Grill Kings: truly idyllic.Photo courtesy White Trash BBQ
Has the cold weather got you nostalgic for barbecue? We’ve got good and bad news, plus fallout from an ugly incident upstate. First, the good: Pitmaster Scotty Smith is now serving two weekly specials at RUB. Mondays it’s full-beef short rib; Tuesdays there’s spicy Asian pork belly, marinated for a week in a brew of chiles, garlic, ginger, fish sauce, and the sweet soy sauce called kecap manis. then smoked for hours before being flash-finished in a hot oven.
Meanwhile, “White Trash BBQ” blogger Robert Fernandez had some sad but not exactly shocking news: Grill Kings, the area’s only legitimate Kansas City Barbecue Society competition, is no more. The contest was too expensive and difficult to run, as anyone who competed in it can tell you. That leaves New York as a mere adjunct in New England Barbecue Society contests, and is that really what we want for the greatest cooking city on earth?
Finally, we hear Dinosaur Bar-B-Que owner John Stage, perhaps spurred by the miseries involved with feeding thousands of people barbecue every week, has apparently been looking to unload the Dinosaur chain some time now. (We were unable to get through to him for comment.) Or maybe it’s the specific misery of having 600 people get sick at his Syracuse branch a couple of weeks ago. That would be enough to drive us out of the barbecue business too.
Death of a Clown: Grill Kings [White Trash BBQ]
600 Sickened After Eating at N.Y. bar [USA Today]
