strawberries in paris

Fantastic Q at Andy Nelson’s

Bar-B-Q isn’t necessarily a Maryland specialty, but lucky for us suburbanites, some long time ago Andy Nelson ventured up from Memphis and Alabama to bring us the absolute best smoked meat and Saturday birthday lunch food ANYONE could ask for!

Run, don’t walk, to go get some of the best pork and beef that Baltimore has to offer!

So to start the birthday/valentine’s day off right- Ned and I ventured to Hunt Valley to stuff ourselves silly! And that we did! I got the beef brisket sandwich with a HUGE pickle as my side. The meat is so tender and so incredibly flavorful – its almost amazes me every time I have it. At first I poured the classic barbeque sauce on my beef and then for the second half I used the carolina style, (mustard based) which is so tangy and interesting. Definitely my favorite of the two.

Here’s a shaky shot of the poke! (Oinky oinky delicious pig!) See that pink? Its a good sign of how tender and how well they smoked these babies. The extent to which the flavor is imbued is this meat is a true testament to how smart and talented Andy Nelson and his pit crew are. These ribs are the best. No doubt.

And Ned got some sides: cornbread, potato salad and collard greens. I think the favorite was the potato salad- so very tangy and light, even though you know its mayonnaise based. The collard greens are nice and flavorful too, definitely seasoned well, but boy there are a lot in that little bowl! The only stink Ned had about the joint, (and this is coming from the man who said less than 5 minutes after we left- ‘can we get this next Saturday?’) was that they did not have macaroni and cheese. But in my opinion, macaroni and cheese is a sometimes fake tasting and unnecessarily heavy food and there is no reason for it to vie with the meat as the thing that puts you over the edge! (Does that make any sense at all, really? )

And oh the sweet tea! I mix the sweetened with the unsweetened, half and half to wet my whistle. Drinking sweet tea with this amazing barbeque is definitely superior to any soda or water…. well beer could have been good too, but no liquor license!

I have and will continue to make this my favorite Saturday lunch meal of choice for as long as pigs can’t fly!