GA Pig, Brunswick, GA

GA Pig, Brunswick, GA

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Whole Hog Cafe Revisited

Whole Hog Cafe Revisited

We were recently in Little Rock and decided to visit Whole Hog Cafe for a second time and give them another review. If you recall from our first review, I wasn't so hungry the last time we ate here, and I've been kind of upset about that for awhile now, so we both arrived ready to eat. This is the second most decorated barbecue place we've been to, the first being Big Bob Gibson's in Decatur, AL. There are trophies and ribbons scattered throughout the restaurant, and it's a pretty big place. Whole Hog has an ordering window, so we made our selections and took a seat. I went for the baby back rib/pulled pork combo, and Doug had the baby back rib plate. Now, we've eaten our share of ribs since last year, and we've both fine-tuned our likes and dislikes where barbecue is concerned. Eat enough of it, and you get kind of opinionated, and these ribs are just not going to make the top 10 list. They smoke them nicely, and obviously know their stuff when it comes to cooking barbecue, but we're just not partial to the sweet sauce they put on them. They also lack the unctious juiciness that's present in the best ribs, and the sauce covers up the meaty flavor. Maybe if they just smoked them and left them unsauced, they'd be perfect. We really like the 6 sauces they offer at the table, conveniently stored in squeeze bottles and labeled for your edification. The pulled pork is wonderful...meaty and mixed with some fat and cooking juices, just as it should be. I hit that with Sauce No.4, Traditional Southern Vinegar and Spice, and that was real good. Doug's comments about the beans from the last review still stand...too sweet and too much going on, which masks the flavor of the beans themselves. I'll also add here that the molasses/celery salt combo that they spice these with makes for the weirdest flavor...don't like that at all. So a mixed bag here at Whole Hog. If we lived around here, we'd probably go regularly for the pulled pork sandwich and the chicken, which I liked from visit #1. We noticed they got 4th place for ribs in one of their recent state wide competitions, so there are better in Arkansas. Now we just have to go find them.

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