In this great country of ours, you can walk into a barbecue joint with a twenty dollar bill and walk out with one and a half pounds of chopped pork barbecue (Lexington-style, of course), three-fourths of a quart of vinegary coleslaw, and more hush puppies than you know what to do with. At Stamey’s Barbecue, in Greensboro, North Carolina, they call this “Barbecue for Six,” but you won’t get any strange looks if you order it by yourself at 10:30 A.M. on a Tuesday morning.
On my last visit to Stamey’s, I contented myself with a plate of chopped pork barbecue, but what I really wanted was, well, more. And so my intrepid travelling companion and I went, if you’ll pardon the pun, whole hog and got a container of the stuff, along with an ample portion of that delightful barbecue-sauce-infused vinegar slaw and a few rolls to make sandwiches with.
As ever, the pork was tender and moist and absurdly flavorful, the slaw kicking with an acidic tang. The hush puppies were only so-so this time, perhaps because we got one of the first batches of the day fried in relatively un-interesting oil.
In any event, we had an amazing meal of it. They know their stuff at Stamey’s. If only it weren’t a twelve hour round-trip…