The Barbecue Diary, June 8, 2024.

I think I have finally found my physical limits.

Fifth day on the road, 2:30 in the morning, sitting in the lobby of Hampton Inn in Marion quietly staring at a green banana on the table while sipping a Vitamin Water and trying to get my feet to stop cramping, I think I found it.

Five days in the Delta, 80+ degrees, and at that point 24 restaurants already photographed for the trip. And here I was, unable to sleep because everything hurt.

Sweet and Tangy Sim's Barbecue Riles the Memory.

Established in 1937, some would argue Sim's sauce is the particular flavor one should consider when thinking about barbecue in Little Rock.  Known for fall-apart pork butt, pork ribs and beef brisket, it’s the thin and tangy sweet vinegar sauce that makes this mainstay so memorable.

Quick Bite: The Dive in Conway.

Though I greatly lament the passing some time ago of Saigon Cuisine, the restaurant that's taken its place inside the former Kentucky Fried Chicken on Oak Street near the interstate has a good vibe and, more importantly, an irresistable sandwich I want again right now.

Terri-Lynn's BBQ and Deli is a Little Rock Neighborhood Secret.

Or, at least it has been until now. Since 1960, patrons have lined up for lunch five days a week to enjoy some of Little Rock's most underrated smoked meats and two delectable pie. Oh, and when you go to Terri-Lynn's, don't forget your deviled eggs.

Meaty Expectations Delivered at Blacksheep Smokehouse and Grill in Yellville.

A relatively new barbecue joint in north Arkansas is handling its own quite well with barbecue and burgers worthy of renown. Let's take a look inside Blacksheep Smokehouse and Grill in Yellville.

Pie and Barbecue at Lindsey's Hospitality House in North Little Rock.

In Arkansas, pie with barbecue is just a standard, expected dessert. At Lindsey's Hospitality House in North Little Rock, it's the pairing of two beautiful creations side-by-side.

A Barbecue Guide to Pulaski County, Arkansas.

Barbecue isn’t just a slice of Arkansas cuisine – it’s part of our way of life. From the earliest recordings of barbecue camp gatherings back in 1821 in Phillips County and at Arkansas Post, we’ve been smoking our meat and sharing it for generations.

The Ps and Qs of Delta Q in Forrest City.

A relatively new barbecue joint is winning fans in this mid-Delta hub. Take a look inside and see what Delta Q in Forrest City has to offer.

Eat, Drink and Give a Hoot at Hoots BBQ in McGehee.

Almost any lunchtime or evening, you'll see a full parking lot at Hoots BBQ in McGehee.  But don't ever let that scare you off.  There's a place for you to sit and eat, and you'll have a good meal, too.

Quick Bite: Barbecue and Graffiti at Roadside BBQ.

Graffiti is usually considered an act of vandalism.  At Roadside BBQ at Proctor, it's considered the height of decor.

The red-and-white shack a block from Interstate 40 welcomes all comers

looking for a bite to eat.  Once you duck through the front entry (it's just six feet at the front eve), a long chest-high counter spreads out across the mid-section of the place, with a window into the kitchen beyond.  And on every available surface -- walls, floor, even the ceiling, there's graffiti.

A Foursquare user even says if you mention it's your first time there, they'll tack a dollar bill to the wall in your honor.  Well, we didn't do that.  We ordered our lunch and had a seat.

There weren't many people in or through, which was strange, since it was noon on a Friday.  We'd noted the Hot Tamale signs when we pulled up, Grav lamented forgetting that fact.  He had asked for barbecue pork instead.  We sat across from each other checking messages we'd missed while we were on the road, the hum of a high-powered shop heater being the only music in the air.  The lovely woman who'd taken our order brought us oversized Styrofoam cups of iced tea.

Everywhere we looked, there was graffiti, mostly in black magic marker or Sharpie, a few places hard to read scribbled in ball point pen.  There were phrases I didn't understand in Spanish, inked cartoons and caricatures, hollers out to Moline, IL and Nashville, proclamations of love and

several "wuz here" listings. At Roadside BBQ, diners routinely join an encouraged act of vandalism that serves as decoration & design. We did not add to the editorial fray.

A bell rung, and our tray was ready, two clamshell boxes, two forks and a handful of brown paper napkins.  Grav claimed it and brought it to the table.

Inside his was a small pile of sauce-drizzled pork, a toasted bun, beans and potato salad -- nothing more or less unusual than any other place we'd ever dined at that had advertised barbecue.  The sauce, Grav said, was good but the meat was very plain, without the heavy amounts of smoke

and rub we've become accustomed to.  The mayo-mustard potato salad was pretty good, though, and the beans were decent.

I had a completely different experience.  From the moment I opened my box I was smiling.  I had spotted an

Arkansas-unusual side item straight out of Memphis -- spaghetti.  This pile of sauce-swamped noodles were very soft.  The sauce itself was a straight tomato red with more than a hint of sweet barbecue to it, along with almost fine particles of ground beef throughout.  This was a real treat.  I not only ate the noodles, I dipped all the crispy fries in them as well.

My pile of beef brisket was similarly drizzled, but here it worked.  Unlike what I've encountered at other places, the fat was obviously not trimmed before smoking, and the flavors from the fatty crust blended throughout the meat.  I was very satisfied, even having it on a toasted buttered bun without even a hint of coleslaw.

We didn't go for dessert (we were on our way across the South and didn't have much time to stop) but I did note the enormous slices of yellow cake on a rack by the register.

Roadside BBQ
196 Arkansas 147 (one block south of Interstate 40)
Proctor, AR 72376
(870) 733-9208
Facebook

Frank's Hickory House in Choctaw: "NJOI yursef."

If you aren't familiar with the Choctaw community in Arkansas, you should be... though I'll forgive you if you think it's just part of Clinton. Choctaw is a tiny burg just south of Clinton (which uses the Clinton ZIP code) that's home to a couple hundred people and a restaurant that's been going some 40 years or more.

The Delta Trifecta of Barbecue, Cheese Dip and Pie at Nick's BBQ and Catfish in Carlisle.

This popular joint off I-40 east of Little Rock is a good place to get your fill of plenty of Arkansas favorites, from fried green tomatoes to pecan pie. Let's check out Nick's.

Burge's, Smoked Turkey That Took Over The World.

The original Burge's location in
Lewisville. (Kat Robinson)

Most restaurants begin with a concept or a family dream.  Burge's began with a backyard smoker -- and a whole lot of friends who loved what came out of it.  It took nearly 10 years to get to a restaurant, but what was created there has endured generations.

Brothers B-B-Q: Larry's Place in Heber Springs.

Sometimes fate puts you where you need to be. For Larry Cordell, that place was Heber Springs. And for Heber Springs, that’s a blessing paid out in barbecue and good will.

Burger joint of the week: Pig & Chik Bar-B-Que

It was a call to check out a mammoth burger that brought me to the door of the Pig 'N-Chik in Sherwood. Mind you, I wasn’t crazy enough to try one of the places’ four pound Sarge burgers, but I was willing to give a half-pound hubcap a try.

The Pig 'N-Chik is a standard in the area for barbecue… with a sweet honey sauce and fall-apart ribs. People have recommended the place to me for the excellent catfish, both the cornmeal-battered version and Friday’s special of smoked fish. One of these days I’ll venture back over to find out more for you on that.

But this burger… came with a lot of recommendations. So I went in one afternoon and placed my order.

I have to tell you, I’m glad I had a clue what I was going to order first… because the menu is a front-and-back melange of every sort of Southern prideful item — po’boys, BBQ nachos, chicken salad sandwiches, smoked sausage, PurpleHull peas, a Reuben, country fried steaks and a range of fried rice dishes. On the board was the daily plate lunch special (Roast Beef with two sides) and an array of desserts including blackberry cobbler and lemon ice box pie. The oversized dining room was well-stocked with blue collar workers, seniors out for the day and BS artists telling fish tales in the corner.

I watched order after order come through the window, dispersed to the appropriate tables with an almost clockwork precision. The kitchen sounded busy behind that window.

Didn’t take me long to get my burger, a plate-eating hubcap on a big seedless bun, a big thick smoky-scented burger atop a pile of shredded lettuce. The toasted bun had mustard on the top bun (a little much for my taste), mayo on the bottom, ridgy hamburger dills and just a hint of tomato. It comes with thick yellow fries and American cheese for $5.75. We’re talking a lot of food for a good price.

So how’s the burger? It’s big. It’s eight ounces and seems like more. Better yet, it’s char-grilled and has a nice smoky flavor that could only come from hardwood smoke. Somehow it’s picked up some of that fabulous flavor from the smoker (proximity? Perhaps.) and taken it through to a nice finish.
If I’d realized I’d had a choice of cheese I’d probably have gone with Swiss. Cheddar, Hot Jack and Mozzarella are other options. The fries were typical but not too bad.

Yes, I will be back. I have this feeling of doom that before the year is out I will do a story on the most outrageous burgers in the state, and the Sarge (four pounds of meat on a one pound bun, $19.99 or free if eaten within 30 minutes) sounds like a contender. I won’t eat it alone, though.

You’ll find the Pig ‘n-Chik on Highway 107 in Sherwood. It’s open Monday through Saturday 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.. (501) 834-5456 or check out the website.

Tale of two restaurants: Burge's in the Heights and in Lewisville.

There are going to be some similarities and some difference between two restaurants under one ownership. Menus might be the same or similar, but the chances of achieving the same ambiance between two entities is relatively small. Sometimes, the two locations are so significantly different they seem different in the mind.

That’s the way it is with me and Burge’s. I will specifically plot to stop at the Lewisville restaurant any time I’m heading down to Shreveport, making sure I have enough time to stop for a burger and a shake before that big stretch of nothing between there and Fair Dealing, LA. The burgers are charbroiled and served toasty, old-fashioned style in that white wax paper with the toothpick, with either some of those crispy fries or a tray of cornmeal-crusted onion rings and a chocolate malt or a pineapple shake. Usually I bring a traveling companion or twelve in with me when I make that stop on a Friday night or a Sunday afternoon.

Then there’s Burge’s in the Heights here in Little Rock, and I stop in there several times a year. But I never get a burger there. In my mind, there’s a segmentation of the Burge’s idea, and I can’t quite cross that line. Usually.

At Burge’s in the Heights, I pick up my Thanksgiving turkey. Sometimes it’s the whole bird; sometimes I just pick up a smoked turkey breast instead since I don’t have a huge crowd to feed. I like getting them bone-in; the carcass makes a great base for turkey gumbo and smoked turkey gnocchi in the winter, or to throw in with a big pot of PurpleHull peas in the summer.

If I go in for a meal, it’s usually a smoked turkey plate with a side and some bread and some barbecue sauce. Or a nice smoked turkey sandwich. I really like the tang they have in the meat, that sweet cured flavor.

But the other morning I was in there for a different reason. I’d seen the ads for breakfast at Burge’s for a few weeks, and dang it, I had to go. I wanted to see what it’d be like to have a smoked meat breakfast, and the hubster was really curious on how their ham would taste in an omelet.

So we gpt over there at 9:30 on a Friday morning and the lot was empty but the signs were on. We walked in and there was a gentleman waiting at the counter for our order. We asked for the breakfast menu and he shook his head.

“We’re not doing breakfast any more.”

“What?”

“We stopped serving breakfast two days ago. There just wasn’t much interest.”

Well, I look at Paul, and he looked at me like “now what?” We were both hungry, but what to get?

A few moments gazing at the board and I settled on a simple barbecue beef sandwich ($4.99 for a regular plus $.39 for coleslaw). Paul went for the Cowboy ($7.99), a barbecue beef brisket po’boy, and we decided to try the potato salad ($1.49). We took our iced teas and sat down and verbally pondered why breakfast just didn’t catch on.

There’s no breakfast at the other location, either, nor is there breakfast at most restaurants. And I hadn’t tried the barbecue, even though I’d tried the smoked meats.

It took a few minutes — after all, since they weren’t serving breakfast it was amazing that the store was even open — but our name was called and Paul went and picked up the red tray. Once again, there was that wax paper wrapped around the sandwiches, and inside we found good things.

Now, on first look, my little barbecue beef sandwich didn’t look like much. The bun was toasted almost to the point of being burned, and the beef was dark. But one bite confirmed the mastery of the hickory smoking. The meat was falling apart. It was in big ½ to ¾ inch chunks in a tangy hickory-laden sauce with a light pepper and a heavy sweetness to it. It was just perfect. Best of all, it felt larger in the mouth than it looked on the wax paper. And this was just the regular size — a Jumbo version is a couple of bucks more.

The hubster’s sandwich was similar — except his beef was packed onto a long French loaf and laden with white cheese and a row of dill pickles. He experienced a similar revelation about the quality and flavor of the beef, but most of the pickles were set aside.

The potato salad seemed neither mustardy (though the flavor was slightly evident) nor mayonnaise-y, a nice potato-heavy blend of potatoes, goo and spices. Not my favorite, but Paul really liked it.
So, I wondered the rest of the day whether my hunger that morning had anything to do with the tastiness of the sandwich. That is, until I talked that evening with my friend Marvin Bonney, who had stopped with his family at the Lewisville location that day. We were just shooting the breeze and he mentioned they’d stopped in.

“Best barbecue beef sandwich I have ever had… in my life,” he was saying. I laughed and told him about our non-breakfast experience. What were the chances of that?

So I’m resolved. It’s time I had a Burge’s burger in Little Rock and a smoked turkey sandwich in Lewisville. Maybe I should even see if I can go tour the Lewisville turkey smoking experience, I don’t know. But those two eateries some 150-odd miles away from each other really do share a whole lot in common, even if the clientele and ambiance are vastly different.

You’ll find Burge’s in the Heights on R Street about half a block west of the Beechwood Kroger - (501) 666-1660. Burge’s in Lewisville is on Highway 29 north of downtown, right between the two right-angle turns. (870) 921-4292.