BEST BARBEQUE IN BEANTOWN
by Al Stankus
CNC CORRESPONDENT
Chris Schlesinger is a transplanted Virginian. As a Child of the South, he says "I grew up in a barbecue culture."
The owner of the East Coast Grill in Cambridge, Schlesinger is one of the star chefs who have transformed Boston's eating habits over the past two decades through his restaurants, his cookbooks and as a culinary mentor. So he speaks with sad authority when he says, "New England may not have a barbecue culture." But there is good news. He continues, "But even without a barbecue culture, New England, and especially Boston, has a very high concentration of very good barbecue restaurants."
His point: geography is no longer destiny when it comes to great eating. "Kansas City doesn't have a lobster or clam culture, but that doesn't mean you can't find a good clam roll there," he says. "Good food is where you find it."
When Schlesinger opened his Inman Square restaurant 15 years ago, a different kind of barbecue was part of the local dining culture. Even today at places like Tommy Floramo's and the New Bridge in CHelsea and the legendary Santarpio's in East Boston, signs in the window announce "barbecue", but what gets served inside doesn't have even a passing acquaintance with the wood required for the real thing. Boston BBQ circa 1985 meant grilled lamb and steak tips over gas-fired grills and ribs slow-cooked in the oven. The meat may have fallen of the bone, but that meat wasn't real barbecue.
Flash forward to Oct.23, 2000. At his Cambridge base, Schlesinger welcome 150 dinners to the East Coast Grill & Raw Bar's second Annual BBQ Invitational. The flyer read, "Four teams, three courses or is it really 12 courses?... You decide the winner."
"I'll admit, " says Schlesinger, "that I got the idea from Daryl Settles at Bob The Chef ' s. He used to hold a rib-off. So I changed the format to include beef brisket, an open pork category along with ribs."
So the word is in. There is great barbecue to be found in Boston, if you know where to look. In addition to the East Coast Grill, there were BBQ teams from Blue Ribbon in West Newton and Arlington, Jake & Earl's in Waltham and Uncle Pete's from East Boston.
At 6:35, after a few plates of spicy wings, barbecued clams and deviled eggs had circulated, Schlesinger took the mike. "We 're here because there's so much good barbecue in Boston," he says. He introduced the four chefs and turned to Blue Ribbon's Chris Jankowski. "Chris, I have one question I have to ask you: Where did you learn to cook barbecue?" Jankowski laughs, takes the mike and says, "The East Coast Grill," and the barbecue hungry crowd sucks it up like the sauce on a big fat St.Louis rib.
Out came the rib and throughout the room chef-type conversation followed almost every bite. Next, four plates of brisket and later the "open pork" category in which some cooks sent out traditional pulled pork and others added Latin spices, with one surrounding his with kernels of corn. Dave - "No last name please, people think I'm working" - is a self-described barbecue nut.
"I'm loving this," he says. "I travel the country to taste barbecue and believe me, what we're eating here is better than anything I've had in Kansas City. I'd even say it's as good as North Carolina"
At 8:50, after the last of 12 BBQ plates along with side dishes like cornbread, watermelon and white beans with ham hocks have been tasted, Schlesinger returns to the mike to announce the winners in each category along, with the new grand champion. Pete Cucchiara, owner and pitmaster at Uncle Pete's is standing at the bar with a Jack Daniels on the rocks. He's talking barbecue with someone when Schlesinger calls all the contestants to the stage. Holding the life-sized bust of Elvis - the grand prize for a night of work - Schlesinger announces that Uncle Pete's has won the rib category; and that Blue Ribbon garnered the most votes for its brisket. Pausing he said, "And in what I'd call a downright dominant display of barbecue power, Uncle Pete's is the winner of the open pork category which means Uncle Pete's is the champion."
In rounding up local barbecue, let's begin with the champ. Head through the tunnel and zoom past the entrance to Logan and take the next exit off Route 1 to East Boston's Day Square and you'll find Uncle Pete's at 309 Bennington Street. Carved out a former Dairy Queen, the room is a throwback. Diners sit in Naugahdyde booths or at big tables covered with red-and-white vinyl tablecloths. The beer's cold and cheap and the spare ribs are lean, with a nice crunch on the outside that easily gives way to a sweet-tasting, pretty moist middle; the sauce on them is more smoky than hot. All plates come with a pair of side dishes. To the usual suspects -- fries, cole slaw, baked beans -- you can add mashed potato, ziti (hey, it's East Boston) and a very interesting Asian slaw made by Pete's wife, Pa, a native of Thailand.
With large portions and fair prices, Uncle Pete displays a real sense of barbecue culture. Mimicking the South, he knows BBQ fans like their barbecue to come with a bill that's about as big as the barbecue joint is pretentious.