Restaurants tantalize taste buds with slathered ribs, big honking sandwiches, all forms of carnivorous hedonism.
By RON MATUS and JONATHAN MILTON
Published June 27, 2003
[Times photos: Stefanie Boyar]
Rodney Lopez adds freshly chopped pork to a sandwich during the lunch rush at Uncle Rodney's Rib House.
Rodney Lopez shows off some of his signature chicken and ribs that he smokes low and slow over a wood fire at Uncle Rodney's Rib House on W Gandy Boulevard.
Robert Edwards turns the pork on the smoker outside Robert's, a meat market and sandwich shop he has operated for 30 years.
SOUTH TAMPA - Barbecue is rarely just barbecue.
It can be barbeque. Or Bar B Que. Or Bar-B-Que. Or Bar B-Q.
Sometimes, it's B-B-Q or B.B.Q. Often, it's BBQ.
In South Tampa, it's all of the above.
There are nearly a dozen places in and around South Tampa where barbecue stars on the menu. And with summer nudging appetites toward smoked meats and sloppy sauces, City Times decided to whip up a sampler.
Barbecue can pass for upscale or hunker down home. Chains can smoke it up. So can mom-and-pops.
At Jimbo's on Kennedy Boulevard, bar b-q comes with a tin roof and a tacked-up alligator hide. At Kojak's House of Ribs, barbecue is served on the front porch.
At Lee Roy Selmon's, you might as well be eating at Grandma's house.
Portraits of the Selmon family smile from the walls. Women in church hats gossip at the next table. They chatter until the ribs come, smoked for eight hours after soaking in marinade for 24. Talk time is over.
Two new barbecue varieties are headed this way. Sonny's Real Pit Bar-B-Q, the nation's largest barbecue franchiser, is securing permits for a new store near Dale Mabry Highway and Columbus Drive. It will offer the same all-you-can-eat specials that have succeeded at 150 spots nationwide.
Meanwhile, on Cypress Street, a block west of Dale Mabry, the Sa Ri One will put its Korean-style stamp on B.B.Q.
The new joints will cast for customers in crowded waters. Everyone's got their own lure.
At Mr. Klean's on Platt Street in Hyde Park North, you can get your car clean while you get messy.
At Uncle Rodney's on Gandy Boulevard, you can sink teeth into your ribs cured by oak, pecan and citrus woods.
"If you don't see a pile of wood outside a barbecue restaurant," says owner Rodney Lopez, "it's not worth stopping by."
At Bar B Que King, the only gimmick is a gritty street.
The King is on Main Street, in West Tampa, in a tiny brick building 80 steps east of Howard Avenue. Next door is a bar with a window sign that says, "NO LOITTERIN." Next to the sidewalk is a stack of cut oak, still dripping with tangles of moss.
Inside, ask for a "thin end."
The ribs come still clinging (just barely) to the bone, all of it settled snug and hot between slices of Wonder bread. For a buck, get a side of pork and rice. It's takeout only, so don't leave without extra napkins.
When it comes to barbecue, the sauce, of course, is key.
But getting details is impossible, unless pried from cold, dead hands. Pitmasters dismiss rival sauces as bland, inferior, even downright sorry. They guard their own with a paranoia usually associated with Middle Eastern dictators.
At Bar B Que King, employee Ulis Martin almost looks offended. "I can't tell you what's in it," he says, as if asked about his bank account. "That wouldn't be right."
At Lee Roy Selmon's, four sauces are offered: the mustard-based "Georgia"; the "Kansas City," with brown sugar and molasses; the "Oklahoma," with cayenne pepper; and the house, with syrup and vinegar.
Since you're at grandma's house, drench at will.
Sauces aren't everything, though.
Robert Edwards, who owns Robert's on S West Shore Boulevard, insists that his BBQ is a cut above because his meats are better.
He trucks in from Iowa his slabs of ribs and pork butt and top rounds of beef. Cows and pigs from the Midwest taste better than their Florida counterparts, he says. They eat corn and grains, not mere grass.
Florida is "good for girls in bikinis but not much else," he says with a shrug.
Every morning, Edwards doses his meats with butcher's pepper, white pepper and a Texas dry rub that includes salt, pepper, garlic and other spices. By 10 a.m., the meat is becoming barbecue in the portable, industrial-sized grill that Roberts parks in the smoke shack next to his store.
Smoke slinks on to West Shore. Motorists breathe deeply.
If it's a sandwich you want, the final product is laid so thick on a fresh-baked kaiser roll that it landslides to the bottom of the to-go box. Fries are on the side, piping hot and lightly dusted with salt and pepper.
Simple but perfect.
There's no denying the value of a good side dish and dessert.
At Jimbo's, the "best in town" hush puppies are automatic. The apple pie is homemade and McDonald's-coffee hot. Cider sauce comes in a little plastic cup.
At Fred Fleming's on Dale Mabry Highway, pecans hide inside the sweet potato souffle. It's almost dessert by itself.
To be official, though, save room for the coconut cake.
At Robert's, if fries aren't exotic enough, try the spinach pasta, crab pasta or cucumber-and-tomato salad.
There are beans, too. Heaven-sent beans.
Robert's beans include onions, peppers, jalapenos, bacon, and smoked beef and pork.
There's more in there, but that's a trade secret, too.
"I can't tell you everything," Edwards jokes. "Uncle Rodney will be trying to copy me."
