. "5"^^ . "1"^^ . "4"^^ . "I wish people would relax- complaining about styrofoam plates and the like- must be BBQ neophytes. BBQ is an art form and the best cannot be mass produced, period. It has to be hand crafted, like the best beer. Would you rather the restaurant owner focus on your meat or running dishes through the washer?\n\nI lived in the south for a long time, and have had BBQ of every variety- East Carolina, the several variants of Georgia and Florida styles, Texas, Memphis, Cincinnati, St Louis, Arkansas, and KC style BBQ; at places reknown and obscure, including the lamb barbeque served at Moonlite BBQ of Ownesboro, KY. I don't think there's a genuine BBQ place up and down I-75/85/95 whose food I haven't sampled, having been married to a Southerner who insisted on trying them all.\n\nI've eaten it off of china, paper and styro plates, out of to go boxes, in red and white checked paper boats or plastic baskets lined with wax paper and even served on a tray with compartments reminiscent of a prisoner's chow line in Fayetteville, Georgia where it came standard with white bread, brunswick stew, bread and butter pickles, and nary a vegetable. I have eaten BBQ smoked on an open trailer pulled by a truck and sold only \"to go,\" and on a roadside picnic table next to an enclosed trailer with a smoker out back on an undeveloped lot. On weekend nights, I have bought my BBQ curbside from someone smoking meat on the street in front of their house in a neighborhood of Daytona known as The Bottoms; a place where white folks like myself didn't go without a friend who was a local riding alongside me. \n\nAt least a hundred different BBQ joints tried out over a span of ten plus years, and that was only after \"prescreening\" the places for authenticity. For years I swore the best of them all was Tom Jrs. in Boynton Beach, a tiny shack next to the railroad that made melt in your mouth greens and everything from scratch. (The owner was the son of the famous Tom of Tom's BBQ in the southern Palm Beach area of Delray/Boca Raton.) Well, at least I thought it was the best, but Memphis BBQ of Buckeye has given Tom Jr. a run for first place. \n\nGiven the fact that I live here in AZ now, I'll take the commute to Memphis Best BBQ over Palm Beach County any day. The meat here is sublime, cooked to perfection, and brimming with the flavor that only slow smoking and tender oversight can produce. People whose idea of BBQ is Damon's, Tony Roma's, Chili's, and other chains won't get it, but true devotees always will.\n\nThe most amazing thing is that here I am, a transplanted easterner who grew up in the shadow of NY and bounced around the south for nearly two decades, who buys a house in the far end of Maricopa County, yet I wind up in a town that not only has a genuine BBQ joint in town, but also a real NY Pizza joint (a different review altogether.) For those of you who have had access to either of those oft mimicked but seldom duplicated foods, finding real smoked BBQ is like finding the grail.\nWho cares how long it takes the staff to serve it or what it's served on, it still beats having to go without."^^ . . . "2011-04-01T00:00:00"^^ . "0"^^ .