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| - When we planned our trip to Charlotte I began asking around for recommendations for barbecue. This place was the one that was highlighted. Our party put all the pressure on me for the selection; I wanted this to come through.
Foodwise, Spoon's delivers all right. They kept highlighting their new ribs. It was unclear to me whether they never had ribs before or whether this was a new recipe. Two of us ordered ribs, the other two barbecue, which means chopped whole hog. Since I was having a platter, I received a soda and apparently a refill. That is where things got wonky. Service was rough. The refill never came nor did the hush puppies. That was frustrating.
I had a bite of the ribs. They were okay. Frankly, they were cooked too much as they came right off the bone. I didn't taste much seasoning, although they smelled heavenly. The barbecue left me wanting. There was no taste other than pork. Don't get me wrong, it was cooked fine, but again, seasoning was not present. I used the vinegar sauce. I enjoyed that and it perked up the barbecue nicely. My side was Brunswick stew. Nothing wrong there, but nothing extraordinary either.
Whenever I hit a barbecue joint, I always ask to see the pit. The guy was very accommodating with that. He apologized that the one pit hadn't been cleaned. No worries, trust me. He explained that county regs now forbade cooking commercially on open pits. The two electric pits are in a small smokehouse. He had a half dozen pans of mac and cheese smoking in the one pit. A normal day is smoking two whole hogs up to 140 pounds each and a few Smithfield hams. That made an impression as one of our party works for Smithfield.
This was an enjoyable experience. I would come back. It, like a lot of places, play it conservative in the preparation of the 'cue so not to be too spicy, smokey, etc. I would have liked it to be more bold.
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