Help Me Help The Yankee!

October 6, 2006 8:47 PM

Help me help a friend find good Southern-style barbecue in New York.

I made the mistake of gushing about eating some really great barbecue and now I've made my little Yankee friend jealous of all the awesome barbecue places down here in the South. He lives in the Yonkers NY area and has only found two varieties: cheap and horrible or too expensive to enjoy guilt-free.

So, Hive Mind, I ask you: where can a Yankee find Southern-style barbecue in the New York area? To quote him, "I want the places where you see the smoke from the smoke pit out back raising up in the air."

posted by damnjezebel to Food & Drink (13 answers total)

If he is willing to go north of Yonkers, there is a great place in Valhalla called the Southbound Barbecue about 15-20 north of him and another in White Plains called Jimmy Lee's.

The link has a third which I have not yet tried. My first choice would be Southbound. Live music on the weekends after 9 and lots of good cold beer!! It has the smoker and smoke. Jimmy Lee's, while good, is less rustic.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 9:43 PM on October 6, 2006

Believe it or not, the fancy-pants suburb of Larchmont has an exceptionally good rib join: Sherwood's. Don't know how officially "Southern" is the food, but I can tell you that the ribs are excellent. And I am serious about ribs.
posted by Dr. Wu at 10:07 PM on October 6, 2006

There is no such place. Your little Yankee friend is going to have to go down South. Yes, there are places in and around NYC that have "good barbecue" in the sense that it's barbecue and it tastes good, but a Southerner used to the real thing will not accept it. Apologies to Valhalla and Larchmont, but... look, after I got back from Taiwan, I couldn't eat "Chinese food" for a year until my taste buds forgot what they'd experienced in Taiwan sufficiently that I could accept American "Chinese food" as real. (I'm not talking about Amero-Chinese, I'm talking about Chinatown Chinese, with a Chinese clientele. It's just not the same as in China itself.)

Trust me, once you've had pulled pork in North Carolina, you're not going to be satisfied with Yankee Sam's B-B-Q.
posted by languagehat at 4:55 AM on October 7, 2006

Coincidentally I watched a show on the Food Network about three months about getting Southern barbeque in New York City, and they had a chef from Memphis on who said there wasn't anything for miles around, so he was starting this annual festival that the show was about. Sorry I don't have more details. (And your friend may not actually like Memphis barbeque, which in my experience is dry-rubbed - tasty but imho not as good as stuff with sauces.)

Smoky Bones is very tasty, but in terms of authenticity, it is to Southern barbeque what Olive Garden is to Italian food.
posted by joannemerriam at 5:57 AM on October 7, 2006

The 'hat is right. As always.

Sorry yankees, you may have a great city up there.... And you may have won the war. But your BBQ is unexceptional at best. And don't even get me started on your lack of grits and decent biscuits.
posted by zpousman at 6:03 AM on October 7, 2006

Hmm. Well, speaking as a dedicated 'cue fan - The above posters are right. Compared to the southern states, NY barbecue is just a pale imitation. Then again, everything is relative - Try getting a good slice of pizza, a good bagel or quality Fujianese food south of the Mason-Dixon line.

However, there are a few surprisingly decent places in the New York area for 'cue. If your friend is willing to travel to Brooklyn, there is a small mainly-takeout shop called Pies N' Thighs in Williamsburg that makes a killer pulled pork for NYC that would still be an alright pulled pork by southern standards. For a distinctly northern (but still delicious) take on barbecue, there's always Dinosaur Barbecue in Harlem - which has the bonus of being a super-quick commute from Westchester.

It's a shame your friend missed this event - Dear god there were some good ribs there.
posted by huskerdont at 6:37 AM on October 7, 2006

Since you can't get down to Texas...Just go place an order from Cooper's and all will be good. And don't forget their sauce.
posted by nimsey lou at 8:18 AM on October 7, 2006

you can do a lot worse than the hog pit in the meatpacking district. and whatever you do avoid blue smoke on 27th.
posted by gelcap at 8:32 AM on October 7, 2006

The only 2 serviceable BBQ places I've been to here are Dinosaur and Daisy May's.
posted by mkultra at 9:29 AM on October 7, 2006

Having hit most of the BBQ places in the city with two Southern friends quick to dismiss Yankee bulls**t, I can echo mkultra in testifying that Daisy May's is by far the best of the bunch.
posted by thomascrown at 12:25 PM on October 7, 2006

I'm seconding Dinosaur. I think it's great, and I'm originally from the south.
posted by overhauser at 2:06 PM on October 7, 2006

Sorry, Jezebel, but Languagehat is correct. (And why'd you have to go tempting a Yankee boy with unattainable barbecue visions, woman?)

Transplanted North Carolinian here, lived in NYC for the last ten years, tried every barbecue joint in town. I never visit NC without bringing 'cue back in my luggage.

There is one weekend a year during which there is good barbecue in New York City - the Big Apple Barbecue Block Party, in high summer, in Madison Square Park, and that's because they import everything from the ingredients to the chefs. Outside of that, it's a wash.

Any randomly-selected third-rate 'cue shack in North Carolina (or Kansas City, or parts of Texas, or actually any place with an established, authentic regional barbecue tradition) will mop the floor with anything NYC has to offer.

With all due respect to mkultra (and others), Dinosaur and Daisy May's are good in an okay-for-New-York-City kind of way, but this is a Dancing Bear situation: we're amazed not that the bear dances well, but that he dances at all. They are the winners in the Special Olympics of barbecue that we have north of the Mason-Dixon line.

Best advice for your friend: JetBlue flies round-trip to Raleigh-Durham, NC from JFK airport, and if you time it right you can go for about $125 round-trip. Within one hour's drive of the airport there are half a dozen 'cue joints so good that they will make you speak in tongues and have a personal encounter with the numinous.

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posted by enrevanche at 4:26 PM on October 7, 2006

Thanks for the feedback, guys. I really appreciate it.

Enrevanche, I didn't mean to tempt him! I rarely find myself in Yankee country, so I didn't know how dire the situation is. Call me naive, but I assumed that most places had at least one great barbecue place.

Yes, I know... I suck and I'm evil.

I'll have to convince him to take a road trip with some friends to go south of the Mason-Dixon on some off-time for the real stuff. But for now, I'll send him to one of the places you guys recommended. If all else fails, I'll make follow Nimsey's advice.

Thanks again!
posted by damnjezebel at 9:09 PM on October 7, 2006