Life’s too short to argue over where the best BBQ in the state is. Personally, I prefer BBQ from 336 and the northern part of 704, but that’s just me.
But a friend had told me about a little place in the country called Allen and Sons in Orange County, and I went yesterday on the way back from Raleigh. Outstanding. As befits the geography, the food is a bit in the middle as well. Smoky taste, good sauce. Excellent meat. Great sweet potato pie.
Worth a visit. It’s about a mile or so on NC 86 north of Interstate 40 in the New Hope community. 86 itself is a pretty diversion, caught between North Carolina’s past, present and future. In the stretch between I-40 and I-85, you drive past farms selling goats, a volunteer fire department, a Zen retreat and the Wal-Mart.
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There are two Allen and Son (s): one between Chapel Hill and Pittsboro, the other tucked in the woods between Chapel Hill and Hillsbrough.
They are both fabulous. When I was living in exile in Pennsylvania, I pick up a quart or two of BBQ, plus a Mason jar of sauce, to bring back. They sat on the seat next to me, 600 miles north. It prolonged my visit home, even if it was just for a few days. And all Pennsylvania Dutch goodies in the world just couldn’t compete with my plate of two-day-old, microwaved BBQ.
I want some right now!
Isn’t it BBQ dip?
Not sauce?
I use the two interchangeably. Mebbe all dips are sauces but not all sauces are dips…
But what kind of sauce? Vinegar-based? Tomato? The South Carolina-style mustard-based?
Would love to know.
Tomato-based, but with some other ingredients, more orange in color than a lot of sauces/dip out there.
Other than N.C. Bar-B-Q, the second best is beef Bar-B-Q
in Tucson AZ, at the tripple T truck stop. Sorry, but uncle
sam sent me out west.
There’s no finer treat than to watch the shoulders being smoked. It’s back-breaking work, but the pull pork is well worth it. Try the ice cream the next time you visit. You’ll want to slap your granny as my dad used to say.
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