BB's Lawnside Blues & BBQ...As advertised

The sweet smell of smoke and the bass beat of blues met me as I closed the car door. A friend, Ryan Derks, and I walked into the crowded BB's Lawnside Blues and BBQ. The Sunday night show, from 7-9 started a bit before we arrived.

The joint was so tightly packed that strangers shared tables. Each group or individual squeezed in where they could. We found a seat at the end of a long wooden table, covered by a red and white checkered tablecloth, across from some older gentleman with whom we would later discuss politics between sets. Bum, bum, bumbum, bum, bumbumbumbum, bum bum.

The blues blared from the front, where the band strummed standing at crowd level. Lee McBee and the Confessors are the normal Sunday night band, but McBee was sick, so we were left with just the Confessors who still put on an enjoyable show.

We ordered a bucket of PBR, the evening special, and sipped along with the tunes. Dada, da da, dadadada, da da da da, dadadada.

I ordered the Porker, the larger pork sandwich, with battered fries. Derks ordered the BBQ sundae, served in a mason jar and composed of hickory smoked-pit beans, creamy-coleslaw, pulled pork. The jar came topped with a pickle spear. We also split a side of beans and a half-slab of ribs...for science.

We sat oblivious to any wait as our toes tapped, and our noggins nodded. The wood walls, lit only by Christmas lights and beer signs, was adorned with ancient newspaper articles and concert posters depicting Kansas City and Missouri's musical past. A poster advertising Stevie Vaughn (before he added the Ray), at Harlings on July, 4th caught my attention. That must have been the place to be that night, whether or not anyone knew of the young strummer.

A mural, on which blues legends from all ages, stood, sat and played in an old blues joint, hung with mystique above the band.Tap, taptap, tap tap tap tap, taptaptaptap, tap, tap taptaptaptaptaptap, crash.

The thick tender pork, although a little dry and slightly tough, maintained some pleasantly greasy juice, and held a soft hickory-smoked flavor. The grease and smoke-flavor made up for the dryer texture, although the sesame seed bun crumbled a bit. The thick substantial sandwich filled me up completely.

The ribs came with sauce, lightly draped on top. These greasy, juicy, thick chunks of meat slide, but did not fall of the bone. The meat submitted to the slightest suggestion from my teeth. I tasted the same soft hickory smoke that blended well with the natural juices. Bambam bam bambam, bam bam bam bam, bambambambambam.

Two types of sauce stood proudly on the table. I slurped the traditional, sweet, thin and smooth. I tasted mollasses and brown sugar. I thought it almost had an applesauce-like flavor, but I wasn't sure.

The spicy sauce had a slight slow kick that followed a sweetness, similar to that of the traditional. The kick did not overpower, but blended well a vinegar backdrop. 

The battered fries were incredible. These thick slices of potato were battered, fried, then re-battered and refried. So much potato meat. So much fried. The crispy outer layer, held in the soft potato meat. I would have liked a few more, but these were possibly the best fries I have ever eaten. Da, do, da da da, da do, da da da, dado dado dado dado.

The beans, held a subtle heat similar to that of the spicy sauce, but with a slightly sour blend. Pieces of beef, and celery floated in the thin juice alongside the navy beans.

BB's puts two of my favorite things in the world together, blues and bbq, so I might be a little biased when I say that for atmosphere, BB's cannot be beat.  The food was certainly not the best, but reasonably priced and more than serviceable. I'd put BB's food in the near the upper middle of all KC joints that I went to. Go there, sit, drink a few beers on a warm Sunday night and enjoy the best of what Kansas City has to offer. Do bum, dobumdobum, badadadada, tap taptap tap taptap tap, bum dum, budum budum, crash.

BBQ at the K...Probably your best ballpark option

The several times that I ate at Kaufmann Stadium the food wood stale, so this last time I went out of my way to find the one barbeque stand. While my order could never stack up to a real KC bbq joint, it served as a viable substitute to aging nachos or flimsy hotdogs.

The food sat in barely covered vats, behind a glass window. I tried to order a meal that included a pork sandwich with two sides until I was informed, in a sarcastic manner, that fries were not a side. I didn't think this made any sense, but I adjusted my order. I ended up getting a pork sandwich, fries and cheesy corn.

The price, as you would expect in any ballpark was exorbitant, and were I not eating at an entertainment venue, it would have been grossly unreasonable for the quality, although the portions were substantial.

Picnic tables sat close to the stand for those who wished to comfortably eat their meals. Instead of sitting down to this fine bbq feast, I marched several levels to my seat which stood perched behind home plate, to struggle while eating from my lap.

The pork, which lazily lacked even the taste of liquid smoke, was pre-soaked in average bbq sauce reminiscent of KC Masterpiece. The pork contained little fat, but still seemed cheap.The warm sesame seed bun maintained its structural integrity, effectively holding the sandwich together.

The fries were standard, pre-frozen and bland. They were neither crispy, nor soggy. I was not disapointed, nor was I exactly pleased.

The cheesy corn, was simple, but at least contained small pieces of ham, which added flavor.

Overall, this bbq meal was acceptable considering its location. If you're going to Kaufmann it's worth grabbing bbq over the other limited options. Just don't think that you're getting KC bbq with this meal. 

Big T's...Meh

If you've been following this blog you've certainly heard me rant and rave about the importance of authenticity in how I judge a barbecue establishment. While I still consider this aspect to be of consequence, certain experiences have helped me understand that there is more than one way to sauce a sandwich. Big T's, an old-fashioned, wood-floored, wood-walled, grease-filled joint, further lessened the significance that I will place on authenticity in the future.

Big T's sits on Blue Parkway which tranforms from Volker just a few miles away from the plaza. The old-looking establishment rests quiet and quaint with a set of smokers stuck outside in the parking lot. I sensed trouble as soon as I glimpsed the idle smokers, bereft of the streaming grey mist that usually accompanies such devices.

Dan Thode, who drove Logan Beets and I to Big T's on our way to the Lake of the Ozarks, explained that the smokers had been billowing when he drove by at about 8:30 the previous night on his way back to Raytown. This observation implies that Big T's meat, like many in KC, is smoked the day or night before. While this factor is not controlling, it tends to result in less smoke-flavor.

We ordered at the counter and I got a double-pulled pork on white bread, fries, beans and a piece of corn on the cob. Beets and Thode both got beef sandwiches on bun with fries. The service was slow and indifferent.

While waiting for our meals to arive at our booth, we gazed around the dimly lit dive to find posters and old newspaper mockups, mostly referencing events from the Negro Leagues. One of these discussed an event when Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb played against Negro League players. Being sports fans we were all regailed by the ancient articles. Old farm equipment also adorned the walls giving the joint an old-fashioned air.

Thode and Beets

The greasy thick-cut meat sat slathered on the bread, sauce splashed on top. The slimy, juicy pork had decent fat content, nothing disguisting but it definitely was not hidden. I like a greasy, kind of fatty, sandwich so this aspect wasn't really a problem. My beef (sorry) was with the preparation. The meat was not hot or really that warm, and it lacked much of smokey taste or really any flavor other than pork. The meat alone, was basically boring.

Beets and Thode had similar assessments about their sandwiches. "I prefer a smokier beef," Thode said simply.

Although the sandwich came with sauce Thode and I both had to return to the counter to ask for more. After I waited, being ignored by several employees, the counter attendent returned from emptying the garbage cans, and I was given a styrofoam cup full of hot, not just warm, sauce. I've never been served bbq sauce at this temperture before and it seemed the sauce might be kept hot to cover up the meat's coolness.

The thin mixed liquid was composed of a strong vinnegar base backed by pepper and tomato-something. For a second I thought I tasted ketchup, but I cannot vouch for that observation. By itself the sauce was nothing special. I've had similarly mixed sauce served superiorly all over Kansas City.

I will say though, that mixed together, the sloppy sandwich and the rigid sauce created a serviceable meal. I realized, and Beets agreed, that our sandwiches actually got better as we ate them.

"There's a good balance between the meat and the sauce, but the meat depends on the sauce," Beets explained. He added that he thought the two facets blended well.

The fries were a soft greasy substantially portioned pile of potatoes. I thought they could have used some addition, some alteration, some adaptation from a standard, although seemingly cut in house, fry, or that they could at least have been served hot. I prefer a crispier fry, but I did enjoy these, once salted and slathered in sauce.

The beans, laiden with beef, maintained a strong meat-flavor in addition to a tint of maple or brown sugar that blended well. Overall these beans were about average, but we all agreed that the beef flavor raised their bar a bit.

The small cut of a corn cob was simple, honest and served with butter. I enjoyed the cob-presentation.

Overall, I did have a good experience at Big T's, but the food really was nothing special. Big T's does have a drive-through but as Beets complained, "In my experience it takes forever."


You can get better meat, better sauce, better beans, and better fries just a bit down the road and across the street at LC's (and many other places in town). Big T's is worth stopping in if you're in the area, hungry and want the KC joint atmosphere, but you can do better.

The Rub...Where barbecue has never gone before

I'm running out of barbecue places that anyone will vouch for so I pulled up my list and let my office partner, Josh Wiseman, pick lunch. He chose the Rub because he thought a place by that name had to be good. He chose correctly, although I didn't see or taste much to do with any rub. Chris Stratton joined and, lucky for me, volunteered to drive through the burbs and out to Olathe.

My first glimpse at the Rub, housed in a brand-new, small strip of chains, gave me a poor first impression. I walked in to find a brand-new clean restaurant, that reminded me, in its counter and table organization, of Chipotle, designed for efficiency and speed, a poor second impression.

Then my dining companions pointed me towards the Hillbilly and Hash Bowls and the single-serving ribs. The third impression is a charm I guess.

I ordered a pulled pork sandwich, fries, cheesy corn, beans, a single rib and an Orange Fanta.

The plentiful helping of dryish pulled pork, handed to me at the counter, sauceless on a plain white bun, retained some juice and possessed a soft tenderness. I didn't taste much if any smoke and it looked like the meat was all prepared in house, which did not have a smokestack. However, when I added the Clint sauce (I'll explain later) all my complaints were illeviated.

The rib, nice and tender, did taste like smoke and I'm not sure how. It maintained a little fat, but nothing out of the ordinary. The rib meat reached a level of easygoingness that I have not encountered often. The meat did not fall off the bone but was easily persuaded when we asked nicely. I've had better ribs but these were solid. I especially liked that they were sold individually.

Two sauces sat side-by-side on the table waiting to smother my sandwich. I was only to happy to oblige. The Original sauce led with sweetnesss followed quickly by a sharp but light tang and vinnegar balance, and a slow lagging pepper kick trailed behind. While I liked the other sauce better with the meat, this sauce worked especially well with the fries.

The other sauce, clearly composed of mollasses, had no name, so let's call it Clint. Clint's hearty richness inundated my mouth, surrounded my tastebuds and took them hostage. Clint had a lot going on and we had trouble isolating all the ingredients. I can tell you that this balanced sauce caused me to smother, to drown, to soak my sandwich. The pork must have considered it an honor to bathe in such a divine mixture.



Josh Wiseman and Chris Stratton

The cheesy corn seemed to be composed of more cream than cheese, and accentuated the crisp corn's taste, which we all appreciated. Many establishments smother the corn in so much cheese that you can't even taste the starch and that much cheese gets old for me. The small bowl's contents, spiced with a little pepper, had more of a whipping cream taste than cheese, although cheese was still prevalant.

The fries were flash fried, meaning they were fried then refried, thus sealing in the grease. I like a little crispier fry, but these handcut fries, messy and simple (not spiced), were still delectable.



Hillbilly Bowl

I tried some of Statton's cornbread and fell in love. The sweet-honey taste still lingers in my mouth. The dense, damply moist bread lit up my mouth and I know my eyes followed suit. Next time I got back I might get a loaf to go if that's an option.

Stratton's meal came with onion straws, which he shared. The light, thin crisps maintained a sweetness, either from the onion or the type of batter, but also a salty crunch.



Wiseman ordered the Hillbilly bowl and could not have enjoyed it more. "I'm ashamed I didn't think of it first," he explained about the bowl containing sugar-crusted corn bread, topped with your choice of meat, bar-b-que beans, and onion straws. Josh chose a spicy sausage as his meat. This concoction, although not traditional barbecue, blended well within itself. The varying spices and tastes complimented and balanced each other. Josh guessed they experiment to get the tastes to accent so acutely. "There's so much going on but it all goes together so well," Wiseman exclaimed.

Stratton ordered the Hash Bowl, composed of fried potatoes, grilled peppers and onions, pulled pork, burnt ends, chicken and sausage, topped with cheese and onion straws. I think they forgot the onion straws so they brought them out to us later. Each meat had been spiced differently, allowing each meat's best traits to be accented appropriately. And while each stood out on its own, each meat operated well within the unit which was blended and balanced. Think of these ingredients as a dream team. Each capable of starring on it's own but unstoppable when brought together.



Hash Bowl

Overall I loved the Rub. We all did. When we walked in we saw a what seemed to be a chain, and when we left we hoped it would become what we feared it already was. The Rub seemed to have the ability to mix the efficiency and cleanliness that a chain would offer with the creativity and the care that you find in a dive atmosphere. Although there meat could have had more of a smoke-taste, they did some things with barbecue that I've never seen and I appreciate their ability and willingness to take my beloved food genre to a different level.

RJ's Bob-Be-Que...A Johnson County "Dive"

I’m running out of BBQ joints I’ve heard of so I have been relying on a list I’ve made on my phone, adding a BBQ joint any time someone mentions it, then picking blindly. Someone at some point told me to go to RJ’s in Mission, Kansas and when I woke up with a BBQ jones RJ’s was at the top of the list. I picked up Carrie Zemel from Bar Prep class and crossed the border, although the drive only took about 10 minutes from UMKC’s campus.

RJ’s looked like a typically authentic Kansas City BBQ joint from the outside, small, brick and plain, but unfortunately no smoke flowed from the roof, a bad sign. Inside, RJ’s is quaint and homey, but unfortunately clean. I know this seems weird, but the cleaner and establishment looks, the worse the BBQ tends to taste.

“They are trying to create the impression of a barbecue dive atmosphere, but it’s not. They’re playing easy listening,” Zemel joked. They did in fact play at least two songs from the Dirty Dancing soundtrack and several others that could have easily been fit into the plot.

“It’s a Johnson County dive,” Zemel elucidated. Zemel explained that a lot of people from Johnson County, where she’s from, don’t want to go into a true dive like Arthur Bryant’s , LC’s or Perry Foster’s. It seems that RJ’s brought the dive atmosphere to them with clean floors, sans health code violations.  This way RJ’s can “cater to the crowd without deviating too far from barbecue expectancy,” Zemel elaborated.

A few ribbons hung on the wall and a full section was devoted to John Wayne. When we asked our waitress, who greeted us with a welcoming smile, why the Duke was so prevalent, but she wasn’t really sure, and only knew that the owner really liked Wayne. She served speedily, efficiently and friendly, and our food arrived swiftly for a sit-down, waitress-served restaurant.

I ordered the Shack Stack, 9 ounces of up to three meats on lightly-toasted white bread, fries and beans. The menu says “slow-smoked meats,” but I really didn’t taste any smoke, or flavoring, on either the beef or the pork that I had stacked between the toasted bread. Both meats were dry and desperate for sauce, although once their thirst was quenched they blended well with both sauces. I’m guessing that both were cooked the day before, although both were of high quality for a pulled meat sandwich with little gristle or visual fat.

Toasting the bread, a genius adaptation on traditional KC BBQ presentation, maintained the sandwich’s structural integrity. I soaked the meat in sauce and the bread didn’t tear, didn’t rip, didn’t flounder in the face of sticky-wet diversity. Zemel appreciated that the toasted bread gave her extra time before the bread gets soggy. “I didn’t need a fork until the last few bites,” she added.

Zemel ordered the Memphis Po’ Boy. If you’re wondering about the pictures of this sandwich, I forgot to take them before she chowed down. She said that if the meat was dry she couldn’t tell because of the coleslaw, which stayed crunchy even when drenched in sauce. Zemel loved the Po’ Boy, composed of pork and served on a warm French roll.

The plain navy beans, soaked with shreds of pork, in average sauce.

The cheesy corn bake was thick and creamy, and mixed with chunks of ham. The ham provided the concoction a slightly salty taste. The corn was a little curdled, as if it had been sitting for a while, but we both enjoyed it.

The fries, crispy and covered in seasoned salt (I think), probably came from a bag. The thin cuts of potato, though, were prepared properly with care. I liked them, but they weren’t anything special.

And now introducing, the star of the show, RJ’s sauce. Two sauces, in clear squeeze bottles sat on the table. The Original, sweet and delicious, really stood out and brought the meat and fries up a level. A strong taste of honey and brown sugar clearly led the way, but a tanginess corralled the strong sweet senses, saddled and controlled them. A hint of heat and a vignette of vinegar rounded the sauce out. Like I said, the meat needed to be drenched, but once I tasted the sauce my complaint disappeared. I was ecstatic to have an excuse to smother, to drown my sandwich in delicious sauce.

The Hot seemed like the original, but with more hotness. Duh, right? The heat, chased by a strong peppery flavor, swarmed my mouth, inflamed my taste buds, but did not overwhelm my senses.

With such scrumptious sauce, though, we wished there had been more napkins sitting on the table. Another sign of great BBQ is napkins or paper towels on the table, implying that you should enjoy your food so as not to notice the mess you make until the end.

Zemel was correct when she described RJ’s as a Johnson County dive. If you’re worried about a BBQ joint’s cleanliness, then RJ’s is a good fit for you. RJ’s would also be worth it, for the sauce alone, if you’re around Roe Blvd. or in Mission and really want some BBQ. Overall, the establishment was middle of the road for Kansas City, but I enjoyed my meal and the service was friendly.

Smokin' Guns BBQ Wins...Another Participation Prize

Josh making the dad vacation photo pose

After a week consumed in blackletter law my compatriot Josh Wiseman and I needed a long lunch break before we got back to Barbri’s books. I’ve been meaning to head North across the river to Smokin’ Guns. I’ve been there a few times, over a year ago, and I remember liking it a lot, but I’ve never reviewed it. Well, it turns out that I didn’t know anything then because the meal I had today was average at best.

We walked in the small building on Swift Street, which is currently being expanded, the remodeling occurring next door. To our left, rows of columns of various-sized trophies, some over waste-high. To our right, a wood-wall adorned with multi-colored ribbons. A good sign? You’d think so wouldn’t you?

I ordered the large pulled pork on bun, with steak fries, beans, corn and a soda. Josh ordered the beef sandwich on white bread with beans, steak fries and a soda.

I had forgotten my notebook in the car and walked outside to street parking. When I returned, my meal was waiting. What expedient service. Well there’s a reason.

Pulled pork overflowed from inside my sizable white bun. If I ever went back (I have no plans to) I’d get the bread, the thick, stiff bun being just too much.

The meal was substantial and the portions were plentiful, but the quality was questionable. The meat was dry, barren, a desert, a tundra that had been sitting, waiting to be served. I can’t imagine any set of circumstances where that lukewarm-at-best meat was smoked or cooked today, only heated up. I was seriously disappointed.

I squirted sauce from the bottle that sat on the table, bit in again, put my sandwich down and added sauce to the bottom. I would have had to add more sauce anyway because the meat was in abundance, but the meat required watering every few bites. I think I tasted some vague, lingering smoke left on the pork, but I cannot really be sure, and other than that the pork had no additional flavor. I dropped a chunk of meat on the table and felt no temptation to ignore the health risks involved in eating it. Normally, I’d at least have to talk myself out of making such a mistake. Sometimes, I’d go ahead and do it anyway.

Josh gave me a bit of his sandwich and the beef suffered from the same affliction. Dry, a little fatty, and plain with not even a potential lingering of smoke.

“I don’t think I could have eaten that without sauce,” Wiseman explained. That’s really all he had to say about the beef.

The abrasive sauce tasted overwhelmingly of vinegar, and was followed by a sweet scent, which stopped by for only a second. After the split second of sweet, the sauce left me with a warm taste of chili powder in my mouth. Josh described the exact same sensation in the exact same order. The sauce wasn’t bad, but it certainly wasn’t anything special. I didn’t think it held enough balance and thought it tasted like a soft, lazy Arthur Bryant’s Original knock-off.  

Dry beef up close

In general, when a restaurant has only one sauce they display confidence and pride in their work and I have respect for that. At Smokin’ Guns I witnessed either laziness or sinful pridefulness and I think it was both.

In my opinion when a restaurant creates multiple sauces they show care to their customers varying tastes, they display creativity, a willingness and an openness to new ideas and adaptation. At Smokin’ Guns I saw flavor stagnation.

The plain steak fries clearly arrived in a frozen bag, but they were crisp, prepared as skillfully as possible. I couldn’t taste the frozen or anything, but I’ve had them before at countless restaurants. Hell, I’ve had them in my own home, baked in an oven and salted. They had no salt, no pepper, just potato, an indifferent presentation.

Bland steak fries

The beans were the best part of the meal but were not anything special. Some shredded beef sat in the mixture that held a systemic heat, which warmed my mouth without burning it. They beans were solid, serviceable, no better.

The corn, boiled, specked every so lightly with pepper and slopped in a cup, displayed an utter lack of concern for detail. I could barely taste the corn it was so plain.

While we ate, Josh pointed out that he did not see any ribbons won after 2002. After searching, I found one from 2007. We examined the ribbons, plagues and trophies, and we found many from out-of-state competitions such as those from Oklahoma, Tennessee, Nebraska and Iowa. Have you ever heard of any great BBQ from Nebraska or Iowa? This glutton hasn’t. Josh surmised, and it seems he may very well be right, that Smokin’ Guns enters as many competitions as possible and hangs up every single award they win. I mean, one of the awards hung was for best label. Who gives a crap about their label?

Overall, I thought the food tasted plain and simply lazy. The proprietors at Smokin’ Guns seem to have found a formula and have stuck with it. I saw no creativity, no spark, no special care, but for some reason I did see plenty of customers, a steady stream.

I think these people suffer from what I will for now on refer to as “Gate’s Syndrome,” a sickness that occurs when you have the same meal since birth, usually a local favorite. You grow accustomed to it. You grow to love and believe in it whether that devotion is merited or not. Your acquired-familiarity creates unfounded loyalty that clouds your judgment.

The new addition.

Nothing at Smokin’ Guns really sticks out. It’s definitely not worth going out of the way. If you’re over in North Kansas City and you must have BBQ it might be one of the only places available so in that case stopping by would be worthwhile.

It’s not terrible by any means, but like I’ve explained before, I hold KC BBQ to a higher standard, and Smokin’ Guns just doesn’t compete with the quality or care, in any department, I’ve had elsewhere.

“I wish they didn’t have all the awards up because it was like when you go to a movie that everyone tells you is so good and you leave like, ‘ehh,’” Josh described his distaste. “It was specifically like when I saw Thor.”

And I’m really not kidding about the meat’s dryness. You remember in “The Grapes of Wrath” where Steinbeck talks about dust for page after page after page?

Woodyard Bar-B-Que...The Secret is in the Smoke

The first I heard of Woodyard Bar-B-Que, located on Merriam Lane, just off Interstate 35, was from my sister who lives in Dallas because Woodyard was featured on a Food Network show. Since then I've heard the name every so often from a variety of barbecue enthusiasts.

A friend of mine, Sarah Studyvin, was visiting her sister in Fairway, and wanted to get some authentic Kansas City BBQ. Since I had to pick her up across the border anyway, I decided to take her to Woodyard and we were both blown away with the fumes that flow from Woodyard's constantly smokin' pit.

I smelled the sweetly pungent odor the second I opened my car door. On my way into the tight cottage that houses Woodyard's restaurant, I glimpsed enormous stacked piles of wood set far back from the cramped parking lot. Next to the cottage laid bags of several wood varieties. Woodyard is an actual wood yard and has been since about 1914. The restaurant was established in 1950.

Sarah and I walked up by the brick smoker which was a part of the brick patio, through a swinging screen door and into the cramped joint. Woodyard might be a bit crowded on a cold or rainy day as only a few tables sat inside, but outside stood a few picnic tables and numerous sets of patio furniture.

I ordered a pulled pork sandwich and got the two side option, fries and cheesy corn, for a total of $7.25. Yes, an entire meal for $7.25. I also got the beans, a single rib and a soda to put my total just about $13.00. I thought that selling single ribs was genius, because it allowed everyone to at least try a rib in case someone isn’t up to eating the full or even the half slab. I thought the option considered their customers cravings and marketed their product brilliantly. Both baby back and spare ribs were available. I got a spare rib because it has more meat. Sarah ordered the burnt end sandwich with fries, cheesy corn and a soda.

The view from our table

We sat at a picnic table outside, caught up and enjoyed the lovely day, sensing the smoke-filled air. A fan blew next to us, keeping people cool and the smoke blowing from the old smoker into the air and away from the patio. Our food was delivered, to our delight, with reasonable speed.

My sandwich, crafted to seemingly specific, precise proportions and grounded in a long hoagie bun, sat next to the wedge fries and two reasonably sized cups which held the corn and beans. I thought the hoagie bun was a nice touch because it allowed more meat than an average hamburger bun and created structural integrity.

Wood for sale

The shredded pork swelled with sweet smokiness, and small diced onions, which had either been sautéed or smoked with the meat, hid amongst the shreds. I thought that the onions provided a particularly creative and tasty touch separating Woodyard’s pork sandwich from any I have ever eaten.

 I could not find any gristle or fat in the juicy, but not dripping, shreds. The pork held a certain sturdiness, gained from extensive smoking that recoiled before it reached the level of toughness, an attribute I admire when the meat can maintain such a level of juiciness. The pork reached a level of smoke-potency that I have rarely tasted. I think that using the sweet woods, like pecan, as Woodyard does, allows the smoke flavor more prevalence without dominating the sandwich. I didn’t need bread. I didn’t need sauce. I didn’t need fries, cheesy corn or beans. I think I have found my new favorite meat.

The rib meat, cocooned, in a crispy, burnt-with-intention crust dropped from the bone in my fingers. The tender, juicy flesh held, ingrained in every molecule, a well-smoked spectacle. This meat too required no sauce, but I added some any way just to try it out.

The burnt end sandwich grasped the sweet smoke in the same manner. The ends lightly-burnt-crust exterior refrained from overtaking the beef, allowing the insides to remain tender, juicy and flavorful.

Woodyard had two sauces, Original and Spicy. The Original, composed from a strong vinegar base, was accompanied by a soft tang and a slight subtle sweetness that restrained the vinegar, which kept it under control. Although the more strident, more dedicated vinegar taste lingered shortly in my mouth.

The Spicy version was similar, but had a stronger tang, followed by a hot jab, potentially from chili powder or cayenne, to the taste buds, although the sauce kept control, powerful but not overpowering, in your face but not abrasive. I wouldn’t say these were my favorite sauces by any means, as I like a sweeter blend, but they were solid and complimented the meat perfectly. A sweeter sauce might have gotten control of the meal, but here, the smoke-infused meat is the star.

The sides backed the sandwich appropriately. The cheesy corn was composed of crisp fresh corn and a thin cream mixed with thyme and chunks of ham, conceiving a smooth balance of taste. I’m not much of a ham fan but I thought this meat added a special saltiness to the side. And, while most places emphasize their cheese, Woodyard emphasizes their fresh corn and I truly enjoyed their take on this local favorite.

The beans held a substantial beef flavor, which emanated from the chunks of beef that waded in the thick blend which was partly composed of diced onions and paprika. We also tasted a sampling of power, maybe chili powder or cayenne pepper that gave the beans a little something extra.

The crispy wedge fries, cut from real potatoes as shown by the skin on their bottoms, supplemented the pork perfectly. The thick wedges had been dashed with pepper, and tiny red specs of cayenne, providing the potato meat with full flavor.

As we left I talked a bit to Mark O’Bryan, the expert smoker. O’Bryan, a cousin of Woodyard’s owners, explained that Woodyard used a lot of pecan wood, and also white oak with some hickory. O’Bryan explained that even though using hickory chips is considered dogma around Kansas City, that he thought it often left the meat a little bitter.

“Pecan is idiot proof,” O’Bryan explained. “I say idiot proof because I have good results with it,” he chuckled.

Smoke pouring out after
O'Bryan opened the grill

I don’t think the atmosphere at Woodyard can be beat. “That’s what a barbecue place should be, that you can see the meat being cooked,” Studyvin explained. There was something special about sitting outdoors on a picnic table with the brick smoker, only 15 feet or so from our table, connected with the brick patio. They patio, the smoker and us were one, creating an acutely homey feel.

And, as far as sandwiches, meat and sides go, Woodyard has moved up towards the top of my list. It might be a little out of the way unless you’re already on I35, but the trip is worth it. I promise.

O'Bryan encouraged me to get closeups of the meat. The resulting photo shoot is below.