On the eve of November 4, 2008, I found myself outside the Obama campaign’s northern California headquarters, straddling the border between Berkeley and Oakland as crowds of victory-crazed Americans thronged to the street corners of history. When the junior senator from Illinois first announced his candidacy for the office of president of the United States, the political scientist in me was quick to fortify the barricades of skepticism. By 8PM on election night, the American in me decided that no reasoned analysis can restrain the joys of being part of a drunken mob. Yes, I did!

Such a historic evening, of course, calls for a historic hangover cure. With the glee of a new president shining down upon the East Bay, I make my way to my favorite counter to celebrate with a man named Jodie. If you’ve been following The Eaten Path, you’ll know that Jodie makes a perfect bowl of grits and is responsible for the greatest mission ever assigned to two eggs.

A great many tales could be told about the sixty-nine year old, five-foot-three answer to the chicken and the egg that is Jodie Royston. What you really need to know is that this is a man who never says, “Goodbye,” always has a bag of dry dog food behind the counter for his customers’ best friends and greases his griddle with generous amounts of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter. He’s built a twenty year legacy of home cooked hospitality in a hole in the wall under the BART track in Albany, a paramount of neighborhoodism that manages to outdo the model neighborhood in which it’s tucked away. He’s never had a use for more than six diners at his counter and proudly displays an eight by ten close up of himself, sucking the last morsels of flavor off of a fried chicken leg that he had just taken out of the fryer, behind the customers that have become a part of his family.

The food at Jodie’s is as much a labor of love as the restaurant itself. Jodie’s ingredients are bought fresh and local, even when “fresh” and “local” mean “Minute Maid.” Never one to pander, Jodie cooks for his customers the way he would cook for his grandchildren (one of which is a regular behind the counter). Homemade grits and fried chicken are served on weekends. His country scramble, a brilliant ribbon of medium-cooked yolk swirled over scrambled white, is the non-negotiable style of eggs cooked to order. His English muffins, steeped and crisped in margarine, help to redefine the meaning of “nook and cranny.” The cheesecake is baked at home by Jodie’s wife; try the mango.

Jodie’s specials, all 40+ of them, aren’t so much bold new directions or trussed up classics as they are startling visitations of the expected. Eggs Royston, Big Foss and Something Different all turn Eggs Benedict on their yolks, amassing all kinds of flavor and texture beneath a blanket of flash-poached eggs and homemade hollandaise. The Torta sends the concept of corned beef hash through Jodie’s filter of flavor, mixing fresh corned beef with country hash browns and grilled vegetables to a delightfully crispy end. Nothing, the cook’s own breakfast omakase, yields a different concoction every time, sometimes involving ingredients as far-reaching as fresh cactus. Jody’s With a Y, which crowns a plate of grits with a country scramble and chopped or ground hot link (if you’re lucky, you’ll get a healthy dollop of sausage grease ladled into the mix), is so stupidly tasty that it calls into question the value of every food not named after a customer and presented on a tackily decorated sheet of laminated printer paper.

With this knowledge in our stomachs, my comrades and I walk into Jodie’s for a taste of his latest special: the Obama. It starts with a perfectly crisped layer of hash browns. Jodie tops the potatoes with three strips of barbecued beef brisket and anoints the combination with his homemade Arkansas BBQ sauce, a tomato-free dressing of molasses, vinegar and other heavenly sources of tang. The entire platter is just small enough to be enjoyed as seconds on top of any other of Jodie’s specials- which is fortunate, because on the morning after the greatest election of my short lifetime, I’m hungry enough for eight years of BBQ.

The bundle is laid next to a flapjack and served with an expression of relief. Newspapers are flocking from their shelves. Echoes of the words, “Yes, we did!” are sounding throughout the city. Under the BART track in Albany, though, this historic outpouring of pride and community is little more than a twinkle in Jodie’s eye. After all, pride and community are nothing new to a man who’s spent twenty years cooking breakfast in a hole in the wall. It’s just a shame that it took the rest of the country this long to catch up with him for breakfast.

Jodie’s
902 Masonic Ave
Albany, CA 94706
510.526.1109

The Eaten Path has not run dry.
This blog will, however, be on hiatus while I drive across the United States and move into my new home in Brooklyn, New York.
Until then, enjoy this 1/2 pound Texas smoked pork chop from Smitty’s Market in Lockhart.

This is part of a dual post between Monster Munching and The Eaten Path.
You can read Elmo Monster’s review here.

It’s no secret that The Eaten Path runs on slanted taste buds: for every post I write under the heading of “noodles” there are four posts under the heading of “deep fried.” The eminence of BBQ, southern cooking and fast food on this blog betray an obsession with America- its glory, its trappings, and its ineffable excess- that has so far overshadowed the multiculturalism that underpins my country’s existence. This is, of course, the eaten path, one that too frequently falls off of the radar of foodies and Zagat coattail jockeys, but it’s surely not the only path to tread.

For example, I have never eaten a proper bowl of Pho. I’ve long understood Pho to be an absolute staple of the Southern California diet, but for one reason or another have never taken the time to bond with Vietnam’s most recognizable and hieroglyphic contribution to the American dinner table. In confronting myself with this fact, I thought of the one person who could help me along the eaten path to a more streetwise and sophisticated palette.

His name is Elmo Monster, and his voluminous review blog, Monster Munching, leaves no depth of Orange County unplumbed when it comes to the basic joys of everyday eating. Exercising an elegant hand with a to-the-point focus on food, he has gained the loyal readership of many a chowhound with his efficient yet enjoyable writings on corner shops, holes in the wall, strip mall developments, fine dining establishments and everything else that makes stomachs churn in Southern California. Working as an engineer and writing for multiple blogs in his spare time, Elmo is the best kind of food review writer: a hungry human being combining a love of food with a love of information. He also happens to know quite a bit about Southeast Asian cuisine.

When I wrote Elmo with the proposition of a cross-post, I suggested that he teach me something about Pho. He upped the ante, inviting me instead to an early lunch at Trieu Chau, a Cambodian/Vietnamese restaurant that constantly brims with customers in its strip mall on West 1st and Newhope in Santa Ana. We approached the doors at 10:45 on a Wednesday morning, and the building was already bristling with activity. As our waiter promptly seated us, asked for our orders and placed two Chinese donuts on the table, I realized that while this may not be a hole in the wall, it most certainly grew out of one. Trieu Chau has a complete lack of atmosphere and keen attention to perfunctory service that makes you wonder what the point of a sitdown restaurant was in the first place. Within six minutes of our arrival we were facing two piping hot bowls of noodles.

Though inscripted on the menu in Vietnamese, our picks seemed to share roots in Cambodian and Chinese cooking. Elmo’s choice was Hu Tieu Nam Vang (Chao Chow Rice Noodle), a healthy serving of rice stick noodles mixed with fish cake, shrimp, various pork parts, and scallions in a pork/chicken broth. My order, Hu Tieu Vit (Chao Chow Duck Noodle), started with the same noodles and broth but added several pieces of freshly cooked duck (including an entire duck leg) in place of the kaleidoscopic array of meats in Elmo’s bowl. Neither qualified as Pho, but both were highly appetizing. After performing the food blogger ritual of pre-meal photography, we picked up our oversized chopsticks.

Elmo had told me that Trieu Chau served “the real deal.” The broth of my Hu Tieu Vit was the first ringing endorsement of his claim. Almost distractingly bold, this was the most direct of soup stocks; clearly, no shortcuts had been taking in infusing it with the essence of its meats. The upfront flavors of pork, chicken and garlic were a bit much for me, but the hyper-richness of flavor did not extend to the viscosity of the broth, which was as slurpable as thermos soup. Squeezing a lime into the fray cut through the dense savories with a tangy kick, making the taste a bit less intense for the Hu Tieu newcomer.

I got to work on the other contents of my soup, tossing in handfuls of bean sprouts to add some texture to the simple design of the dish. Trieu Chau’s rice stick noodles were a sinuous delight, flowing lithely over my chopsticks and transforming into chewy bites of rice in my mouth. The duck that had been dismembered into chunks of dark meat for my pleasure did not die in vain: It was hearty, tender and impossible to leave to leftovers.

Sadly, I couldn’t say the same about the soup as a whole. After slurping and gnawing my way through 1/3 of my meal, I couldn’t handle more of that delicious yet otherworldly broth. While my session with Elmo inspired me to expand my everyday tastes, I know I’ll require more on-the-job training if I’m going to make it to the bottom of my first bowl of Pho.

Trieu Chau
4401 W. 1st St.
Santa Ana, CA 92703
714.775.1536

I’m a longtime advocate of making southern fried chicken America’s national food. Burgers and hot dogs are fine miniature flag bearers of our fake empire, but in the United States, discerning individuals know that the bird is the word. Sadly, like the zombified burgers and dogs who dominate global markets, our country’s leading export of so-called fried chicken is an abomination of the form. As a result, in life outside of the these United States, the bird is in fact not equal to or greater than the word. It is a slimy, sloppy perversion of America’s heartiest heartland heartthrob.

What then, makes the difference between the world’s most powerfully positioned fried chicken and its very best? Many a hungry American has formulated the answer to this question: the weightless crisp of a minimally floured chicken skin. Fluffy folds of heavily layered, deep fried bread crumbs. Herbs and spices robbed from the grave of an alcoholic Confederate brigadier general. White meat that is juicy to the bone and dark meat that practically falls off it when eaten. The ability to remain crisp and, dare I say, refreshing, after a night in the refrigerator- and the ability to completely dehydrate a human being if he’s too cavalier with his fried chicken intake. All of the above, with an above-ground pool of brown gravy ladled atop. Who is the real hero?

I realized my own litmus test for fried chicken at a shack in Pomona, California. Donahoo’s Golden Chicken is a southern fried chicken joint run by an extended Chinese family that doesn’t allow anyone to photograph their business, which houses two rows of deep fryers, a couple of heat lamp trays and a take-out counter. The design of the building predates Thriller and the giant chicken perched high above the marquee may have served in Patton’s army. The luckiest Donahoo’s customers will have their order taken by a cheerful high school student who has more pride in that chicken than your next door neighbor has in her dry, joyless, homemade chocolate chip cookies.

Donahoo’s fried chicken is supposedly descended from a Donahoo family. I’m fairly certain that the Donahoos of the 50s were a shade less Chinese than their successors, just as I’m certain that their successors are responsible for the wonder that it is today. In Pomona, Donahoo’s fried chicken is an extra nail in Harland Sanders’ casket: the crunchy, chewy folds of floured and fried chicken skin seem to be designed with the Kentucky Colonel’s surrender in mind, aiming for the same heavy duty goal of KFC without the curse of its greasy, slippery, charmless execution. Rich golden brown and speckled with black, it packs a powerful punch of salt and pepper, sending herbs and spices running for the deceptively simple taste of a real home recipe. The texture of Donahoo’s chicken manages to skirt all of southern fried chicken’s hallmarks at once, from stick-to-the-meat pan fry to slide-off-the-meat shell to bunched-in-a-corner deposits of savory deep fried fat.

At times the white meat at Donahoo’s can be dry, but when your chicken is made to order there are few things more succulent than a strip of their fried chicken torn right off the breastbone. On my most recent visit to the golden bird, I ordered the half-chicken dinner special and carried my white donut box of fried chicken, steak fries and homemade dinner rolls out to my car, then sat for a moment to watch the man in the parking spot next to mine. He had ordered his fried chicken less than a minute ahead of me and was wasting no time eating all of it in the driver’s seat of his 90’s Lincoln sedan, windows down and self-consciousness sitting at home, waiting for dinner.

So: The true test of southern fried chicken is how long it takes for a man to break down and eat it straight out of the box (or if he’s a lucky man, straight out of the bucket). After seeing that, I couldn’t recall a time I was near a freshly fried bird and made it all the way home without eating at least one piece in the car. I tried taking my chicken at least to a local park, but made it only as far as the local Jack in the Box parking lot. After devouring my meal, reeling from salt shock and barely able to walk, I knew I was a fool to leave Donahoo’s without taking a single bite.

Donahoo’s Golden Chicken
1074 N Garey Ave
Pomona, CA 91767
909.622.3213

During my last visit to East-West Hair, I got on the topic of hunger with my barber, Ikho. He asked me if I had ever eaten ramen. I couldn’t tell exactly how complicated he intended that question to be, so I answered in the affirmative. Ikho encouraged me to pay a visit to the shopping center next door and try a bowl of their ramen, which he simply characterized as “very good.”

In our world of democratized research, where the technologically deft are constantly developing new ways to aggregate the world’s dining experience, it’s easy to underestimate the gravity of a single recommendation. A local tip can seem trifling when held against the mass of its counterparts online. The growing accessibility and interactive nature of restaurant reviews is surely a boon to those with utility to maximize, but access to DSL does not a decisive diner make.

Yelp, which a friend of mine once compared to a premature ejaculation, demonstrates this dilemma most effectively: On the one hand, it offers instant vital information on any dining establishment imaginable, but on the other hand it delivers a dizzying array of opinions that forces more responsibility on its user than is often convenient. By linking restaurant reviews with some of Web 2.0’s less noble features, Yelp’s doesn’t denigrate the demand of a quality writeup, but it does complicate food with popularity contests and a community of widgets.

It was curmudgeonly thrill to me, then, that Ikho wanted to acquaint me with his favorite ramen bowl. Scenes from Tampopo flashed through my mind as I entered Mitsuwa Marketplace and headed straight for the food court, where a long line of lunch break visitors made clear which counter I was meant to patronize. I ordered a bowl of spicy miso ramen and sat down in a corner booth with my prize, imagining myself in the company of the Ramen Master himself. I would later discover that I had been led to Santoka, a Mitsuwa food court constant that in reality bears less romanticism than I had first imagined.

Nevertheless, much like that legendary first chapter of Tampopo, Santoka’s spicy miso ramen turned my meager experience with Japanese noodles on its head and redefined the genre with every savory slurp. Foremost was the broth, positively sparkling with grease. Its shimmer was backed by a rich, almost milky consistency, which provided a complex yet comforting base for the broth’s salty, greasy, modestly spicy flavors. While a typical bowl of ramen broth would be little more than a diluted dissolve, Santoka’s broth possessed the taste of a sommelier and the body of a teamster.

Fulfilling the promise of a magnificent broth were Santoka’s ramen noodles, carrying themselves with the same strength of body and purpose. Even more crucial than the noodles’ hearty texture was their abundance. It’s hard to overstate the importance of balance when it comes to soup; even if the broth is delicious enough to drink as a beverage, it does little to satisfy without a generous helping of the ingredients that make a bowl of ramen truly satisfying. Santoka’s noodles, commanding the volume of the bowl, were held high in this regard.

Bringing everything into focus were the accoutrement of any ramen bowl: sliced pork, fish cake, mushrooms, bamboo shoots, scallions and seaweed. Each ingredient was perfectly cooked: the pork a fine cut of fatty meat, the bamboo boiled just enough to register as tender, and the others present in quantities restrained enough to serve their purpose.

As I finished a bowl of ramen broth for the first time in my life without being prompted by promises of glory, I understood what the Ramen Master meant by “affection,” and what Ikho meant by “very good.” The averaged judgments of 155 Yelp accounts already stood behind those words, but it took the delivery of a Japanese hairstylist to give them meaning.

Santoka (inside Mitsuwa Marketplace)
665 Paularino Ave
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
714.434.1101

“Do you think when the guy came up with the idea to invent the bong, a blacklight popped up over his head?” -Mitch Hedberg

I’m not quite sure what popped up over my head when I was blessed with the idea for bacon corn dog ice cream. I only know what popped into my stomach: an urgent, perverse sense of hunger that may be the closest I’ll ever get to bearing a child. Suffice it to say, I discovered who my true friends were when I began spread the message of bacon corn dog ice cream and its potential benefits for human civilization. Meg and the Mathemagician immediately volunteered to help me realize this vision, and in two weeks I was mixing corn dog batter in their kitchen.

I used a disheveled Wikihow recipe for the corn dogs, replacing full sized frankfurters with cocktail wieners. My first few attempts were overcooked and uneven, but eventually I mastered the art of the coat-and-fry, turning out frank-filled hush puppies that plumped, crisped, and melted in my mouth in one ineffable bite. The main event, of course, was the groundbreaking submersion of mini corn dogs into a river of ice cream. To administer our great experiment, Meg prepared what would become the greatest ice cream I have ever tasted.

She followed a recipe for candied bacon ice cream, with two key changes. The first was to eliminate the candying process, instead frying and chopping the bacon to mix, unadorned, into the final product. The second change was to replace the butter in our ice cream custard with pure bacon fat. The results of this alteration were immense: while the taste of bacon emerged as a subtle undercurrent, the richness of the mixture was downright devilry. Sensations of maple, meat, and brown sugar streamed from the spoon in deceptively smooth ribbons of flavor, each more consummate than the last. The fresh bacon bits completed the picture perfectly, providing a savory punch and a scatter shot of focus for the bacon fat in the ice cream.

Having taken the penultimate step towards my black bulb thought bubble, I fried up a handful of mini-corn dogs, mixed them into my bowl of ice cream, and immediately lifted the spoon to my mouth. The freshly fried cornmeal batter promptly absorbed its host, not unlike the fried shell of tempura ice cream. My bite into the corn dog retained the crisp of its batter, which quickly gave way to a delightfully blended texture of crumbs and cream, all swirling around the pronounced bite of a cocktail frankfurter in its prime. While the intrusion of a streetwise hot dog into the more sophisticated realm of bacon fat and milk brought an abrupt end to the symphony of flavor, it remained reassuring to anyone who’s ever wondered if chicken fried bacon would be great or amazing, or jumped at the chance to taste a fresh batch of Kool-Aid pickles.

Surely this was not a dessert for all seasons. The Mathemagician joined in my revelry of a dream fulfilled, but Meg noted that the ice cream made her feel sick. This didn’t change the fact that it may be her greatest accomplishment yet and a feat I hope to outdo in some future act of culinary daring and unspeakable fat that redefines the meaning of the words, “American fried.”

When I’m away from Kansas City and in low spirits, I try to envision someone walking up to the counterman at Bryant’s and ordering a beef sandwich to go– for me. The counterman tosses a couple pieces of bread onto the counter, grabs a half a pound of beef from the pile next to him, slaps it onto the bread, brushes on some sauce in almost the same motion, and then wraps it all up in two thicknesses of butcher paper in a futile attempt to keep the customer’s hand dry as he carries off his prize.

I have no problem believing that when Calvin Trillin typed out these words in the early ’70s, Arthur Bryant’s really was, as he likes to proclaim, “the single best restaurant in the world.” Having now eaten at the original Arthur Bryant’s smokehouse at 18th and Brooklyn in Kansas City, I have no problem believing that it still is the single best restaurant in the world. My taste buds have yet to catch up to my beliefs, but it’s a matter of fact that taste buds can evolve. Beliefs are at their best when unblinking and pathological.

As far as beliefs go, Bryant’s deserves its own Monopoly square. Walking through the front door of this red brick institution, which stands alone at a vacated intersection of Kansas City, is enough to make you feel like a union member. The scent of smoke is immediate, the seating is unadorned, and the service counter is as intact as any memory in publication, existing only as the medium between a man and his lunch. A particular sort of reverence for Bryant’s is reflected in the expressions of its customers, most of whom enter the dining room with a look of relief on their faces. It’s the same expression I wear when I walk into Colima Burgers or put on a pair of clean drawers straight from the dryer.

My first meal at Bryant’s was a short end pork rib sandwich. The ribs had the tough-smoked texture that can only be the product of long haul barbecue: crisp and chewy on the outside, hearty and tender on the inside and laid on a blanket of white bread only a few fluffy steps away from sugar. That said, while Arthur Bryant certainly has a chapter in the good book of ribs, for one reason or another his short ends have come up a bit less biblical than many would testify. While the texture of my meat was perfect, its flavor was a bit hollow in comparison to the greats of Memphis and Oakland. The fabled sauces that put Kansas City on the BBQ map were all sweet and no heat, leaving Trillin’s legend to fill in the gaps.

The French fries— not just any fries, but fresh potatoes deep fried in pure lard— told a different tale. According to Bryant (according to Trillin), “Pure lard is expensive. But if you want to do a job, you do a job.” Cold as they were, the fries piled next to my short ends confirmed the value of the most heart-clogging, PETA-insulting work ethic in America. Where most fries would have chased the light, crisp archetype of that classic McDonald’s side, Bryant’s lard fried potatoes delivered a punch of meaty heft that could have constituted its own meal. It was as if the founders of In-N-Out had decided to turn their noses at health-conscious California and plant their fry baskets in the Buffalo graveyards of the Oregon Trail.

There are many who say that lunch hour at Bryant’s BBQ has overstayed its welcome. My own late lunch at 18th and Brooklyn may be proof of that dismissal, but in my own words, it’s just as much proof that Calvin Trillin’s undying devotion to the single best restaurant in the world is not misplaced. After all, when it comes to BBQ, I’m a believer.

Arthur Bryant’s Barbeque
1727 Brooklyn Ave
816.231.1123

How does it feel to eat a cookie you’ve been saving for nine months?

When I was first introduced to the Mallomar, I made a point of buying ten boxes of these ageless treats, knowing and accepting full well that I would consume the entire stockpile. In defiance of my better instincts, I decided to relegate one box to the bottom of my bookshelf, directly next my stockpile of out-of-state beer, to remain undisturbed until the final day of summer.

That day was September 22, 2008. The reason I had waited this long to open up my last box of Mallomars, aside from wanting to understand what it might be like for a cannibal to give birth, was to disprove the marketing-driven myth that it is impossible for Nabisco to make its most beloved cookie a year round staple for the American public (we’ve long been told told that the shipment of Mallomars during the warmer half of the year would prove to be too much for their pure chocolate coats to handle, thereby resulting in a delicious but messy defeat for consumers). Halfway through the summer season, I realized that while the San Gabriel Valley sun was surely a much fiercer foe than its mild Bay Area counterpart, it certainly didn’t pose the same threat as the Big Apple roaster of metropolitan New York. As long as I kept my Mallomars indoors and out of direct sunshine, they would last as long as I could keep my mouth shut.

Still, I refrained from opening that box, mostly out of fear of what I’d do without it sitting five feet from my bed. To do so would be like opening up an earthquake preparedness kit and drinking four quarts of emergency water from it while firing signal flares out my bedroom window. For the record: I don’t have an earthquake preparedness kit, and if I did, I wouldn’t waste any time doing just that, especially if six month old Fruit Rollups and beef jerky were next in line. Nevertheless, this was the only box of Mallomars within my grasp until the month of October, and I wasn’t about to throw it away on the gamble that the world wouldn’t wait until then to find some excuse to break my heart. I waited dutifully for the last day of summer to arrive, and unearthed my treasure in the company of friends.

The Oreo may be Nabisco’s essential contribution to civilization, but the Mallomar is its crowning gem. The concept of an inverted s’more is simple enough; it’s the Mallomar’s loving attention to detail that draws the line between simplicity and elegance. The cookie itself fits on a fifty cent piece, encouraging its beholder to eat the entire confection in one glorious bite while leaving less aggressive options open for the more bashful among us. The ratio of not-quite-fluffy, not-quite-gooey, not-quite-chewy marshmallow filling to crumbly graham cracker biscuit is perfectly balanced no matter how much is consumed in each bite. Pure milk chocolate, mixed a shade darker than most cookies would dare, cloaks the cookie in an air of decadence normally reserved for the candy shop and elevates its mélange of flavors and textures to the cult status it has so earnestly achieved.

Like a fine bottle of wine, a box of Mallomars is meant to be consumed entirely upon opening. It’s impossible to break this rule. The swirling perfection of one Mallomar disintegrates just as soon as it can be recognized, turning desire and satisfaction into one delectable sensation. By the time you’ve finished one, you’ve finished the entire box— it’s the kind of feeling one can wait nine months to unravel, but can’t wait nine minutes to savor.

In the southeast corner of Kansas City, directly in front of an impound lot at the intersection of Blue Parkway and coal mine road, stands a small smokehouse named LC’s. It’s the kind of scene that overwhelms the senses: When you open the front door, a tide of smoke washes through the entrance and begins to saturate whatever fraction of your dresser drawer is currently on deck. You descend into a modest space of six to eight tables. There is no barrier between the dining room and the smoke pit, which stands directly behind the counter and opens directly in the face of the customer. This is the craft and the culture of barbecue at its best, taking no steps to dress, mask or otherwise protect the simplicity of its task from those who would dare attempt its undertaking on their own.

It’s a scene that I would be ashamed to photograph. LC himself permanently occupies one of the tables, beset with books, notepads and papers that ostensibly account for his success as a proprietor. When customers approach the gap between his table and the counter, however, they treat him more like a mafia Don.

“Mr. LC, do you have ham today?” asks an older man who, I can only assume, is a churchgoer.
“Yeah, you can get ham,” answers LC, who goes on to remind his customer of the extensive benefits the Cosa Nostra keeps in reserve for a hungry family with loyalty to offer.
“I seen you at the church,” the pitmaster chimes in as he inspects a brisket and pushes it back into the smoker. “Why you ain’t come around last week?” The ham loving, God fearing man shuffles his feet and offers some excuses out of earshot. Chuckles are exchanged and he gets his dinner plate to go. LC nods silently at the end of the transaction.

LC doesn’t acknowledge my existence until I step up to the counter and order a plate of burnt ends. A bovine counterpoint to pork rib tips, these fatty morsels of meat are whacked from the ends of a smoked brisket and placed back in the pit for a final burn. LC’s burnt ends are a hallmark of Kansas City BBQ. Each chunk is just big enough to fill the cradle of a human hand. Hearty, juicy, and multi-layered, each burnt end presents a sophisticated argument for beef. Its edges are crisp, red and black deposits of smoke. Encased within their candied protection is a tender, generously marbelized cut of meat that, when chewed, fires subtle shots of “rare” through clouds of smoky “well done.”

LC’s burnt ends are blanketed in the archetypal Kansas City BBQ sauce: a sweet, rich tomato-and-molasses gravy designed to fill the crevices of any meat on the table. Like any good sauce, it completes the dish without overpowering the beef or exposing any weaknesses in its preparation. Most importantly, LC’s sauce provides the crucial service of melding beef with white bread in one messy, savory, superb mess that any man of honor would jump at the chance to clean up.

LC’s beans use a similar approach to inducing family loyalty. Heartened by chunks of smoked meat and sweetened by some combination of molasses, tomato and possibly brown sugar, they constitute a meal all their own, not unlike the Brunswick stew simmered in BBQ shacks of the Deep South.

The combination of burnt ends and beans at LC’s is a proposition for satisfaction that is carefully monitored by LC from the moment I place my order. Keenly aware that a third man has cut right to the heart of his operation, he surreptitiously watches every bite and tracks every movement without ever pushing back his seat. He watches as I clean out my beans. He watches as I chew on the fattiest morsels of burnt end beef he can serve. He watches as I slide my plate into the garbage can and make my way toward the door. It’s only when I am about to leave LC’s den that the grizzly godfather of Kansas City Q looks me in the eye and delivers a silent nod. In the underworld of barbecue, I am a made man.

LC’s Bar-B-Q
5800 Blue Parkway
Kansas City, MO
816.123.4484