BarbersQ: No Napa Whine Country Here!

What do you do when some competition BBQ fanatics come to visit and want to go out to eat?  Do you take the safe route and suggest a good non BBQ establishment or do you go for broke and try a BBQ restaurant.  Well that was my dilemma today.  John and Rhana McGee, from Wine Country Q in Duvall, Washington were on their yearly trip to the Napa wine country and I always try to make it over and have a meal with them when they visit.  John and Rhana were the 2011 Pacific Northwest BBQ Association Team of the Year.  They are two of the finest people I know and they know BBQ.  Along for the ride was my buddy @Sirporkalot who knows a thing or two about BBQ himself.  There was a lot pressure on this restaurant choice.

But…

I knew BarBersQ in Napa was a good choice.  I’d eaten there once before and was very impressed.  I mean how stupid would it have been to suggest an unknown BBQ restaurant.  It was a chance I just couldn’t take.  BarBersQ is probably the most unusual BBQ restaurant I’ve ever eaten at.  It’s also one of the best.  It’s unusual because it’s what can only be described as an upscale restaurant.  It’s not upscale in the white table-cloth sort of way, even though they save some really nice white paper napkins, it’s just got that Napa upscale kind of look and feel.  The restaurant has a fantastic atmosphere and the service is first-rate.

BarBersQ website describes their cuisine this way:

American Heritage Cooking featuring authentic Memphis style barbeque. The BarBersQ menu follows seasonal direction, embracing and fostering our close relationships with Napa and Sonoma Valley purveyors, farms, gardens, dairies and wineries; ‘the people and places of the Napa Valley’. Our menu offers the casual diner organic and sustainable local products; grass-fed beef, free range poultry raised on vegetarian diets, food free of antibiotics and hormones. We use local vegetables, fruit and herbs which are fresh from the garden to your table at BarBersQ, often the same day from our own Napa gardens. –BarbersQ

We started our meal with a couple of appetizers. We had some wonderful deep-fried Boudin Sausage balls with a Creole Mustard remoulade (left).  Boudin is not a spicy sausage, but it had enough flavor to not be overpowered by the creole mustard.  These were some tasty appetizers and were a great way to start a good meal with good friends.

We also had some spicy chicken wings.  What I liked most about the wings was the “smoke fried” wing method I like to use is also used by BarBersQ.  The wings are smoked on their Old Hickory pit using cherry wood for a couple of hours.  After a good smoke they are flash fried and then glazed with a Tabasco and honey mixture that was perfect.  The heat was nice, not overpowering and the honey added just the right amount of sweetness.

The sides were fantastic.  One of my favorite BBQ side dishes are greens.  The collard greens with ham hocks at BarBersQ are flavorful.  They’re cooked to perfection, not soggy or mushy, with just the right about of texture.  All they needed was a little vinegar pepper hot sauce to splash on them.  The cornbread is made from a course ground cornmeal from a local Northern California gristmill.  It’s about as good as cornbread gets.

Because @Sirporkalot and I have hearty appetites we split the “Taste of Q for Two” combo meal.  This is one big plate of meat.  Brisket, pulled pork, sausage, chicken and baby back ribs all cooked  about as good as you can get. It was almost cooked to perfect…almost.  Normally, when BBQ comes to the table already sauced I expect to get bad Q.  Not the case here.  Even though the brisket and pulled pork comes with sauce it’s not ladled on, resulting in soaked meat.  My thought was that the sauce was added more as a garnish than anything else.  It’s actually done in a way that compliments the meat and doesn’t take over the flavor profile.

Look…let me cut right to the chase.  This is some fantastic BBQ.  The pulled pork had flavor and wasn’t mushy at all.  The brisket was tender, moist and tasted like beef instead of all seasonings.  The chicken was, simply, amazing.  I can’t believe how good this chicken was.  Normally chicken that has spent a couple of hours on a smoker ends up with a gummy texture to the skin.  Not at BarBersQ, they achieved the long sought after and rarely achieved “bite through” skin.  The sausage may have been the best meat on the plate.   The sausage comes from Caggiano Sausage Company in Petaluma, California and has a serious buttery flavor that just melts in your mouth.  I’ve got to find a local source for this sausage.

The ribs were the “almost” to perfection part of the meal.  The ribs are prepared in the traditional Memphis style.  BarBersQ has not fallen prey to the “fall off the bone tender” cooking methods that many restaurants have.  These baby backs are tender, come off the bone with just a little tug of the teeth, just as they should.  They are seasoned well and just lightly glazed.  The only problem was the membrane wasn’t removed.  Not sure why our ribs had the membrane since our server said they normally remove them.  Fortunately the membranes were bite through and didn’t take away from the overall enjoyment of the meal.

John ordered the roasted vinegar chicken with brussels sprouts and white rice.  His meal was also just as good as everything else.  Yes, @SirPorkalot and I ate our food and some of John’s.  The sauce on the vinegar chicken was a beautiful reduction full of flavor and actually very little flavor or tang of vinegar.

(Rhana ate a salad…I didn’t take a picture of it…)

If you want some great BBQ when you’re in the Napa Valley this is the place to go.  It’s a little pricy for a BBQ restaurant, but not for a good Napa restaurant.  I don’t get the chance, very often, to recommend a BBQ restaurant but in the case of BarBersQ I get to do just that.  Eat at this restaurant…

BarBersQ is located at 3900 D Bel Aire Plaza. Napa California 94558.

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