzz. Order the fried chicken. Avoid the BBQ.

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see more pwn and owned pictures

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OMG, stop sending me links to articles about the Bacon Explosion. It’s not like it wasn’t covered in the NY Times, for peetsake.

Clearly, those BBQ addicts did a great job of coming up with a BBQ(-ish) dish that’s so over the top, no one could ignore it. But am I a fan of the Bacon Explosion? Am I drooling, just waiting for the chance to have people over so I can try it myself. No way. I’m not a fan. Not at all. Let me see if I can lay out why:

1. At first thought, the idea of combining foods that are individually good and then cooking them together seems brilliant. 1 + 1 = 2, right? Not in this case. All pork products are not created equal. Far from it. I love bacon. I love sausage. I’ll eat them both on the same plate with eggs and hash browns. But do I want a bacon wrapped sausage? Nope. These are two things that are best enjoyed separately. Turducken also seems like a fun, tasty idea from afar. Take three good things (or four, depending on your use of sausage), and shove them inside of each other. Yum? Nope. Have you ever tried a turducken? It sucks. It’s not good. It ruins all that’s right and good about a turkey or a duck or a chicken cooked right.
2. There’s an even bigger problem, though. Bacon is one of the world’s most perfect foods. Good bacon is a delicate balance of salty, smoky, porky flavors. The lean and the fat on a nice crisp strip of bacon make for the perfect textural balance. So, why would you want to take all that, wrap it around a hunk of sausage, and shove it back in the smoker for a few hours? Balance gone. Flavor gone. Texture gone. It’s wrong. WRONG.

Anyway. I can’t speak for Andrew, but for me, I’ve seen the Bacon Explosion, and I hope I never see it again.

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The incomparable Ayman Shamma has shared the recipe for his BBQ sauce. It was a big hit at last year’s pig pickin’:

Chairman Mao’s People’s BBQ Sauce

• 32-36 oz Heinz ketchup (just buy whichever bottle is about that size err on the smaller size)
• 3/4 cup white granulated sugar (baker’s sugar preferred)
• 1 large white onion (grated)
• 1 medium yellow onion (chopped)
• 5/8 cup Rice Wine vinegar (it’s important to get a good vinegar)
• 2 tsp Turmeric
• 2 T Cayenne pepper
• 1 T White Pepper
• 4 Tsp Soy sauce
• 7 Cloves Crushed Garlic
• Crushed Ginger equal volume to the garlic

Mix all and let sit in fridge overnight to let the vinegar infuse. You can season to taste in the morning.

I can attest that time is a key factor in this recipe. The sauce got better practically every day until it went bad. I often make the mistake of making sauce the day of – I just don’t plan ahead well enough. It’s fine, but you can’t really get the blending of flavors that makes a sauce truly transcendent unless you make it days in advance. If you want to add drippings, that’s even better. Just make the base in advance and mix drippings to base as necessary.

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