Arthur Bryant’s Barbecue – Kansas City, MO
For several years, I have read books by Calvin Trillin, my favorite unauthoritative authority on eating, which tout Arthur Bryant’s as “the greatest restaurant in the world”. I’m not sure I would go that far, but it is superlative barbecue, worth driving to Kansas City for, even if you live in, say, Poughkeepsie.
Don’t expect to be coddled after your drive, though. Don’t expect to be the only person who drove through the night to get there, either. When I visited the original establishment at 18th and Brooklyn at five o’clock on a Tuesday night, the place was packed with a healthy mixture of locals and culinary gastronauts from out-of-town. The only decoration to speak of was a giant jug of barbecue sauce in the front window and signed pictures of celebrity patrons all along the top of the walls, the latter a design feature I associate with cheesesteak joints in Philadelphia.
The servers at the counter take that Philly gruffness to a whole new level, however: They make the guys at Pat’s Steaks, who bark at you if you momentarily waver between getting your steak “Wiz Wit” or any other way, look like trained concierges, fresh out of hospitality school. At Arthur Bryant’s, you go up to the counter, tell ’em what you want, and move on down the line. Don’t waste their time with your hemming and hawing. They’ve got people to feed.
Figuring that it might be a long, long time before I had a chance to come here again, I wanted to sample as much as I could. I wasn’t too excited about the prospect of ham, turkey or sausage: I feel that the real test of a barbecue joint comes from the cuts of meat which can only be made tender by long, slow smoking. I narrowed my choices down to the beef (brisket, I believe), pulled pork, ribs and “burnt ends” (the tougher, chewier ends of the brisket). I decided to get a “combo”, which allowed me to choose two of those options and only cost a dollar more than any one meat alone; I settled on beef and burnt ends.
Well. They called this a “sandwich”. I called it “dinner”, “breakfast”, “lunch” and “dinner the next day”.
Nanoseconds after the words “Combo, please—beef and burnt ends” were out of my mouth, three slices of white bread hit a piece of wax paper. One giant handful of meat was thrown on top of the bread. Another giant handful was added to this. An enormous ladleful of sauce was slathered all over, around, underneath and through. (I had a momentary panic when this happened: Barbecue sauce is often the ruin of many a barbecue, which is all about properly cooked meat. It turned out that I had nothing to fear: Instead of that gloppy sweet stuff that usually passes for barbecue sauce [excuse me—BBQ sauce], this was a remarkably balanced blend of smoky chiles and tangy vinegar that perfectly complemented the meat.) Three or four slices of white bread were flung on top before the whole mass was bundled up into a football-sized package. That poor bread never stood a chance.
I had foolishly told my Lovely Vegetarian Wife, “Oh, I’ll just eat the sandwich in the car.” All illusions of being able to eat this without a fork, a knife, a roll of paper towels and perhaps a fire hose had been thoroughly dispelled by watching the assembly of the football. Sitting at an open table, I ate as much as I could. The meat was perfect: Tender, smoky, juicy, highlighted but not overwhelmed by the sauce (or, more accurately, the sauce-soaked bread). After eating almost to the point of bursting, I looked at the football: I had barely made a dent in it.
The good news is that the meat was just as good the morning after (and the afternoon, and the evening). The Militant Carnivore was sated.
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