The Most Affordable Lunch Plate in All of Arkansas, Found At The Dinner Bucket in New Blaine.

Love an old-fashioned country diner where breakfast comes on platters, plate lunches are dependable, and a friendly waitress keeps your coffee topped off at all times? Better plan a visit to The Dinner Bucket, a spot alongside the highway in the Arkansas River Valley that may have the state’s most affordable meals.

Prime Country Meat Market is Destination Dining.

Arkansas’s far southwestern corners are sparsely populated - handfuls of small towns within a radius of Texarkana, tucked away close to Texas on one side and either Louisiana or Oklahoma on the other. From the central part of the state, they’re often overlooked. Such as the town of Horatio, with its three blocks of downtown mere miles from the Oklahoma border. But for barbecue aficionados, it needs to go into the notebook as a must-visit, solely for a destination known as the Prime Country Meat Market.

Wrapped in Smoke: Coursey's Smoked Meats.

Generations of Arkansawyers have been pulled off US Highway 65 in St. Joe by the scent of smoke… a harbinger of good flavor present since 1945. Though the road itself has been redirected over the years, hungry patrons still find their way to the Arkansas Ozarks’ most famous smokehouse.

The Arkansas Barbecue Traveler's Travels: 3 Heethens BBQ in Monticello.

I saw the smoke rising from a trailer tucked beneath an awning next door to the Arby's in Monticello and - even though I 'd already eaten twice that morning and was ready to hit the road, I pulled into the lot. It wasn't on my list - but 3 Heethens BBQ had that barbecue moniker and that barbecue scent, so I pulled on in.

Following the Smoke: Biscuit Row in Helena-West Helena.

I tend to follow my nose when it comes to barbecue. During the summer of 2024, I spent several weeks in the Arkansas Delta. I was heading to one barbecue restaurant on the 8th of June - a restaurant that wasn't open (I'd find out later the owner was on vacation). But a sniff of the air told me there was barbecue to be found nearby.

Almost Famous BBQ Ties Cajun Spice to Arkansas Barbecue.

By the time you get to Almost Famous BBQ, you're about out of Conway and well on your way to the edges of Vilonia. The scent of hickory and cherry smoke lures drivers into the parking lot along the south side of US Highway 64, smoke often tinged with a little Cajun spice.

Ode to Rice.

It is a staple that graces the tables of young and old, wealthy and thrifty, across every demographic. Its place in our culinary history goes back two centuries, and today it puts us on the global map. It is the world's most popular grain, and we are blessed to have so many cultivated acres of it every year.