Woo Lae Oak--Korean BBQ in Schaumburg

Ok, it's actually in Algonquin Rolling Meadows Greater Woodfield, but Mitch spotted this place when he was all drunk, riding in my car on the way back from Finn McCool's one time, and asked me what Korean barbecue's all about. After a brief description, he muttered something like "anything that involves meat and has the word 'barbecue' is alright with me" so when another high school friend came in from Texas for a visit, we looked the place up and figured out that it was Woo Lae Oak.

I couldn't find much online about the place. It's a chain based in Seoul, Korea, with outlets in New York, Beverly Hills, and Tyson's Corners(?). It's quite large and well-appointed, and I think for that reason they do a pretty good business on banquets and meetings--almost everyone else in the place was dressed up; the men were mostly wearing suits and there were quite a few of what looked like business meetings taking place. The four of us were seated around a large, very comfortable booth with a circular table, quickly plied with cold beer and soju, and our modest attire of shorts and t-shirts didn't seem to faze anyone.

I haven't had a whole lot of Korean barbecue, but I was expecting the server to bring a hibachi or some kind of portable charcoal grill to the table. Once we ordered, though, the waiter came over and removed the center portion of the table to reveal a round grill right there, embedded into the table. Cool.

"Yeah, grill in the table... real cool, Ed. Bring me some meat RIGHT NOW."

While the grill's getting hot, they bring you all the panchan, which are different relishes, pickles, and various fish-jerkies and such, and there was some sort of steamed egg custard-like cube served up, which I can't say I enjoyed. There are three essential dipping sauces, which our server encouraged us to use individually, or together. I liked the sesame oil salt best, and used that on almost everything, along with the soy-sauce based one. The three sauces can be seen at the far right of this picture, with chopsticks being dipped into the soy, the uppermost of the three little dishes. The sauces really did a nice job accentuating the flavor of the meat.

Because, basically, it's all about the meat. We ordered a few different kinds of beef, some pork belly, and some shrimp and scallops. I knew to ask for a couple specific things--bulgogi, for example--but some of the stuff we had was just me pointing at the menu randomly. The best one, which I won't even attempt to remember the Korean name for, was rich beef rib meat, cut from the bone into 'fingers' which completely melted when cooked quickly.

The experience was, over all, pretty nice. Our waiter wasn't the most outgoing, but he did a decent job of cooking and serving the offerings, using a scissors to cut neat portions of the various meats and doling them out bite-by-bite, suggesting specific sauces or other panchan to eat with each different item. I wasn't sure if we were going to have to cook our own meat, as is standard in some Korean BBQ places, but there it didn't seem to even be a possibility. Our server never gave us the choice, and whether that's because we weren't Korean and he assumed we wouldn't know what we were doing (he'd have been correct) or that's the standard practice at this place, I can't say.

Among the online reviews, I did read a few cranky criticisms about the waiters not speaking English very well. And while this is probably true, the staff did a fine job of communicating with us, and the menu's translated well enough, so I'm not sure why it's such a big problem.

Oh--good opportunity for a minor rant; what is it with people who get all upset if their server in an authentic (and by that I mean that it's run by people who are cooking and serving their native cuisine) restaurant doesn't speak great English, or they don't have tea or ketchup or whatever it is that person "must" have or they will just absolutely plotz?

People, please get over yourselves. Look, I can appreciate the LEYE-level standard of customer service, appointments, and just general fit and finish of the restaurant, but I don't carry that expectation out into the world of small, family-owned and run restaurants. Why would I?

If you're going to places like that (and you should be) you're going for the food, so forget about assessing the level of service, or focusing on the haphazard, chintzy decor, or the spartan qualities of the bathrooms. Leave your chain-restaurant expectations at home, strap yourself in, and just point to some stuff on the menu. Take a plunge, try something with a head or an eyeball fer crissakes. Order something with tendon, maw, or tripe in it, and allow yourself to be taken out of your comfort zone once in a while. It's just one meal. Really, what's the worst thing that could happen? If it's terrible, you'll have a snack at home later.

The meal at Woo Lae Oak seemed kind of slow, at first, since they could only really cook one or two different things at a time, but the pace actually ended up being something that I really enjoyed about the meal, since getting only a few bites of each item at a time, then waiting for the next course provided a much calmer, more leisurely feel to the evening and I think I probably ate less while not feeling any less full as a result. Plus, it gave us ample time to catch up, which was nice. Probably another reason why this place seems to cater to larger parties.

The one complaint I have is that the in-table grill didn't seem to generate enough heat to really put a good sear on the meat, and because of that, a lot of the stuff seemed to steam more than grill or "barbecue" once the cooking surface was loaded with raw beef, pork, and/or shellfish. Kind of a fatal flaw. I've only been to a couple other Korean barbecue places, but it's my impression that the ones using charcoal are cooking over higher heat and, subesequently, putting out a better-quality end product.

So, bottom line; Woo Lae Oak was nice, but nothing fabulous. It's acceptable Korean barbecue in a fairly luxurious and upscale setting, so it's perhaps a good middle ground for those who want to be adventurous diners without wanting to give up the mainstream-restaurant-level surroundings. Or for those who want the experience but don't want to go all the way into the city to go to somewhere like San Soo Gap San or Hae Woon Dae where you'll end up cooking your own food over live charcoal.

Our tab ended up being about $60/per person, including tax, tip, and quite a few drinks. Plus, we ordered almost all protein items, rather than adding some rice or noodle dishes that would have filled us up a bit more economically, so really, it's not all that expensive, all things considered. Definitely worth a try.

Just make sure you bring your English->Korean dictionary. Or have a couple glasses of soju and muddle through...that's more fun anyway.

Makin' Bacon

In my recent entry about Peoria Packing Butcher Shop, I talked about how I bought a pork belly to experiment with making my own bacon. Well, the process has come to its logical conclusion and I thought I'd share the results.

Bottom line; the bacon I made was good, but not great. I do, however, have a pretty good handle on what can be improved upon, so I believe that the next batch will be better.

Lacking the seminal Michael Ruhlman book, I turned, of course, to the internet for information on what, exactly I needed to do to turn my pork belly into everyone's favorite cured, smoky treat. There's precious little credible information out there, in fact, but I did stumble onto this thread on LTH forum by my idol, and virtual mentor in so many endeavors, Mike Gebert. The thread served as a perfect primer, especially because Gebert used the Weber Smokey Mountain smoker and went into some detail about how to keep the smoker running cool enough to simulate the cold smoking that is typical of bacon production.

It's really a very easy process that's worth taking on, if only for the sake of going through the motions and learning how it's done. Here's a step-by-step walkthrough of what I did.

Step One: The Belly

As already noted, my belly was purchased at Peoria Packing, and I really didn't consider the choice very carefully--I just grabbed one randomly off the pile. The belly comes as one large floppy piece. I had trouble at first figuring out how this thing would end up resembling a slab of bacon, but after I cut it into three more or less equal pieces, it started to take shape. I got two good-sized blocks that I planned on using for my homemade bacon and one piece, from the scrawny end, that I figured I could use for braising or something.

In retrospect, the belly that I got at Peoria Packing wasn't all that great. It was pretty thin, resulting perhaps from sloppy trimming when the ribs were removed from the belly section. PP offers bellies with ribs on as well, so next time I may buy that cut and remove the ribs myself, leaving as much meat on the belly as I can. Or I may check Chicago Food Corp on Pulaski. There are also some other, more expensive options for getting high-quality bellies that I might pursue.


Step Two: The Cure

I recalled, vaguely, from somewhere, that the basic ratio for curing meats is 10:5:1, meaning 10 parts salt to five parts sugar to one part pink salt (sodium nitrate, aka Prague powder). Pink salt is optional, but it helps preserve the color, adds flavor, and makes the curing process safer, inhibiting stuff like botulism, so I made a quick trip over to The Spice House in Evanston and picked some up. It's also available over the internet through websites like Sausagemaker.com.

So, using that ratio, I mixed 500 grams of kosher salt, 250 grams brown sugar, and 50 grams of the pink salt. I decided to keep this cure really simple and just add black pepper for flavor, so I coarsely ground some peppercorns (about 75 grams) in my old coffee grinder, and threw them in as well.

Then I liberally applied the cure to the belly pieces, put each one into a ziplock bag and tossed them in my old basement fridge on a sheetpan (in case the bags leaked). I turned the bags over every other day to make sure the cure soaked in evenly, and after a week in the bags, I took the bellies out, rinsed them, dried them well with paper towels, and put them in the fridge on a rack set over a sheetpan so they could dry off and form a pellicle. The pellicle is kind of a skin that forms that allows the smoke to 'stick' to the meat and also prevents too much moisture from being lost during the smoking process.

Step Three: The Smoke

The big challenge here was getting my Weber smoker, which is designed to 'hot' smoke at temps between 200° and 275° to run colder, so the pork bellies would cook as little as possible. The right way to smoke pork bellies for bacon is in a smokehouse or with an offset smoker, which allows for cold smoking.

But I don't have either of those, so I was determined to get my WSM to run at about 150° for the 3-4 hours I figured I'd need to impart a whole lot of hickory smoke flavor before the bellies would have a chance to cook much. Besides one pretty funny MacGyver-esque set-up, which some guy constructs using dryer exhaust venting, foil pie plates, cardboard boxes, and duct tape, what I found was that building a very small fire and keeping it just barely going was the way to go. That's what I did and I ran a pretty solid 150° for four hours.

Step Four: Slicing

Slicing bacon by hand is hard!

After my bacon came off the smoker, I let it cool on a rack, then wrapped it in plastic and allowed it to firm up overnight in the fridge. The next day, I put the pieces in the freezer for a few hours and then took them out to slice them, which, I found, is no easy task.

I ended up with kind of a variety of thicknesses, basically due to my inability to consistently slice evenly, but that ended up being fine, since it allowed me to see how the various thicknesses cooked up. Cutting thicker slices is easier, and the thick slices cooked up nicer anyway, so that's what I'll go with next time around.

Step Five: Cook (and eat)

So? How'd it turn out?

Well, like I said, pretty good, but not great. I'd leave it in the cure for a few days longer next time. The thinner parts of the belly had good salt and sweetness, but the thicker sections lacked flavor and tasted more like fresh pork. So 10 days of curing next time around, rather than the seven I did this time.

The smokiness was excellent. You can see by the black outer edges that the smoke really penetrated and flavored the bacon. It's got that really incredibly strong smokiness that you can smell as soon as you open the door of the fridge. I used hickory chunks and I'll do it the same exact way next time around.

The texture was varied. The thinner pieces, while crispier, also had kind of a chewy, jerky-like quality to them, while the slices that were cut thicker ended up being more tender, with that melting quality where the fat just kind of disintegrates in your mouth. Thick slices are better.

All in all, while I'm not going to subject my first run-through to the stringent review process of The Bacon List, I'm deeming this experiment a rousing success. The end result was certainly edible, and better than most grocery store bacon I've had. And while it falls short of something like a Niman Ranch or a Broadbent, I think the potential is there to approach that level of quality.

All in all, a fine diversion resulting in some pretty good breakfast meat. I'll certainly do it again and I'll keep you posted how things progress.

My New Favorite Restaurant

A recent search for a cheap, serviceable pickup truck led me up to Waukegan for the Waukegan Auto Auction, and while I didn't buy a truck, I ate a dinner that was so good, I'm proclaiming the place that served it to me to be my New Favorite Restaurant.

The place is Captain Porky's, and it's situated right on the border of Zion and Beach Park, Illinois, just across the street from Illinois Beach State Park.

Moments like this generate a strange simultaneous mix of emotions. I'm literally thrilled to have discovered this place. At this very moment, as I type, I'm coming up with various excuses that will justify driving the 45 minutes each way. Oh, the thrill of anticipation...the feeling of future promise. And, yet, while I'm exhilarated at the notion of having a New Favorite, I'm also angry, frustrated, and left with a feeling of being somewhat cheated.

How could this place have been in existence for all this time and I've only now found out about it? Think of all the shrimp, crab, and lobster I could've been eating! Think of the rib tips and hot links that are gone....forever...long ago resigned to the compost heaps of history, and the many inferior meals that I wasted the time, effort, and calories on when I could've been eating at Captain Porky's.

But (sigh) all I can do, really, is look forward, towards the future.

Summer is coming. 45 minutes isn't really all that far to drive to go to the beach. And what better way to augment a trip to the beach than with wonderfully fresh fried seafood and good barbecue?

I have a feeling I'm going to be very tan this summer.

Okay, so what's so great about Captain Porky's?

Well, it's one of those places like Calumet Fisheries or Hagan's Fish Market where you pick the type of seafood you want and they sell it by the pound and cook it up for you on the spot. Which is cool. These places are kind of a dying breed in Chicago and they usually feature some pretty darn fresh seafood prepared by people that really appreciate fish and, therefore, respect it and know the best ways to cook it.

But Porky's goes way beyond that. I ordered a half pound of fried fresh jumbo gulf shrimp, which were hand-breaded in front of me while I watched.


These shrimp were things of beauty. Sweetness for days, a great, almost lobster-like texture, with a super-light, flavorful and greaseless batter that just barely clung to the shrimp, but still provided great crunch and a perfect toasty, slightly salty counterpoint to the succulent meat. A really nice, zippy cocktail sauce as well. It might sound like I'm exaggerating if I called these shrimp "transcendent", but I assure you, I am not exaggerating.

Have you ever tried fresh gulf shrimp? If you're not sure, then you probably haven't. 95% or more of the shrimp found in restaurants is farmed stuff from Vietnam, which starts out bland and kind of poopy-smelling from eating homogeneous feed and being raised in crowded vats or ponds with eighty bazillion of its brothers, and it doesn't get any better once it's frozen into a block, shipped halfway across the world, and defrosted under running water in one of hundreds of Chicago restaurant basement prep kitchens that don't want to deal with the added effort or expense of sourcing fresh gulf shrimp.

People don't know any better. They think shrimp is shrimp. But, oh, that is just not so. And the irony of it is that you don't know what you're missing until you travel, maybe down to New Orleans or somewhere along the gulf coast, and someone happens to toss some fresh gulf shrimp your way. There's a world of difference. Fresh gulf shrimp have FLAVOR. They are caught from the wild, in the ocean, where their diet is varied, and this provides a rich, concentrated shrimp flavor that you just don't get from the farmed stuff. The texture is far superior as well. There's this wonderful, meatiness that's firm but yielding, a pleasant 'snap' when you bite through it, and an almost buttery richness.

I'm going on and on for a number of reasons; it's been years since I had a fresh gulf shrimp, I've never had them prepared as perfectly as the ones Dino, the owner of Captain Porky's served me tonight, and, honestly, the last thing I expected when I started trolling around the fairly depressed-looking area north of Waukegan was that I'd be eating the best shrimp ever from a styrofoam container while standing under the open hatch of the back of my car. Plus, I paid $7.50 for a half pound which was generously comprised of six or seven big shrimp.

Ok. Are you getting it now? It gets better.

They've also got an aquarium style smoker over at Porky's, which they're firing with apple wood and lump charcoal, and they're using it to turn out ribs, chicken, pulled pork, rib tips, hot links, and whatever kinds of fish Dino feels like tossing on the smoker that day (you can see the fish at the very top of the picture to the right). When I asked for a small order of the pulled pork, he pulled out a shoulder and started working it over with a cleaver on a large butcher block, so it's not sitting in a steam table all day getting mushy.

The menu is enormous. There are thirty different options listed under "Seafood Dinner" (comes with choice of garlic potatoes or french fries, coleslaw or greens, and dinner roll or cornbread), among them crabmeat-stuffed gulf shrimp, smelt, frog legs, oysters, alligator tail, and four different kinds of crab. You can get most of those as a po' boy sandwich as well, or just order whichever type seafood you're interested in to be fried by the pound.

They had some great-looking pre-packaged items, like shrimp, crab, lobster, and conch salad, there's gumbo and clam chowder, 14 different side dishes, and they're baking their own cornbread, dinner rolls, and kaiser rolls for sandwiches. Plus the barbecue, which is authentic, legit, real-deal stuff. The hot links are made on site.

This place is like some kind of dream--or nightmare, possibly--come true. How can I possibly ever try everything? I could go there twenty times and not even scratch the surface, especially because I wouldn't be able to avoid getting the hand-breaded jumbo gulf shrimp every. single. damn. time.

But here's the real kicker; Dino, the owner, is a bigtime foodie from Greece whose family still owns and maintains an olive grove there. Once I expressed an interest and started taking pictures, he really warmed up, pulling out a giant demijohn of green-gold olive oil from under a table for me to sample. He poured a little cupful, broke off a chunk of dinner roll and dunked it in, soaking it, and then brought it up toward my mouth, motioning for me to taste his family's oil.

Not surprisingly, it was fantastic.

Then he pulled a plastic-wrapped lump from a display cooler cluttered with chunks of vacuum-packed smoked fish, duck eggs, and other, less recognizable stuff and started unwrapping it, describing it as "homemade parmesan". It was grainy, aged maybe a year, quite salty with a little gaminess, more like a pecorino than a parmesan, so I asked if it was sheep's milk. "No," he replied, smiling proudly, "goats' milk. From my herd."

If this guy was anywhere near the city, he'd be heralded as a genius and the place would be mobbed every day, even if he charged double his current prices. How 'bout a lobster roll for seven bucks? Or a softshell crab po' boy for eight?

Here's the rub; the place, I fear, is about to get very, very busy. Dino told me that he's going to be on the Food Network show Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives, which is going to be filming this weekend at The Shanty, the nearby restaurant he helps his son run. He said that the Food Network wanted to feature both restaurants, but that he was concerned about the crush that might cause. He seemed well aware of what's been called the "Check, Please" effect--the phenomenon of very good restaurants suddenly getting much worse as a result of being featured on some prominent show and the subesequent flood of people that kind of publicity causes.

If anyone can manage to avoid that particular pitfall, it's Dino.

I was so enthralled with Captain Porky's that I talked it up to my buddy Mitch, and we made the trip up a mere two days after my maiden voyage. We set out fairly early with a cooler full of beers icing in the back of the car, figuring that this time we'd do it up right and take advantage of the nice weather and the nearby picnic tables.

Dino remembered me from earlier in the week, and after I introduced Mitch, he motioned for me to come in the back so he could show me his smoker. He was working on some kind of new project involving oak, salmon sides, and rib tips. He excitedly told me his plan, smiling madly, as if describing some sort of world domination plot; "You see the fat on this?", he asked, shoving a chunk of rib tip an inch from my face, "I'm gonna put the salmon on the bottom rack, and the rib tips above it, so the grease from the pork drips down, flavoring the salmon."

As I munched on the rib tip ("Try it--it's not done yet, but it's still good--you can taste the oak"), he gestured wildly, eyes bulging with intensity, as he described the evil, pork-fat-flavored smoked salmon plot he was hatching. I nodded my approval and rolled my eyes skyward, acknowledging his mad genius.

As Mitch and I ordered way too much food, the incredibly friendly and accommodating staff handed us samples of practically every item we pointed at or inquired about. I gobbled down a couple crawfish tails, a souffle cup of gumbo with rice, a chunk of smoked chicken, and some cheese that Dino quickly battered and fried as an experiment that he deemed "too salty".

After our order was placed, we made our way out to the picnic table, strategically situated near the dumpsters, and settled in. It wasn't long after we revealed the bounty within the styrofoam clamshells that Dino came out, bearing chunks of pork-fat-drizzled salmon hot from the smoker, imploring us to try it. Of course, like everything this crazy, deep-fried, wood-smoke scented Midas touches, it was fantastic.

Dino ranted a while longer about his lambs, why "all meat you buy in this country is crap", and his organic gardens, which supply 75% of the vegetables for the restaurants, while we proceeded to eat like kings, lazily taking in the sunset and the cool lake breezes. We washed down our hot links (amazingly tender, smoky, with great seasoning), St. Louis style ribs (perfect--among the best I've ever eaten), shrimp, crawfish tails, and tartar sauce-dunked fried walleye pike fillets with plastic cups of cold Leinenkugel's, slowly scarfing more than we thought we were capable of, and exchanged looks of appreciation and satiety as we wiped the grease from our lips, confident in the knowledge that we were fully immersed in the moment, enjoying some of the best food in the world.

Dumpster-side dining at it's finest. It doesn't get any better than this.

It's tempting to try and frame my Captain Porky's experience within the larger context of food politics, weaving Dino's passion for provenance into a meaningful diatribe about the evils of factory farms and industrialized produce. The amazing scope of his vision--growing his own vegetables, harvesting wild mushrooms, raising his own chickens, lambs, goats, and pigs, dry-aging his own beef, making everything from wine to cheese--lends itself to the type of back-to-basics discussions of food and foodways that seem to be nearly ubiquitous lately, including right here on this blog.

But I'd rather just show up at Porky's and enjoy. It's a simple place that lends itself to simple pleasures. Perfect fried jumbo shrimp and cold beer. Really well-executed barbecue and sticky, greasy fingers. It's nice to know that Dino is behind the scenes, micro-analyzing each tiny detail in his crazy-man quest to control every aspect of the food production process and ensure that the end result is the best it can possibly be. Don't get me wrong; I do applaud this kind of thing as representative of an alternative to the mass-produced, soulless food that dominates American dining--especially at this price point.

The beauty of Porky's, though, is in its simplicity and accessibility. Those so inclined can make the pilgrimage and pick Dino's brain about seasonality and organic mulch--I guarantee he'll talk you under the table. But folks who don't know the difference between a smelt and a fish stick will appreciate this place just as much. Maybe more.

Which is, if you think about it, maybe the best possible way to change the way regular people think about food. 98% of Americans would never in a million years dream of attending a $125 per person farm-to-table dinner in a fancy downtown restaurant, but even those who don't know or care about terms like organic, sustainable, heritage, or heirloom can wander in and appreciate the difference between a six-dollar order of Dino's rib tips or clam strips and what they're getting just about everywhere else.

Sometimes, those of us who are food-obsessed or in the industry can forget that "good" food--from a qualitative and socio-political viewpoint--doesn't have to be expensive or fancy.

Thankfully, Dino is up in there Zion, quietly (or, more likely, not-so-quietly) doing it the way he's been doing it for the last 25 years, and helping us remember that.

Smokin'!

It's the first day of Spring and the sun is shining, so that's reason enough for me to bust out the smoker. I use a Weber Smokey Mountain smoker and generally do ribs, chicken, and pork shoulder at least a couple times a month when the weather is good.

It's easy and the results are delicious, but it's quite the process. There is a bit of a learning curve to get started. And mastering the process is a long journey. But there are resources available.

I used Gary Wiviott's excellent Master the WSM Smoker in Five Easy Dinners Course, which I stumbled onto via LTH Forum. Followed it to the letter, I did. And emerged with a good amount of working knowledge about how to handle the smoker. I highly recommend Prof. Wiviott's method for novices.

Reading GWiv's website will give anyone interested the fine details and methods, so I'm not going to cover all that. What I will do is gloss over the process, giving whoever's interested a bit of an intro into barbecue, generally, and the WSM, specifically. If you find yourself wanting more specifics after reading this, they're easy enough to find.

First, I'll define what we're talking about. "Barbecue" is a term that is often misused. It refers to a process of cooking meat (usually) for long periods of time over low, indirect heat, in near-constant contact with the smoke of hardwood. Low, smokey, and slow cooking. The trick is to keep the smoke moving across the meat while keeping the cooking temperature low; usually around 200°-250°F.

The WSM accomplishes this by having the fire burn at the bottom of the "bullet", and then placing a pan full of water between the fire and the the racks that hold the meat in the upper area of the unit. The water pan helps to moderate the temperature, as well as catch drippings from the cooking meat that could result in flare-ups if they landed in the fire.

This process allows the smoke to infuse and flavor the meat, and the long, low-temp cooking causes the collagen and connective tissue in certain tougher cuts of meat to break down, resulting in a transformation that anyone who loves good barbecue is familiar with. Cuts like beef brisket, pork shoulders, and ribs become meltingly tender and unctuous when given four, eight, or 12 hours of the barbecue treatment. It's a unique way of extracting the most flavor and enjoyment out of these particular pieces of meat.

One thing that really makes me bristle is hearing people referring to their grill (especially a gas grill) as a "barbecue" or saying that they're going to have a "barbecue" when they're planning on cooking some steaks, burgers, or dogs on the grill. THAT'S NOT BARBECUE!!! That's "grilling". There's an enormous difference.

Don't get me wrong. I've got nothing against grilling. I own a gas grill and use it often. But I don't call the burgers, chicken, or portobellos I cook on my grill "barbecued" because they're not.

Grilling is a high heat method of cooking in which the food sits on a grate directly above, and in close proximity to, the heat source--usually open flames. The foods cook very quickly. Therefore, it's best suited to items that are leaner and inherently tender; steaks, chops, fish, burgers, etc. "Lesser" cuts like ribs and brisket would be a disaster on the grill, as the tougher fibers of these meats would not break down during the quick grilling process. Ribs are often finished on a grill, but try grilling them from their raw state and then eating them. Not good.

Even if you're using a charcoal grill, and loading it up with real hardwood charcoal (as opposed to those nasty, chemical-laden "briquettes"), you're still grilling. If the heat is high and direct, it's not barbecue.

Grilling is often considered (especially by marketing/advertising types) as the ultimate "guy thing". Take a look at the father's day gift ideas every year and all you see are these high-tech grilling gadgets and tools. But smoking is much more of a real guy thing than cooking a steak on one of those $4,000 gas grills with their infrared sear burners could ever hope to be.

I mean, think about it; anyone can turn a knob, wait a few minutes, plop a steak on a grill, poke it with their silly temperature sensing fork a few times, and then pull it off when the thing beeps. A friggin' monkey could do it.

Smoking, on the other hand, involves fire. Fire that you light with a flame. Fire that burns differently every time, depending on the air temperature, the wind, and the quality of the charcoal.

Like the primeval ancestors that came before him, a true barbecuer makes a fire and that fire is a living thing that must be controlled. It's much more of a "guy thing" to work with your fire, learn its idiosyncrasies, and figure out how to simultaneously tame and maintain it. There is much skill involved with this. Turning a knob and clicking the igniter on your big, shiny, culinary equivalent of a Hummer doesn't put you in touch with your inner caveman, no matter how much you grunt like the guy from Home Improvement when you do it.

I joked in my last entry about how I enjoy taking on projects with steep learning curves. Well, this one's no joke. All the senses are involved in the smoking process--watching the fire and meat, smelling what the fire's doing, listening to hear when the water pan needs refilling and when the charcoal has gone to ember, touching the meat to figure out if it's reached that falling-apart level of tenderness.

Not only that, but once you've got the basics down, there are an infinite number of variables to mess around with. You've got your various rubs and marinades to play with. Hardwood options include oak, hickory, mesquite, pecan, apple, alder, and more. The classic meats to use are brisket, pork shoulder, and chicken, but once you've got those nailed, you can start branching out with turkey, fish, smoking your own pork belly for homemade bacon, making your own smoked sausages, and on and on. It's also nice to smoke non-meat items while your main dish is going. I usually do a pot of baked beans that I set on the smoker for a few hours while the ribs or chicken is going, and I've also smoked onions, peppers, and even potatoes to use in side dishes.

It's one of those minute-to-learn, lifetime-to-master things. And those are often the best things.

BBQ Miscue

Following up last week's dinner at Asian Bistro, my intrepid dining companion and I set out in search of some low-n-slow barbecue in the Northwest suburbs. I did a little research online and selected Smokin' T's in Long Grove. We were hungry as we pulled up and ready to tear into some ribs, pulled pork, and whatever sides they offered.

The place is located in a strip mall, one of these humongous small-town-size ones where you can't really even see the stores from the street, which I hate, and as we navigated the convoluted path into the parking lot, I spotted T's.

It looked like a Chipotle--which isn't what I expect from a quality barbecue joint. And it had a drive-thru. It also wasn't clear that they were actually open. We parked anyway--we were the only car within sight--and walked up to the restaurant, still uncertain whether this place was, in fact, open for business.

Well, they were. At least technically. The door opened when I pulled on it. But nearly half an hour before their closing time of 8pm, all the chairs were up on the tables and the kitchen looked totally cleaned down. We asked the counter guy if they were open and he cheerfully replied "yes". We asked if we could eat there, which we were planning on, and, again he gave us a cheerful, welcoming "yes".

"Ok", we said, and Mitch made a quick visit to the bathroom while I started to figure out what we should order. But as I was looking at the menu, I started thinking about the prospect of eating in an empty restaurant with the chairs up on the tables. I knew I'd feel guilty about keeping these guys late when they were obviously ready to go home, and forcing them to dirty equipment that they'd already cleaned for the day.

I also wondered if the quality of the food would be compromised. The barbecue that they'd been serving all day had already been held warm for who knows how long and then put away. If I ordered it now, they'd probably just re-heat it again (perhaps in the microwave) and serve it to me. And what about if we ordered fries? Was their fryer already turned off? Would I get fries that were cooked in oil that wasn't hot enough? They'd be rushing to just get our order out so they could close up--I've worked in restaurants, so I know how things get compromised at the end of the day when the cooks are anxious to to get out of there.

So, we bolted. We talked it over and opted to go elsewhere, despite the good things I'd read about the barbecue at this place.

Let this be a lesson to you, restaurant-owners. If you're open, be OPEN. Not half-open, not open but all cleaned down and ready to take off the moment the door locks. Not "you guys are welcome to take the chairs down off the tables and have a seat".

Running a restaurant is about more than providing food. It's about hospitality. It's about making people feel that they're welcome and their presence is appreciated. The counter guy at Smokin T's did his best to say the right things to us, but he couldn't counter the non-verbal messages that we received. There's more to being open than having the door unlocked and the lights turned on.

We decided to go to another nearby spot and grab a pizza, and as we were leaving, we talked about the choices that this restaurant's staff had made, and how those choices cost them our forty-dollar tab. Now, who knows, maybe they would rather forgo our forty bucks and save the hour or so of payroll that it would cost to keep the place looking open until they're actually closed. Could be. But I doubt it. Not in this economic climate--places like this need every diner and every dollar they can get.

But, even worse, they lost the opportunity to make a positive impression on us, and we're potential repeat customers who live in the area. They also lost any potential for positive word of mouth from us telling friends, family, or readers of this blog about their restaurant. Their ribs and chicken might be the best I'd ever eaten, but I'll probably never know at this point, because they created at atmosphere that made me reluctant to sit down and order, feeling that I'd probably be uncomfortable and be inconveniencing their staff.

We might give Smokin' T's another chance. But I doubt we will, since they close at 8pm on weeknights and it's hard for us to get out there early enough to be sure we won't have another repeat of this performance. Maybe sometime when we're interested in take out.

I wish them the best of luck and harbor no ill will as a result of this experience. Mostly, I'm just disappointed. I love barbecue and had high hopes for this place. Maybe I missed out. But at least I got a good real-world example of how hospitality involves a lot more than just making and serving food. It's something I'll take with me in my professional life, as I move forward in my career running kitchens and restaurants, as a concrete example of what not to do, and why.