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| - This restaurant feels like the sort of place you'd expect to find attached to an old gas station off a rural highway, you know, the kind where the gas pumps are so old they don't accept credit cards. It feels very rustic and do-it-yourself, with big old wooden dinner tables taking the place of booths or diner-style seating. None of this is "bad" and it didn't really bother me, mind you, but it's not going to be everyone's cup of tea.
As I came in an employee urged me to sample their barbecue sauces (they offer 10 or so options) which were lined up on a table in little plastic condiment cups, along with a basket of bite-sized bread bits. This immediately struck me as kind of gross: these plastic cups had been sitting in the open air for God knows how long. How many bugs had landed in these sauce cups? Also, how many people had double-dipped in these things? Granted, that's unlikely given the small size of the bread bits, but still. I kind of cringed at the notion of sampling BBQ sauce through this method, but I did sample a few of their "sweet" sauces, and both of them were quite tasty. Still, I'd feel much better if the sauce samples were in little squeeze bottles.
I ordered the Exploding Pig, I believe it's called, with their "Apple" BBQ sauce and pan-fried potatoes. The sandwich was very good. I'm not any kind of BBQ expert, but they gave me enough sauce (on the side) to saturate the sandwich, which is how I like it, and the meat was tender and juicy and tasty. The potatoes were good in a home-made sort of way. And it was all relatively affordable (I put it in the ~$10/meal "fast casual" category). I'm curious to try their ribs next.
If I'm ever in the mood for a BBQ dinner, I will certainly consider Porktropolis over Texas Roadhouse or other Madison options, because the food is tasty. But the down-home, barely-up-to-code feel of the restaurant leaves things to be desired. And please, find a more palatable (and professional) way to present your sauce samples!
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