The Improving State of the Pulled Pork Sandwich

The following is a guest post on Our Oakland by Dave Cambell. Besides being the Program Director of the East Bay Bicycle Coalition (ebbc.org) and an avid cyclist, he's a Georgia boy who loves a wide variety of food, none more than good Q!

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While perhaps not as close to the heart as moles and their role in honoring the dead in Mexican culture, southern barbecue is very much cherished grub and revered across a vast swath of lower Americana. I can't think of another food that is as festive or as competitive in the hearts and minds of those who enjoy it. I know cause I grew up in Georgia, ate the stuff relentlessly as a kid, still cook it myself, and have two younger brothers who are competitive barbecue aficionados. Living now in California, I yearn for the stuff. I'm no expert for sure, but I have my favorite style and I am always ready to enjoy the offerings of any local barbecue joint, as long as it's quality and as long as they serve me a pulled pork sandwich. Fortunately, I can do this in a lot more places now because the deep south's culinary gift to the world has finally arrived.

For years I considered the best barbecue restaurant to be Great American Barbecue, just across the High Street bridge in Alameda. It's a St. Louis-style barbecue joint that smokes a ton of ribs and serves pulled pork. I could chide them for using the term "artisan barbecue," which no one should ever have to do, since barbecue by definition is "artisan." That said, their sauces are familiar to west coast barbecue fans, a savory and sweet molasses–good, but the sauce can overwhelm the meat and there's a spicy, tangy richness that's missing. Same goes for Flint's BBQ in East Oakland, which is hefty and hearty, and Looney's BBQ and Everett & Jones, too. All serve saucy ribs and other good sweet and savory barbecue, but no yummy pulled pork sandwiches to remind me of home, all due to their preference for sweet over sour.

And therein lies the secret to good barbecue—vinegar, and lots of it! Deep south barbecue is pork and vinegar. If you're from Carolina, that’s about all it is. In Georgia, we are happy to add some tomatoes to the sauce, but not too much. My recipe is about 1:1 vinegar to tomato sauce, with apple juice as the sweetener, by the way. It makes for a pulled pork sandwich anyone can enjoy. However, improving upon rich southern cooking traditions should be encouraged as should experimentation, something California cooks are always ready to do.

Unfortunately, many restaurants try to do this by offering up a pulled pork sandwich as the 'special of the day.' Don't ever order one of these—I can't tell you how many times my heart's been broken. If you're not in a barbecue joint, order something else. Mind you, some places do make great barbecue pork and ribs, too, such as Chop Bar in Jack London, but theirs is not a barbecue joint and their sauce is all sweet molasses. It's good, but the experience is different. Similarly, the food truck Boffo Cart serves a wonderful, gourmet pulled pork that melts in your mouth, but it's not southern style and it's not in a sandwich. What's a lover of deep south pulled pork sandwiches to do?

Bside BBQ staff

Come to Bside BBQ. They have been around longer than I realized and do two things particularly well: smoke their meats and pair them with great beverages. Their pulled pork sandwich with the Carolina sauce is really good. Pair it with the Thelonious Belgium Ale and life don't get much better. You can take me to task cause their pulled pork would never win a barbecue competition, other than maybe the "anything goes” category, but that's only cause traditions die hard in the south. It's pork, it's vinegar, it's a sandwich, and it's fabulous. They do cheat a bit at Bside, by having gone to some fancy schmancy cooking school in Paris–Le Cordon something or other, but boy does it work. I'm split on the decor and ambiance of Bside BBQ. Its classiness is top notch, but the pristine feel can interfere with the irregular down home experience I seek while chewing on threads of pulled pork. This is no roadside barbecue joint. Still, I have nothing against fine beer, wines and spirits and I reckon there is no reason these things can't be combined with a classy barbecue experience. Whether you seek good barbecue or good drinks, I recommend this place highly.

For a slightly more authentic feel, try Smoke Berkeley. Their pulled pork sandwich has the peppery taste that most reminds me of Georgia barbecue. Maybe it's something in the crispy bits of outer pork layers. I don't know, but I like it. The kitchen is somewhat disorganized, like many a good roadside barbecue joint, but they eventually get you a full plate of food and their pies are so good that it seems like they specialize more in them than cooking meats. The place is also located right next to a car wash service, which is so southern. Overall, Smoke has a nice, simple authenticity to it. I approve.

I also want to give kudos for Smoke Berkeley serving their sandwich on an Acme Bakery bun and even bigger kudos to Bside BBQ for using Semifreddie's kaiser bun. Why don't all restaurants take advantage of the amazing bakeries we have in the East Bay? While Acme Bakery is my favorite in general, I have to say Semifreddie's does the most for a pulled pork sandwich—it nicely holds the meat together on the bun, while adding just a bit of fresh crunchiness. On this note, I also want to give props to Actual Cafe for experimenting with an arepa corn bun for its pork sandwich. It's a promising combination.

PhatMatt's BBQ on Telegraph is worth a trip, too. They'll serve you a 'North Carolina' pulled pork sandwich, but it's more like Kansas City in my opinion—good, but not vinegary enough for my taste and they tend to overdue it on the sauce. One thing I love is that PhatMatt's positions their smoker right behind the counter. You can see it right there, although you can't see the meats inside. This adds to the ambiance of the place and makes it easier to smell the wonderful aromas. You can also get a beer with your sandwich here and watch the ballgame, which is not something you could ever do at a barbecue joint in the deep South. Just ask them to put the sauce on the side, and enjoy!

mmm...cornbread

Can the pulled pork sandwiches of these local establishments be improved upon? Yeah. Smoke Berkeley could smoke their meats more and Bside still chops their pork—it's called 'pulled' for a reason, y'all. I'm still not sure the ultimate bun has been discovered for the pulled pork sandwich, but Semi's is the best so far. And none of these places dabbles in barbecue theater, which is one thing all self-respecting southern roadside barbecue joints thrive in doing. Walk into one of these, and you are overwhelmed at the sights and smells of racks and racks of meat smokin' in da smoker all right before your eyes. Pork butts, ribs, briskets, whole chickens tantalizing you long before you get to the order counter. In fact, you can smell these meats from a mile away, which is why people eat there so often. It isn't something you can experience on the streets of Oakland. So, I'm still seeking pulled pork nirvana but things are improving rapidly. Maybe I'll open up a restaurant, hmm?

My picks for each of these important pulled pork sandwich criteria:
Best sandwich overall: Bside, but Smoke Berkeley's is darn good
Best vinegar sauce: Smoke's hot vinegar sauce
Best coleslaw (gotta have this with pork): Smoke Berkeley
Best cornbread (I love cornbread): Phat Matt's
Best decor: Bside
Most authentic place: Smoke Berkeley
Best smell: Phat Matt's
(alright) Best drink selection: Bside

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I'll probably hit BSide for their BBQ braised tofu nuggets, but that's hardly the same as regular BBQ. So I was happy to have Dave do this guest post—thanks, Dave! If you're interested in doing a guest post about Oakland, let me know.

new mural adorns San Pablo Ave. underpass

There's a beautiful new mural being completed under the I-580 underpass on San Pablo Avenue. It features West Oakland's music history, people and architecture. The elements of the mural were designed by McClymonds High School students, and put together by head artist David Burke. The mural is sponsored by Attitudinal Healing Connection, which is based nearby. AHC-Oakland will be holding a completion celebration on July 12 at 1pm.

This mural is one of six planned for West Oakland. Read more about the larger mural project for the area at the Oakland Super Heroes Mural Project website.



More photos of the painting:


On a less cheerful note, several photographers and reporters have been robbed in the area during the day, the most recent a veteran Oakland Tribune photographer. I was there on Sunday taking pictures, but fortunately I didn't have any problems.

signs: the Print Shop

Print Shop

Along San Pablo Ave. is this dated-looking sign for the Print Shop. I can't find any business listing at the location of the sign, but it's not connected with PSPrint on Mandela Parkway. (Thanks for the info, Jennifer! See her comment for more info.)

blog pulse: Ghost Town Farm

Ghost Town Farm

Ifirst wrote about Ghost Town Farm a couple of years ago. Novella Carpenter is a celebrity in urban farming, in no small part because of her book Farm City and her connection with food author and journalism professor Michael Pollan. Not everyone is a fan, some because she raises animals for food, others because she's self-promoting. (BTW, the book is more about the story of her learning, and not really a how-to.) But you can't deny that she's helped popularize the idea of urban farming and the local food movement, and has made people in and around Oakland more aware of where their food comes from.

So it was a little surprising when I saw a blog posting "Farmstand Canceled Due to... the City of Oakland". At first it seemed like she was over-reacting. Maybe she needed conditional use permits and licenses and things to sell produce, but surely she couldn't need those things just to grow it? Well, turns out she does, at least according to current city of Oakland rules. As a result, there's been an uproar in the blogosphere and the dead-tree press, and not just here in Oakland. People are mobilizing to help her get things changed. And even if you don't believe in her approach personally, urban farming is back, and the city shouldn't make it harder for people to raise food locally. Check out this post on Pluck and Feather about the general movement to get the city up to speed, and sign the petition.

East Bay Express
Oakland North
Root Simple
Bay Citizen
SFist
SFGate
Oakland Tribune
NBC Bay Area
SF Weekly
Grub Street
KQED blog
American Thinker
Chip Johnson
ABC 7
Ella Baker Center

Ghost Town Farm

a young fan

Before I headed over to Jack London for the Eat Real festival, I spent a few hours on Saturday helping out at Ghost Town Farm. It's a small farm in the middle of the Ghost Town / Hoover-Foster neighborhood, with bees, rabbits, chickens, goats and all sorts of fruits and vegetables. It's run by Novella Carpenter, author of Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer. This isn't some one-time stunt to ride the green wave; Novella has been urban farming for over 10 years. In conjunction with the Eat Real festival, Novella had an open house...er...open farm, including a workshop on chicken slaughtering, and another on taking care of goats.

Grandma's cobbler

There was a lot of interest in learning more about what she's doing, but there's not much parking on her street. So she encouraged people to bike there if possible, but as many people were coming from out of town, that wasn't a good option for them. I directed parking for a while: bikes at the back fence; cars, well, your best bet is along MLK. There were also people there to sell Goat Town t-shirts and copies of Novella's book, and provide refreshments. One of her neighbors, Grandma, made an awesome peach cobbler.

removing the innards

I did get to see part of one of the chicken slaughtering demonstrations. I wasn't particularly interested in that, as (a) we don't have any chickens (yet) and (b) I'm a vegetarian, but it was still interesting to see. Sort of like what I remember from high school biology, though nothing I remember dissecting ever had organs that looked as readily identifiable as what came out of the chicken.

After the Eat Real festival, my wife and I stopped by so she could see the farm. It's pretty amazing what a variety of food is produced in a small area. Currently we grow some potatoes, but have plans to plant a garden again once I finish the house remodel. Now I'm thinking bees and chickens (for the eggs) would be good, too.

what's in a name?

Oakland is not just a diverse city, it's geographically large. So it's no wonder there are a host of neighborhood names.

Names are wonderful things. They can give a sense of place, of history, of belonging. Of course, they can also be confusing if you don't know them. When I started driving in the Bay Area, I knew where the Nimitz Freeway was (it was part of CA-17 then), but Grove-Shafter? It makes traffic reports less useful if you have no idea what freeways they're talking about. I've learned many of them over the years. Fortunately traffic reports don't rely solely on names anymore -- which is good, otherwise you'd have to know that I-580 is the MacArthur, the John T. Knox, the Eastshore, the Arthur H. Breed Jr., and the William Elton "Brownie" Brown, depending on which section you're talking about. (Of course, if it were in southern California, it would be "the 580".)

Similarly, there are a bunch of Oakland neighborhoods that I don't know the names of. So I was delighted when Google Maps added neighborhood names. It's not perfect, as neighborhood boundaries are even more confusing and less well-defined than city boundaries, but it is a big help. It's very handy when you're looking for a restaurant or type of shop in a particular neighborhood. Yahoo! Maps goes one better, and has nice color-coded regions on the map to show the neighborhoods.

Then there's the issue of nicknames. The Hoover/Foster neighborhood is probably more widely known as Ghost Town (or Ghosttown). There are several theories on the origin of the name, from the presence of multiple casket companies to highway 24 the Grove-Shafter I-980 splitting the neighborhood and leaving it a virtual ghost town. The name also brings up the issue of spelling and punctuation. Is it Ghost Town? Ghosttown? Hoover/Foster? Foster Hoover Historic District? Foster? Hoover? (Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?) Google Maps shows it has Hoover/Foster. Yahoo! Maps shows it as Hoover (though you can search on Foster, too.) My recent sign posting suggests Foster.

So what happens when a business includes the neighborhood as part of its name? People tend to feel it's more a part of the neighborhood, more a local business, and lets people know where to find it. Unless you move, like Pill Hill Printing on San Pablo must have. It's either in Oakland, Berkeley or Emeryville, depending on which map you look at, and it's either in the Golden Gate or Paradise Park neighborhood. But it's no where near Pill Hill.

Finally, there's the question of what do the residents themselves think. I live in the Montclair neighborhood, but when people ask where I live I say Oakland. Partly because people elsewhere don't know where Montclair is, but largely out of a sense of pride in and connection to Oakland in general. (The usual chain is Oakland, near highway 13, Montclair, near where Snake and Colton cross.) Maybe I don't feel a strong connection to the neighborhood (though I love living here) because I couldn't afford it these days. But lots of people have a strong connection to their neighborhood, sometimes even after they don't live there anymore.

So what are the name(s) of your neighborhood? Do you identify with it or with Oakland more strongly?

signs: Foster Printing

Foster Printing

On MLK in the Hoover/Foster neighborhood is the Foster Printing sign. It appears to be defunct, and Google Maps didn't show any listings at that address, but there are several other printing places nearby so maybe it moved and changed names.