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GREAT AMERICAN BITES
Barbecue restaurants

Nashville's destination dry ribs

Larry Olmsted
Special to USA TODAY

The scene: A porcine logo adorning a barbecue restaurant is usually a good sign, and over the years I’ve seen cartoon pigs, pigs in top hats with bejeweled canes (my favorite), and pigs holding a ham (a little creepy), but never before have I seen a pig with a cast on one of its legs. The logo is a stand-in for restaurant owner and pitmaster Carey Bringle, a Nashville native who grew up around Western Tennessee’s rich barbecue culture and fondly recalls his grandfather cooking whole hogs for family gatherings. Bringle was mentored in competition barbecue by his uncle, who competed in the very first Memphis in May World Championship in 1976, now one of the four “majors” of competitive smoking, akin to golf’s Masters.

Hooked, Bringle has competed in the “Super Bowl of Swine” for more than 25 years, taking second place honors three times with his former team, Hog Wild. The pig represents barbecue, and the cast represents Bringle, who lost his right leg to osteogenic sarcoma, an aggressive bone cancer, at age 17. He emerged from chemotherapy and amputation with a new outlook and dedication to living life to the fullest, and his same-old sense of humor, reflected in the Peg Leg Porker brand. The Nashville, Tenn., eatery opened in 2013, and that’s hardly all: Bringle has a line of signature sauces and rubs, professional-grade home smokers, even limited-edition Peg Leg Porker Tennessee Straight Bourbon Whiskey. His story is great, and so is his barbecue.

The five-year-old restaurant enjoys a prominent location in The Gulch, a trendy and hip neighborhood perfectly located between the city’s Music Row and Downtown, and the site of much recent hotel development. The restaurant is in a large, squat cinder block building, suitably nondescript and not flashy, as a barbecue joint should be. It is also big, and with the upstairs addition and large open-air front patio, seats a few hundred people — and still gets crowded. Because it has been featured on TV often (including Guy Fieri’s Diner’s, Drive-ins and Dives, Michael Symon's Burgers, Brew & 'Que, and Andrew Zimmern's Bizarre Foods), Peg Leg Porker is sought out by visitors, and you routinely see people come in with luggage, straight from or on their way to the airport (if you plan on going on your way home, be advised that it is closed Sundays).

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The big covered cooking pit is right outside the front door on the patio, so you have to walk past it to get in — there’s no mistaking the theme here. Once inside, there is a U-shaped bar at the front with the same roadhouse cinder block look, very simple and flanked by neon beer and pig signs. At the opposite back end, there is a counter where you order with menu boards overhead, and the rest of the ample space is full of tables to bring your food to, plus a few cabinets full of barbecue trophies, sauces, rubs and souvenirs, including T-shirts that stress the pork theme, reading “If You Want Brisket, Go To Texas.”

Reason to visit: dry ribs, green beans, fried hand pies

The food: Pork is the main event, and popular food website eater.com named Bringle’s dry ribs the best in the nation. The entire operation is derived from the owner's experience in competition barbecue, and focused on pork — besides the entrees, it’s in the greens and the beans and may of the apps. Bringle describes his regional style as West Tennessee, meaning hickory wood in the smoker and tomato-based sauce in mild and hot versions, served as a condiment alongside un-sauced ribs. The signature dry ribs are very unusual, seasoned just with Kosher salt, then smoked for eight to 10 hours, a long time for ribs, and only finished with house spice rub when pulled from the smoker and served, making the flavor of the seasoning pop more on its own than as part of the rib exterior. The method works, as these are very good, extremely tender ribs, and while usually extra tender is not a great rib trait (“falling off the bone” is code for mushy and overcooked), Bringle somehow also gets a really nice bark, almost like good Texas brisket, and crisp exterior, and the contrast is great. With all the flavor from the dry rub your really don’t need any sauce at all.

The ribs are the big thing here, but there is also a first-class pulled pork (plate or sandwich), which is where you get to experience the delicious barbecue sauce, and solid smoked half chicken, though I can never see going for chicken at a standout barbecue joint that does a good job with pork or beef. That’s it for mains, but there is more variety in the appetizers, with a very nice take on barbecue nachos, adding the pulled pork, jalapeños and goopy, movie theater-style yellow liquid cheese that seems low brow but somehow works and sticks all the elements of the dish together. Add beans and slaw and they are called BBQ Machos, or sub fries for chips, poutine style, and they are called Soul Potatoes. The smoked wings are larger than average, and quite flavorful, available as dry, barbecue or Buffalo. The Memphis Sushi is a smoked sausage, cheese and saltine cracker platter intended as an homage to the famous Rendezvous in Memphis, home of the best-known dry ribs in America. But the Rendezvous and its ribs are overrated, and both the dry ribs and appetizer platter at Peg Leg Porker are better. Still, given the dessert options to come, if there was one course I’d trade away for sweets it would be the starter.

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Sides are more noteworthy, including a standout potato salad that is creamy, fresh, cool and a perfect counterpoint to the smoked meat. Green beans are far from my favorite barbecue side, but Bringle adds pork and cooks them in the smoker, and while they don’t look special, they are the best I’ve ever had. The pork-laden beans are also very good, the cole slaw an above average rendition, the mac and cheese fair, a goopy, nostalgic comfort food version reminiscent of instant, with shell pasta, and the crinkly fries are uninspired. Nashville has a vibrant brewing scene and Tennessee has a world-famous whiskey scene, so the full bar has a focus on these, with 11 local taps and lots of brown spirits, including a private bourbon label.

While most barbecue joints feature genre standards such as banana pudding or pecan pie for dessert, the only option here is the all too rare fried hand pie. Popular in isolated spots across the South (the Ozarks, New Orleans, Arkansas) but not as popular as they should be, these portable, self-contained, empanada-shaped hot pies are a near perfect dessert. Bringle’s are excellent, and come in peach, apple and chocolate. You can’t miss these, and while fruit is more typical of the genre, the chocolate is a standout that's creamy with great contrast between the warm dough and oozy melting innards, offered with or without vanilla ice cream (go with).

Pilgrimage-worthy?: Yes for barbecue fans, since standout dry ribs like these are uncommon.

Rating: Yum-Plus! (Scale: Blah, OK, Mmmm, Yum!, OMG!)

Price: $$ ($ cheap, $$ moderate, $$$ expensive)

Details: 903 Gleaves Street, Nashville, TN; 615-829-6023; peglegporker.com

Larry Olmsted has been writing about food and travel for more than 15 years. An avid eater and cook, he has attended cooking classes in Italy, judged a barbecue contest and once dined with Julia Child. Follow him on Twitter, @TravelFoodGuy, and if there's a unique American eatery you think he should visit, send him an e-mail at travel@usatoday.com. Some of the venues reviewed by this column provided complimentary services.

 

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