Eat Arkansas

I'd really need to try them all again to be sure, but I think the 6 is my fave.

I like number 3 as well. I always get the salad because I figure it is the best value. You get tons of meat and don't have to worry about picking sides.

belly you are a tougher man than i am. i have never tried. mike knowing my health problems said just stay away from it. i like the sweet no1 or the 3. the thing is the meat is so good it doesn't matter. what shocked me was when i was given a tour was that they only use 3 hickory logs on a load of pork butts or whatever they cook. there are some places that so over smoke their meat it is silly. i gave up on the ozark mountain smokehouse a long time ago because you cannot tell the difference between their meats. the ham tastes like turkey. it is just smoke. those blasingame boys make them some bbque and it is good to see them successful.

3 and 6 mixed about half and half do it for me.

Number 5 is my favorite. I am so happy they opened a location in North Little Rock!

people who are more obsessive about food than me!

i don't know the numbers.

but I like the volcano sauce.

and I really like the mustard-based, similar-to-Sims sauce.

I, too, go the mix-em-up approach.

Lindsey's BBQ had the best sauce in the state. I'm devastated at what happened, and a little surprised to see articles on this food blog not addressing it. Whole Hog can kiss my Whole... well, you get the picture.

Maxb and Belly Boy,

You all are teaching me something I didn't know about the 'cue place in question. I hadn't heard of the volcano sauce. Do you have to ask for it specially?

And you're right, Maxb: I'm OCD when it comes to food--as my niece rather bluntly pointed out to me last time she and I went to the barbecue place under consideration.

Even before our food had been dished up and brought to the window, I had my bottles of 3 and 6 lined up on the table. She looked at me and said, "My word, aggressive about our food, aren't we?"

Re: Lindsey's, I think they'll be a real loss to the metro area if they don't reopen. But for my taste, Sims has always been the standard against which all other barbecue places are to be judged. Lindsey's sauce is a tad too sweet for my taste, and whatever gods dictate how Sims barbecues its ribs know their business.

I have to admit prejudices that go back to childhood, though (don't they all, really?). One of my uncles passed Sims, more or less, on his way to and from work daily, so we had regular deliveries of Sims' barbecue fresh from their take-out window when I was growing up.

But my family was as divided over the barbecue question as it was over whether sprinkling infants or dunking adults--or falling from salvation or persisting in grace--was God's gospel-ordained truth.

About half of my aunts and uncles and parental units swore by Sims, and about half swore by "the old Shack"--as distinguished from some later incarnation of the Shack after it left its old location on Markham. My mother and several of her sisters worked near there, and nary a week went by without Shack barbecue also making its way home, so we could compare it to Sims' product.

And, of course, part of the debate was about whether white folks CAN even barbecue....

I hear tell that Conway is getting a Whole Hog Cafe (in the OLD Shoney's building) near Hobby Lobby. Sign up there says "Whoe Hog Cafe coming soon." Can it be? Anyone know for sure?

Nos. 2 & 6. I love me some mustard sauce! And I'm a sucker for that NC style stuff.

And there is also Whole Hog barbecue being sold out of the "Daily Grind n' More" cafe on Hwy. 5 between Jacksonville and Cabot. I believe they are carrying the WH potato salad, too.

(I still prefer The Mean Pig for our part of the state, though.)