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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Come and Catch the Sickness

	It's art, dad.

Vegetarians beware. Carnivores rejoice. Omnivores, you too. The Lancaster Smokehouse has inherited one of the city’s most proletariat of spaces and made a place for the most troubled of us eaters looking for food to pacify us against a sea of working class troubles. Where the portions will spoil you, and the waitresses will introduce you to other waitresses, if you’re charming enough to ask them. Let your troubles melt away, come and catch the sickness, because you haven’t lived until you’ve eaten at Hog Tails BBQ’s bigger little brother.

You heard right, the popular joint has expanded its business and transformed a dear old dive of mine, the Lancaster House Tavern- a place where serious drinkers would mock you by asking where your sherry was- into a champion of barbecue and Southern eating.

Now, I ain’t ever been to New Orleans, but I reckon if I’d a’ gone, this place sho’ woulda reminded me a momma’s cookin’. Maybe papa’s. Maybe ma brudda, o’ a’ sista’s. A forty-five minute wait at a shy hour or two before the place is set to close on a Friday night can’t tell no lie. The food’s gotta be great; either that, or the remote location makes it the most exploitable restaurant in the area. And don’t let the look of the place fool you either. The tables may remind you of your grandmother’s farmhouse, it may look like a ghost of its former self, trying to come to some sort of covenant with its new conventions, it may look like everyone’s having a family reunion at the same time in the same space, like some big picnic with walls. It may even remind you of some sort of tacky set up for a joke. Something along the lines of: a school, a pool hall, and a basement apartment decide to diplomatically go into the restaurant design business and accept each other’s respective love for orange walls, lacquered tables, and cobblestone pillars; punch line, laugh, and so on. Will it affirm an identity in the future? I don’t know. But I don’t care, because with an atmosphere of lively customers, a band playing blues and guitars squealing higher than the pigs slaughtered to make the pulled pork sandwiches, the look of the place is the most of the Smokehouse’s troubles. That’s right. I said most.

I can’t begin to properly tell you what’s on the menu. An array of fare from expected barbecue dernier cri like ribs, and sandwiches, to Louisiana favourites like gumbo, shrimp calas, and jambalaya, to anomalies like pig tails. Yes, it has it all, and we got it all: Carolina style pulled pork sandwiches, pico de gallo- that’s salsa for those of you who don’t know- and what the place calls Texas fries. Or what the waitress affectionately described as ‘poutine on crack.’ We laughed. But don’t worry, dear readers, I told her there was nothing funny about mixing food metaphors with drug abuse. We ordered so much, the staff obligingly put two tables together. People couldn’t help but stare in appetizing admiration. And if you think it cost an arm and a leg, guess again, nachos were plentiful, the fries were larger than two grown mens’ heads and the pulled pork a mile high. But we’s a just gettin’ started.

	I wish she was my neighbour. Coincidentally, I wish I had better camera skills.

Like the hoi polloi we were, we asked for everything at once. No need for any eating pretenses, we intended to dig in and dig in we did.

Our pico de gallo was a fresh cut of big clumsy cubed Roma tomatoes, green onions, red jalapeno’s, cilantro, olive oil, and lime juice, partnered with house nachos sworn fresh, but unfortunately, rather stale and greasy, not crisp and airy as expected. And although the salsa was a quenching compliment to all the savoury food we ordered, it did little to hinder the chips’ stale quality. The size of the salsa’s pieces was also a mess to eat. Without the tenacious quality we expect from popular salsas- that kind of viscosity that grabs onto whatever is dipped in them, we were hard pressed to tiredly fork it onto each chip. I could appreciate the sentiment of making a fresh salsa, but hated the practicality. Still, that was about as bad as the meal got. It was all uphill from there.


The Texas fries were the paramount player of our meal. Fries swamped by blushed bits of tender pink brisket and fatty gristle the size of my fingers were smothered in a white cheddar cheese and gravy. I was glad the place had the boldness to sell such a daring dish. The fries absorbed a smoky quality, and the peppery cheese blended well with the silky quality of the meat. For an 8 dollar dish it was more than worth it.

Our piled high pulled pork sandwich was a calm combination of bald slow cooked pork, mild but uplifting thanks to the homemade peppery coleslaw piled on top, and the sweet familiar sauce on top of that. I was relieved the pork was an arid constitution, not saturated in its own juices like the sandwiches I’ve had before that do nothing but make every grinder I have fall apart, resulting in a wet, frustrating mess. Of course it was messy, but it was fun. And the chewy Portuguese dinner roll that wrapped itself around it did a good job of matching the pork’s own textural tone.

For me, it was a dream come true for barbecue, and if dreams come true in New Orleans, then they certainly come true at the Smokehouse. And if, by some culinary act of providence, the Smokehouse ever decides to make beignets, I’ll have no qualms about never waking up.



The Lancaster Smokehouse
519 743 4331
574 Lancaster St. W, Kitchener, ON
N2K 1M3

Mon – Wed: 11am – 9pm
Thurs – Sat: 11am – 10pm
Closed Sundays

ALL PAYMENTS

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