The Smoke Joint Review: The Smoke Joint
The most perfect day ever started out innocuously enough. Yea, the AFC and NFC Championship games were going to be on TV, but whatever. Hunger called our names and we listened. Originally I wanted to walk over to Carroll Gardens but it was twenty-five degrees outside – not optimal weather for a fifteen minute walk just for eating. For some random reason The Smoke Joint came to mind as something that would be a great way to start the day. Speaking of which, is the first meal of the day always breakfast or is it lunch if you eat it at 2pm? Or is that, “Danny, wake up earlier on the weekends?”
Their website says they offer, “real New York Barbecue.” I honestly have no idea what that is. We all know the well-known regions for cue are Texas, Memphis, Carolina, and St. Louis. But uh, New York? And whenever I do not know something, I wikipedia it, but there is nothing on New York BBQ. (Note to the smoke joint guys, you can create an entry yourself on wikipedia). As a side note, wikipedia was super useful when I had to look up a pop culture phenomenon involving two females and a vessel that generally holds water. We all know what it is. We all know what it is actually called. We all know we do not want to talk about it on a food blog, and how strange that after this meal I had two dinners in a row where this subject came up. Seriously. TWO DAYS IN A ROW. I am eating alone tonight. sheesh.
The order we had was tips and bits, hacked beef sandwich, hacked pork plate, corn, and corn bread. My friend got a bottle of Three Philosophers, another had a lemonade and I had a can of Dale’s Pale Ale. I should have taken a picture of the beer selection but it was pretty interesting; where else do you find Three Philosophers and Dale’s Pale Ale at the same place? At a BBQ place in Ft. Greene? The hacked beef sandwich was smoky and beefy. The beefiness reminds me of Asian beef jerky but do not get me wrong, there was nothing dry about the hacked beef. It also came with a tangy sauce that seemed like it was soy based, and it was a good compliment to the sandwich. For $7 dollars, it is quite a steal.
The tips and bits is also really awesome. The meat is moist and fork tender, just the kind of thing that puts you into meat heaven. Tupac told us there is no heaven for a thug but is there a heaven for bbq? Hmmm…. If it exists, the front gates would say, “No Vegetarians.” Right, back to the pork. I had the hacked pork and it was nice and smokey. I never really understand the difference when people say the meat has a smoky flavor, but compared to the tips and bits, the hacked pork definitely had a stronger hint of smoke. The hacked pork is moist enough that it does not require any sauce and it goes well with the pickles and cole slaw that comes with it.
And of course after the meal, the natural thing to do was to buy Rockband and then spend the next six hours rocking out as The Hsuless Joes. I do not expect any one except maybe one or two readers to get that since it is a mixture of an inside joke along with a baseball reference to a famous Chicago White Sox player from a different generation. Authentic New York Barbecue and video games. Oh and the Giants won. Best day ever.
Some of the pictures have different lighting because we sat in the area that had the windows and half way through eating the sun snuck behind the middle finger building. If you have not seen the middle finger building, it is the thing pictured next to the corn bread. See, it looks like Brooklyn is giving the world the finger. Oh and if you notice I added some links on the right side on the homepage and removed the robot check because it was confusing. There will also be some changes to the ad placement, so do not freak out. After three months of sitting on my behind, now I am getting back into the groove of making changes to the site itself. If you have any suggestions, feel free to speak up.
The Smoke Joint87 South Elliot Place.Brooklyn, NY 11217718-797-1011
Posted by Danny on January 23, 2008 at 4:45 pm
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