Saturday, March 11, 2006

Wilber's BBQ - Goldsboro, NC

Alright, so everyone on this messageboard was talking about Wilber's BBQ in Goldsboro, NC:

http://alumni.unc.edu/mboard/bulletin.asp?reunionType=Barbecue

So we decided to take a little deviation from our regular route to find this place. My Microsoft Streets and Trips 2006 was useless. When I looked for BBQ places in Goldsboro, this place never came up. Then I looked up addresses and to make a long story short, we went on a wild goose chase all around Goldsboro until we found it. We were looking for 4192 EAST Hwy 70, and we ended all the way across town at 4192 WEST 70 thanks to Bill Gates and his wonderful staff of map readers. So while we were over there I snagged this bit of trivia for ya. NC wants to prove its the pork capital of the world, but if you see this sign you are on the opposite side of town than Wilber's:








But I had come too far to be denied so after a bit of a search we finally found it and here's proof:





And here is the plate I ate today:






This was authentic East Carolina BBQ. This means that the pork does not hide behind any sauce, but a vinegar base is used to keep the pork moist. Since it is basically pork by itself, it will be either great or suck. In this case, it was good. The chicken has a vinegar base and also a clear, cream sauce, almost like cream of chicken soup. It was not what I would call BBQ, but its what the locals call it. I would say this is a unique BBQ class on its own. I would like to try others, but I am not sure you can compare it to others. This means I have a hard time putting a rating around it. I wasn't totally blown away. However, they did a good job with the sides. The cole slaw was better than all the places in Jacksonville put together. It had a tad of horseradish in it which gave it a nice bite. The potatoe salad was also decent, and I'm not really a potatoe salad kind of guy. The waitress was very friendly and when she found out we were on the quest for Q, she brought us out a local favorite side for free - the boiled hot potatoes. These are basically boiled potatoes with hot sauce in the water. It gives it a unique flavor. I would not have thought of that, for sure. So I have to say this was at least a 7 on the Q scale, if nothing else than for originality and service. The plates were about 8 dollars or so.

Just FYI - The western part of NC celebrates the "Lexington" style, which is closer to the Memphis style with a red sauce. I'm still looking for a good example of this. Perhaps we will find something enroute back to Nashville since we are going back a different way than we came.

Soooo..... we ended up in Richmond, VA at the end of the day. I am doing some research on the web tonight to see where our next adventure in Q will take us. Today was a nice change of pace.

1 comment:

Jenib said...

Wilber's has BBQ beef on Thursday nights. I wish they offered it more often. I lived in Texas for many years and grew to love the taste of smoked brisket.