The Bar-B-Q Center, Lexington, North Carolina

Continuing Day 2 of my the Ride through Hell. Recovery Tour, after lunch #2 at the Backyard BBQ Pit in Durham, I headed to Lexington. That’s the beating heart of North Carolina Piedmont Barbecue, one of the great styles of barbecue in the world, and home of the Barbecue Center.

I’ve posted about the Barbecue Center twice before, here and here. It’s a Lexington institution, the oldest barbecue place in Lexington that still cooks over a pit, and it has a huge following. The Barbecue Bros put it in the first rank among the many barbecue places in Lexington, right behind the magnificent Lexington Barbecue #1.

I got to the Barbecue Center a bit after 3:00 pm, the doldrums for restaurants in general and barbecue places in particular. And I’d already had that sandwich at Backyard and an earlier lunch at Longleaf Swine, and another barbecue place to hit after the Barbecue Center. I ordered a small barbecue tray ($7.95) with hushpuppies rather than a roll.

Let’s close in on those hushpuppies.

The hushpuppies were terrific. I’d been all day without a hushpuppy, and these were close to the Platonic ideal of hushpuppies, hot and crisp with a light cornmeal center. And the red slaw was superb, fresh, crunchy, and with that red slaw tang. The slaw perfectly balanced the heartiness of the hushpuppies and the pork.

The pork. Not so good. As you can see above it was a fine chop, and as often happens in the doldrums, it was, well, not quite as moist as I would like. That’s a mere venial sin, specially at that time of day. I mixed slaw with the meat to moisten the pork, and that certainly helped. I also tried sauce, or “dip” as it’s called in the Piedmont, to the meat. Aha!

Now, in the Piedmont, barbecue sauce typically includes some ketchup in addition to the vinegar and pepper that marks Eastern North Carolina barbecue. The vinegar balances the richness of the pork, and the pepper brightens it. See here. The ketchup softens this effect to a greater or lesser extent without removing it.

The Barbecue Center dip was heavy on the ketchup to the extent that ketchup was the dominant flavor.  That is what underlies my lack of enthusiasm for the Barbecue Center.

That said, the Barbecue Center certainly offers a lot to love. In addition to the superb slaw and hushpuppies, the Barbecue Center always has provided wonderful service. Various servers kept coming by and asking if everything was okay, if I wanted more Dr. Pepper, if I wanted more slaw (just a bit), more sauce, some dessert. That could have been annoying but for the sweetness of everyone there. When not trying to please the smattering of customers, they talked among themselves and about friends who were ill or had been injured on the job, and how they would help the families.

It bears reminding readers that many consider my tastes idiosyncratic. Most people like ketchup (I don’t use it except in horseradish-rich cocktail sauce) and sweet barbecue sauces. I’m a bit of a crank about both. I’ll probably go back to the Barbecue Center and get some chicken or a cheeseburger or a pimiento cheese sandwich –with some slaw and hushpuppies. You should give them some trade, too. You’ll love the prices and have a good meal with some fine people.

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