Piggy Pioneers

Together, Joey and I are terrible eaters. Or, at least, we have been lately. Heck, we could have a blog about poutine alone. But, that said, we focus on our own dharma; perform our own duties- and therein lies our own happiness. So when and if it boils down to clogged arteries and poor health, we’ve no qualms about what will be ‘there.’ We are, after all, both ‘here.’ And ‘here’ involves a whole lot of high calories, meat, and southern barbecue from this week’s venue, Southern Ontario Smoked BBQ: a family owned pit barbecue restaurant that started its operation as a travelling trailer, now hunkered down in its own tiny, almost clandestined strip-mall venue, sharing its space with a few other almost unknown eateries. Even so, I imagine its incognito location does nothing to particularly work against it.

SOS BBQ has been around for some time, and its steady stream of patrons certainly advocated this, coming and going in a tiny space with contradictory, yet calming glaucous coloured walls, but totally anticipated caricatures of pigs and roasts, chalk-boards, television, and pleather place settings. How could we resist that charm? Or a nice sized menu with all the necessary kinds of barbecue we were both craving the night prior: Joey, ribs; me, pulled pork anything. And, of course, poutine. That was all Joey though. I thought I needed a break from all that. But you better believe that the novelty I always search for was there. This time in the form of a mix I’ve never heard of: Brunswick stew. A tomato base, six bean, corn, and smoked meat stew you could even put on your poutine if you were so inclined. Joey wasn’t. He, like me, got it on the side.

It was barbecue that shouldn’t otherwise exist in the dead of winter. But still, there it was, a full order of smoked ribs on Joey’s side, poutine with chicken and cheese, and stew. And then there was mine: pulled pork piled high on a bun slathered with mustard and sweet barbecue sauce, that Brunswick stew, and a whole lot of coleslaw- my only Mason Dixon weakness.

When it came to the meat, we couldn’t finish fast enough. Our enthusiasm was even rewarded with a pigtail on the side. Tender, fatty, briny; you couldn’t touch it without it sliding off the bone. I liked it; its pickled character was a little too alien for Joey when it came to meat, but if it were anything like his ribs, let me tell you, he’d have no qualms about coming back. I’m eager enough to say the same about my pulled pork. The deep, red ribbons of flesh were moist, tender, and salted just right; I could have easily had it without my pungent, spicy sweet sauce. Without my glossy, droughty bun. Anything meat was certainly the star at SOS BBQ. Our stew was a little too gummy, a little too canned, a brackish brew of overpowering, familiar tomato soup flavor. The slaw, certainly creamy looking, but more wet and lip puckering than we preferred. Any herbs used fell short; I couldn’t taste a thing besides sweet, saline, stale akali flavour. And it was a crying shame, especially with so little side dishes on the menu. We hated to think of them as obligatory options, but we were thinkin’ it. Either way, there was always anything meat.

SOS BARBECUE
525 Highland Rd. W.
Kitchener, ON
519-496-4052

Sunday         12 PM-8 PM
Monday         11 AM-8 PM
Tuesday        CLOSED
Wednesday   11 AM-8PM
Thurs-Sat      11 AM-9 PM

ANY PAYMENT

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