| Nearly every Calgary restaurant owner wants to open a Southern-style barbecue place, if my straw polling is any indication. Inexpensive cuts of meat, cooked slowly over wood, served with cornbread and a cold pint of Grasshopper? Not only can you make money, you’ll eat it yourself, every night.
Ever since Memphis Blues Barbecue opened in Vancouver to great success, Calgarians have been starving themselves for barbecue and looking west with envy. The fact that Vancouver opened a decent barbecue place before Calgary makes me sick.
But now Big T’s BBQ has opened on Crowchild Trail N.W. across from McMahon Stadium (the address is 2138 Crowchild Trail N.W., phone 284-5959). It’s the first of hopefully many little places devoted entirely to the slow cooking of cheap cuts of meat at low heat. And they’ve really done it properly: there are no reservations, everything is made on the premises, they’re using Okanagan apple wood in the smoker (which I saw being carried through the restaurant) and, possibly best of all, the music is all blues, and it’s not B.B. King. I’m sure the staff was playing R.L. Burnside the last time I sat down for a big, belly-busting feed.
I knew that the folks at Big T’s were taking this whole Southern thing seriously when I saw two big pans of freshly baked cornbread pulled from the oven and placed right in view for plating in the open kitchen. You get your choice of two sides with most meals, and one of the choices should definitely be this grainy, intensely flavoured bread, which you can dip in sauce, or pile high with pulled pork. It’s as good a cornbread as I’ve had anywhere.
We started with some deep fried dill pickles ($6.50) – pickle spears dipped in cornmeal batter and then deep-fried. They could have used a little salt, but the horseradish dipping sauce certainly made my eyes open wide. I love the fact Big T’s is using cornmeal for batter, rather than flour. The Hush Puppies (cornbread fritters) ($4.50) are also excellent and aren’t greasy – they’re a worthy challenge to the city’s benchmark at Chicken on the Way, just down the hill.
But the main reason that you go to Big T’s is for meat meat meat. And the flavour of the meat is slightly different every time you go there. The pulled pork had much more intensity the second time I went (it wasn’t flavourful enough the first time for a meat that had been sitting in a smoker for 14 hours). The brisket was a bit too fatty even for me, but the chicken was crazy good both times, and the second time it was fantastic. It’s a revelation to eat chicken that’s this succulent and full of flavour.
The St. Louis ribs, which are traditional pork ribs, are perfectly tender, being pink on the inside but entirely cooked. And they’re cooked in Big T’s Original Sauce, a slightly sweet, dark sauce. The smoked andouille sausage is simply a pork sausage with Cajun seasoning, and it, too, is spicy and intense. It’s great slathered with the Carolina mustard sauce.
Now, you can order plates of food – a two-meat meal, for example, is two generous helpings of meat, with coleslaw, baked beans, cornbread and a side dish (the dirty rice is a great choice) for $15 – but really, why would you not order the Big T’s Platter? For $40 you can feed four hungry people with brisket, pulled pork, a half chicken, ham, rib ends, andouille sausage and some St. Louis Ribs, along with coleslaw, hot crisp fries and some smoky beans. Good Lord, without that coleslaw, you’re bound to get scurvy. |
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