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If you live in the US of A, chances are good that you own a grill – according to the Hearth, Patio and Barbecue Association, 75% of Americans own a smoker or grill, and 61% of them use it year round. No statistics are known to exist on how many people refer to grilling as barbecuing, but it’s a safe bet that “most of them” is the right answer.

If you get home from work and start up the Char-Broil or set fire to some Kingsford Briquets to cook some tender steaks or burgers, that’s grilling. If you light a wood fire in a big ol’ half-barrel and pull up a cooler full of beer to while away some serious hours tending tough hunks of meat, you’re talking either barbecuing or smoking. It’s all in the technique and window-dressing won’t cut it: serious pitmasters know that anyone who talks extensively about their 50-ingredient secret barbecue sauce recipe is an unworthy poseur and amateur. Real barbecue is expensive and time-consuming; there are lots of restaurants with the barbecue name that just flood some cooked chicken with sweet gloppy sauce and assume you don’t know the difference, or care.

Femme de Joie had heard good things about Old Mill Eatery & Smokehouse in Shasta Lake and thought it was time to head north to check it out. It opened some ten years ago and was taken over by new owners in 2015. In a light-filled faux log cabin chalet on Shasta Dam Boulevard, they serve three meals a day to a variety of tourists and locals, grandpas in overalls and hipsters with flashy hair tints, business folk and families, all of whom come for the generous portions and real smoked barbecue. Service is helpful and friendly albeit sometimes a little leisurely.

House-made corned beef hash and eggs, $12.95

Canned corned beef hash isn’t worth the time and effort to make it attractive and palatable; you may as well serve a fry-up of Alpo. Homemade is a different story. Old Mill mixed pink shims of house-smoked corned beef mixed with hash browns and crisp-fried, a bit on the salty side but both crunchy and tender at the same time. More hash browns alongside had a golden crackly top and moist insides to go with eggs cooked sunnyside up.

Smokehouse breakfast with ham, $12.95

Very often the ham part of ham-and-eggs is a neat little soldier of a ham slice, uniformly cut from a pressed loaf, microwaved or held in a heating tray until needed. A nicely browned 8-ounce slice has some texture and character and heft as it was here.

A large flaky biscuit baked in-house was a breakfast in itself along with peppery thick cream gravy redolent with bits of sausage. The biscuit was not quite baked all the way through, though, so the inside was a little gummy.

Old Mill Cheese Steak, half $11.95, full $14.95

Skip the drive to Philly and get this one instead. On the lively and spicy side, luscious smoked tri-tip meshed with mushrooms, onions, and bell peppers in a coat of melted cheese. A really delicious and messy sandwich.

Potato salad and dirty rice, $3.95 each

Side orders are done especially well at Old Mill. House-made new potato salad, a far cry from that weird yellow sweet paste sold in plastic tubs in supermarket refrigerator cases, was crunchy with celery, creamy but not mushy, and lightly peppery. Dirty rice was outstanding – often made with chicken livers and giblets, this savory, fluffy rice was chock full of smoked beef niblets and seasoned generously with cayenne.

Smoked brisket sandwich, $12.95, side of baked beans $2.95, cole slaw $2.95

At dinner, full plates of smoked meats are available, but they can also be ordered as sandwiches for lunch. Smoked brisket, though on the salty side, was juicy and tender with visible smoke rings – lots of smoke taste here, though the amount of meat on the sandwich was a bit scanty. The house-made baked beans had a snappy vinegary tang with diced bacon flavor. Femme de Joie assumed the cole slaw would have a creamy dressing and was pleased to instead taste a piquant apple cider vinegar-based sharp dressing that paired well with smoky meats. A A tiny cup of barbecue sauce tasted of ketchup, sugar, vinegar, and liquid smoke; the brisket did not deserve to be sullied with it.

Though not everything was perfect, there are many good things going on at Old Mill Eatery & Smokehouse – enough to warrant a drive up I-5 to Shasta Lake. If you crave barbecue that isn’t coated with sticky bottled sauce, this is worth trying out on your way up to the dam (go have a look while there’s water in it).

Old Mill Eatery & Smokehouse, 4132 Shasta Dam Boulevard, Shasta Lake, CA 96073. 530-275-0515. Open daily, Sunday though Thursday, 7:00 AM to 8:00 PM, Friday and Saturday 7:00 AM to 9:00 PM. Parking lot. Cash and cards, no checks. Beer and wine. Not much for vegetarians to see here. Follow them on Facebook.

What defines barbecue? And what is the difference between barbecue and grilling? Though the terms are frequently used interchangeably and the results (usually) delectable, they mean very different procedures and end results. As Chris Schlesinger explains in his 1990 book The Thrill of the Grill, grilling is placing food near a heat source and cooking by conduction, searing the exterior and concentrating juices on the interior while browning the outside (the Maillard effect). Barbecuing, on the other hand, means placing a large quantity of food (usually meat) within a pit or other closed chamber and letting it cook very slowly by indirect heat and smoke from a hardwood fire.

Grilling is fun, fast, and convenient. Barbecuing is not fast, easy, or cheap, but it is an obsession. Barbecue masters – nearly all men – might not sneer at a grilled steaks, but they won’t give you quarter if you try to usurp their title and skill. Writer Calvin Trillin noted that Henry Perry, who began the business that evolved into the legendary Arthur Bryant’s Barbecue in Kansas City, enjoyed seeing customers suffer when they sampled his incendiary sauce. Trillin explained that a man who spent all night tending a hardwood fire could be excused for developing some dark and malevolent tendencies. (Arthur Bryant himself later tamed the sauce down since he appreciated the sight of a returning customer more than a screaming customer.)

All this to say: most barbecue is not barbecue. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t taste good, or isn’t fun to share with all the family and college buddies, but don’t confuse it with the real deal. If in doubt, New Orleans-based food writer/barbecue cookbook author Colleen Rush helpfully compiled a list of 7 Foolproof Ways to Spot a Fake BBQ Joint.

For a couple of years, barbecue restaurants popped up all over the greater Redding area – Palo Cedro, Cypress Avenue, Shasta Lake – and one by one they disappeared into the gloaming. Fat Daddy’s Gourmet BBQ is one of, if not the, longest running barbecue restaurants in Redding. Located in an old A&W Stand (who else remembers those frosty mugs of root beer with the ice shards that slid into the drink?), Fat Daddy’s has been serving for over ten years and seems to still be going strong. Inside are easy-clean Formica tables and easy-mop flooring, with dollar bills tacked to the ceiling. Order at the counter and they’ll call your name when your food is ready. There’s a small condiment table stocked with extra sauce, pickles, and small semi-hot pickled peppers.

Tri-tip sandwich with macaroni salad, $8.25

Tri-tip is a notoriously tough but flavorful cut of meat that is popular with barbecue enthusiasts. It’s been Femme de Joie’s experience that barbecued tri-tip is nearly always dried out and exceedingly chewy, not unlike chewing on a baseball mitt or a pit bull’s tail. Since this tri-tip had never seen a barbecue, it didn’t suffer from toughness, though it was a bit fibrous. The meat itself was on the bland unseasoned side, but was slathered with copious amounts of barbecue sauce, as is all the meat served at Fat Daddy’s. The sauce was not as sweet as some commercial sauces, which Femme de Joie appreciates, and owed some of its flavor to molasses (as opposed to tomato and/or ketchup). The sandwiches came on rolls that were a bit better than the average roll and did not fall apart into a soggy mess. To be sure it was a generous serving and fair for the price. Macaroni salad was a deli standard with little to distinguish it.

Pulled beef sandwich with potato salad, $8.25

A variation on pulled pork, shredded beef was doused heavily with barbecue sauce. The meat itself was more tender than the tri-tip – not too surprising – and maybe more flavorful, though it was hard to tell since all Femme de Joie could really taste was the sauce. Potato salad on the side seemed to have come from the same place as the macaroni salad: nothing bad about it but neither was there anything special.

Chicken meal with cole slaw and Caesar salad, $10.25

Femme de Joie could not fault the tenderness and moistness of the chicken. Three pieces (a leg and two thighs) were fall-apart tender and juicy, but again, these were not cooked on a barbecue or a grill since the skin was flabby without any crust, and again, absolutely soaked in sauce. Caesar salad (Caesar salad at a BBQ place?) was deliciously crunchy and tart. Cole slaw was fresh and likewise crunchy. Both salads were big improvements over the very average potato and macaroni salads.

Obviously Fat Daddy’s knows their target audience since they’ve been in business eleven years (an eternity in the restaurant industry and especially in Redding). Portions are fair for the money and customers seem to love the barbecue sauce (for sale on site). It isn’t real barbecue, but then they don’t claim to be (despite the giant portable grill chained outside). Femme de Joie doesn’t crave sweet goopy barbecue sauces much – a little goes a very long way in her estimation – so while she wouldn’t make a special trip to Four Corners for Fat Daddy’s, if she wound up dining there she wouldn’t kick too much. But she would definitely ask for sauce on the side.

Fat Daddy’s Gourmet BBQ, 942 Hartnell Avenue, Redding CA 96002. 530-221-8270. Open Monday through Friday, 11:00 AM to 8:00 PM. Closed weekends. No checks. Parking lot. Not much for vegetarians to see here except salad. Website at http://www.fatdaddysredding.com/
or follow them on Facebook.

Up on North Market Street just at the western foot of Sulphur Creek Hill stands a now-empty building. For years it housed El Papagayo, then another restaurant that escapes Femme de Joie's memory just now, followed by Catanio's. M. de Joie only visited Catanio's once; she remembers it fondly as an upscale Italian restaurant that provided a musical interlude during dinner by Joe Catanio. After it closed, Catanio moved on to run the cafe at Turtle Bay until The Powers That Be closed it pending the construction of a Sheraton Hotel. Not idle for long, Catanio paired with Scott Rawson to open Smoked BBQ on Airport Road.

Fitted inside what appears to have been a drive-through coffee kiosk (and located next to Dutch Brothers), the restaurant has just three small tables. The meat is smoked on the premises and sides are house-made. The menu is short and sweet and quite reasonably priced. Each item comes with a choice of sides.

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Hot pastrami sandwich, $7.99

M. de Joie has long been a pastrami fan - Amico del SIgnore, not so much; he always found it greasy, salty, and fatty. This sandwich converted him; plenty of very lean, mildly spiced pastrami with a pleasant smokiness didn't have that off-putting greasiness. The sauce was served on the side instead of glopped on, which we approve heartily of - and this sauce is a far cry from the dark brownish-purple sauces that fall off the Sysco Truck by the gallon. A tomato base made tangy with apple cider vinegar and slightly sweet, it complimented the pastrami rather than smothered it. We liked the macaroni salad too - not sweet but slightly mustardy with tiny bits of celery.

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Pulled pork sandwich, $7.50

The pulled pork was likewise non-greasy, little niblets of tender smoked pork piled on a bun. Moist and tender, it didn't need sauce, but we poured it on anyway. The smoked sweet potatoes were wonderful: though they look like plain sliced white potatoes, they are made from yellow sweet potatoes rather than red Garnet yams. M. de Joie has never cared much for yellow sweet potatoes, finding them dry and chalky, but this was delightful, especially when we scraped the bottom of the container to scoop up the caramelized juices that had puddled there.

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Combo meal, four pork ribs and sliced tri-tip, $8.99

Tri-tip isn't an easy cut to cook. Tough sinews and connective tissue riddle it; though it's flavorful, it can necessitate a yard or two of dental floss afterwards. But at Smoked BBQ the tri-tip was meltingly tender and smoky, luscious and juicy. Pork ribs had a crackly crust and were fall-off-the-bone tender. Alongside, potato salad was not overcooked and mushy (as often happens) and slightly on the tart side. The only disappointment was that the combo meal was not as generous a serving as the sandwiches, so not really a great value.

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Smoked Stack (tri-tip. pastrami, pulled pork), $8.99

A terrific combo of the best of Smoked BBQ, this was a most satisfying sandwich. Even though it was heavy on the protein, the smoked meats were trimmed of excess fat so it didn't have a soporific effect, Scott's slaw was a winner too: freshly made with, cubes of apple teamed with dried cranberries and thin-sliced cabbage in a light vinegary dressing. If a diner was so inclined, they could certainly pile the slaw on the sandwich.

Even though it's all the way out on Airport Road. Smoked BBQ is worth a drive. Now that Thanksgiving has been ticked off the list for another year, there may be a few turkey tidbits lurking in the far reaches of the refrigerator. There may well be people who are pointedly ignoring those leftovers, crying for surcease, for something that isn't turkey, isn't covering in gravy and cranberry sauce. For them, a trip to Smoked BBQ may be in order. For those still happily snarfing up the ends of that bird, head on out there anyway.

Smoked BBQ, 8540 Airport Road at Rancho Road, Redding, CA 96002. 530-364-2085. Open Monday-Saturday, 11:00 AM - 7:00 PM. Closed Sundays. Very small dining area; better to order take-out. Parking lot. No alcohol. Cards, no checks. Not much for vegetarians to see here except side orders. Follow them on Facebook.

The first time Femme de Joie dined at Brick's, back when it was on Placer Street (in the tiny building now occupied by the wildly popular Wilda's), she was underwhelmed. She and Amico del Signore ordered sandwiches (the exact contents now forgotten) which arrived slathered in a sweet red barbecue sauce that completely obliterated any smoke or grill taste. It could have been terry-cloth in those rolls; we wouldn't have been able to tell. Privately we vowed to never return.

But years went by. Brick's prospered and moved to a bigger location. The disappointing pain of those first sauce sandwiches eased. And eventually Brick's was given a second chance to redeem themselves. Breakfast seemed like a good place to start, so one Saturday morning we hied ourselves to Eureka Way to try it out.

If there is a Redding restaurant with a more poorly designed parking lot than Brick's, M. de Joie would be afraid to attempt parking in there. It isn't Brick's fault;' this lot has been like this for a number of years. It's as though the inventor of the Tilt-a-Whirl decided to transfer the concept of an amusement park ride to paving.

There have been several restaurants in this spot. If memory serves, there was the Donut Wheel, the ill-fated Avocado's, La Gondola (sorely missed), and possibly a couple of others. The current interior arrangement isn't fancy - wooden tables and chairs, a small beer bar in the back, a salad bar.

Tri-tip and eggs, $9.89.

Tri-tip is one of those cuts of meat that everyone professes to love, but is nearly always dessicated and rendered flavorless by well-meaning cooks. This, however, was luscious and tender, with smoke rings around the edges. House-made hash browns were similarly well-executed - crunchy exterior and creamy interior.

Chicken-fried steak and eggs, $10.89

We debated whether this chicken-fried steak was better than the one served at Dry Creek Station. While we didn't come to a definitive conclusion, we agreed it was equal. The steak still had some pinkness in the center and was quite juicy - a rarity for CFS. M. de Joie has never cared much for country potatoes/home fries in restaurants because they always seem to have an off taste, but these were delicious, crisp without being burned, and without that old-oil taste.

Grits, $2.89

Is there another place in Shasta County serving grits? They aren't everyone's cup of tea, but it's worth ordering a small cupful and trying them with butter, a squeeze of honey, or using them to mop up egg yolk. These were al dente, as Joe Pesci prefers.

Southwest chicken Reuben, $7.99

Brick's serves an interesting variation on the standard Reuben, substituting smoked shredded chicken for corned beef. It made for a messy, drippy, and delectable sandwich, the smoky chicken holding its own with the other ingredients. The swirled rye bread didn't hold up so well and finally collapsed.

Hot link sandwich, $7.99

Femme de Joie does enjoy food that's fiery enough to make her reach for the Tums. The hot link sandwich at Brick's did just that, but it was worth it. A combination of sliced Andouille and Louisiana hot links, this might be a bit too spicy for some people. It is hot, as the name implies, and a bit on the greasy side, but the piquant seasonings make this more than just one-note hot.

Both sandwiches came with waffle-cut fries, which added support to M. de Joie's theory that any French fried potatoes which are sliced in fancy shapes will always be inferior to fries sliced in the usual wedges or finger strips.

Spicy mac and cheese, $2.99

We both liked the creamy shell mac and cheese - not overcooked or dry, it did have a little heat but wasn't so hot that the kids would reject it out of hand.

Coleslaw, $1.59

One the other hand, M. de Joie wasn't crazy about the coleslaw, which was less than crunchy. With a non-sweet mustardy dressing, it would have been better served on a sandwich as a relish rather than as a side dish.

Overall, Femme de Joie likes Brick's and is glad she gave them a second and third chance. The atmosphere is casual and service is friendly, if a little on the slow side at times. And they get huge Brownie points for serving Guinness and Newcastle Brown Ale on tap. It's a good locally owned and operated place on Redding's West Side, an area that could use some more decent restaurants. Rather than stop at that chain burger hatchery across the street, give Brick's a try (they serve burgers too).

Brick's Smokehouse BBQ & Grill, 1970 Eureka Way, Redding, CA 96001. 530-245-9158. Fax 530-245-9163. Open Monday-Friday, 10 AM - 11 PM; Saturday & Sunday open 6 AM for breakfast. Beer and wine. Vegetarian options. Cash, cards; no checks. On-site parking lot from hell or park on the street. Website at http://bricksbbq.com/index.php/home

It might seem as incomprehensible to newcomers and young folks as journeying from Missouri to California via covered wagon, but once upon a time there was no Interstate 5. Instead, that ribbon of highway known as State Route 99 flowed through the center of California and right through the center of towns like Burbank, Sacramento, Yuba City, Red Bluff, and Redding. You didn't have to take an exit to get to a gas station or a motel or a store: they were lined up right next to the road. When Interstate 5 was more or less completed in 1968, those businesses along 99 that depended on high traffic volume were left to sink or swim. Many of them did sink, along with their neighbors, and formerly prosperous areas of town deteriorated like drywall left out in the rain.

There are those who shut their eyes and lock their car doors driving though the blight. And then there are those who see opportunity with the many vacant buildings and low rent. Think of Racha Noodle and Kanya Gardens, two fine restaurants that might not have been able to initially afford uptown rent but which have prospered and earned success. Now we add Sweetie's to that group of entrepreneurs.

You might have seen the barbecue wagon parked next to Eddy's Pub on Market Street - that's Sweetie's barbecue they use for catering.Their brick-and-mortar restaurant is the space where Denny's, the Lime Tree, and AJ's came and went on South Market Street.

As soon as you walk in, you realize this is not your average coffee shop. A sign near the front door advertises local tomato Benedict, line-caught salmon, and free-range eggs. Patrons range from nearby workers on their lunch hour, families with toddlers, and quite a few retirees, all enjoying the good food at low prices.

Amico del Signore ordered the local tomato Benedict - eggs Benedict sans ham, substituting fat slices of very ripe, very juicy tomatoes that actually came out of a local garden instead of being bounced around in the back of a tractor-trailer all the way from Calexico. Topping it was a house-made Hollandaise, smooth and lemony without the salty taste of packaged mix. The friendly waitress (who, it turned out, was the owner) told us that her husband makes the Hollandaise to order - even though that's more trouble than using a prepackaged mix or can, she said the customers react positively to it. Hash browns were also house-made, with a crunchy exterior and creamy interior.

Mipas is eggs scrambled with tortilla chips, and Sweetie's version was light, tender, and fluffy. Little speckles of egg white indicated the eggs are fresh - not scrambled-egg mix. A light amount of melted cheese enhanced the mix of flavors and textures, as did a small dish of salsa and pickled Jalapeno slices. This can be ordered with sausage (as pictured here), ham, or bacon, or with beans.

After that initial breakfast, Femme de Joie and Amico del Signore were eager to return for lunch, to see if it was as good as breakfast. It was.

The house-smoked pulled pork sandwich really showed off the owners' barbecue chops. At first glance, both A. del Signore and M. de Joie thought the sandwich might be dry, as there was no sauce on the meat or offered on the side. But one bite told the story: no sauce was needed. The pork was permeated with real smoke flavor - not from a bottle - and super-tender. Served on a house-made sweet potato roll, this was one of the best examples of fine barbecue available around the North State.

Mediterranean spinach salad with grilled salmon is the kind of dish you wouldn't expect to find in a diner. As the owner told us, they strive to use fresh and high-quality ingredients, and the presence on the menu of line-caught salmon (not farmed, which is often mushy-textured and lacking in flavor) showed they mean business. Fresh baby spinach leaves combined with tomato, cucumber, pitted Kalamata olives, thin-sliced red onion and a light scatterling of feta cheese was a great base for the buttery grilled salmon.

Rhubarb is considered by many to be a somewhat old-fashioned ingredient like gooseberries or elderberries, and you don't often see it offered in restaurants. But Sweetie's served up this luscious strawberry-rhubarb shortcake with a base of house-made yellow cake and a generous amount of not-too-sweet stewed fruit topping, made from homegrown strawberries. A winner and a serving that's big enough for two.

The South Market area might one day make a reversal of fortune. Perhaps in the not-too-distant future, yuppies will start moving into this unfashionable area because of low rents and then open up boutiques and chi-chi cafes, and raise all the rents. Before that happens, drive down to Sweetie's and enjoy breakfast or lunch in a comfortable atmosphere.

Sweetie's, 3105 South Market Street, Redding, CA 96001. 530-244-2269. Open daily except Monday, 6 AM - 3 PM. Parking on-site. Cards, cash; no checks. No alcohol. Serving breakfast and lunch. Vegetarian options. Website at http://www.sweeties-catering.com/index.html

On a hot July day Femme de Joie and Amice del Signore took Highway 99 toward Chico, blithely ignoring the "expect 20 minute delays" signs. After what seemed like two weeks in a hot oven, they popped up in Los Molinos - irritable, sweaty, and hungry. It was 1:00 pm and Chico was still at least an hour away; realizing that Celestino's Pizza for lunch wasn't an option anytime soon, they decided to take a chance on the offerings available.

Los Molinos has never been known for being a hotbed of nouvelle cuisine, or any kind of cuisine for that matter, but they were willing to down a gut bomb to fuel the rest of the trip. A bright red building with a sign out front advertising barbecue seemed the most likely prospect, and indeed the smell of wood smoked beef drew them into Roxie's Deli & BBQ. There were the usual deli sandwiches offered, but the counterman recommended the special tri-tip sandwich. He knew what he was talking about.

Roxie's Tri Tip Sandwich ($6.99)

Roxie's owner made our sandwiches – loads of smoked thin-sliced tri-tip on large Dutch crunch rolls, piled with our choice of condiments - $6.99 for a sandwich made in heaven. The outer edges of the beef were crisp, near-burnt lacy shards of barbecue goodness, smoke flavor permeating the entire piece of beef. True barbecue taste shone through the sauce and condiments. Good God, how fine those sandwiches were. We still dream about them.

We spoke with the owner a bit. His ambition is to open a 50-seat restaurant in Redding. We assured him with this kind of food, he'd have no problem packing in the customers.

On the return to Redding, Femme de Joie still hungered for barbecue, so she gave Fatboy's a try, first checking out the location next to Need to Speed. It's an industrial interior with red walls, a black-and-white checked floor, and the door open to the racetrack. On a weekday at noon, Femme de Joie pretty much had the place all to herself, which was a distressing sign. She ordered pulled pork – a Fatboy bun, served on a Kaiser roll, $6.49, as well as a trip through the salad bar ($2.00).

Fatboy's Salad Bar ($2.00)

The salad bar was bagged spring mix that wasn't quite fresh. Most of the toppings -beets, carrots, beans - were from water-pack cans or pre-shredded. Dressings were industrially-produced including a viscous glue-thick honey-raspberry. The Italian dressing was the least scary; it was watery and flavorless.

Fatboy's Pulled Pork ($6.49)

Unfortunately, the salad bar was not the low point. The pulled pork had been pot-roasted with no seasoning or flavoring except perhaps a minute pinch of salt. It simply had no taste at all and was on the dry side. It was like eating damp drywall on a Kaiser roll. Barbecue sauce was brought to the table in a squeeze bottle, but it only gave the drywall a sweet fake-hickory taste. After eating half the sandwich, M. de Joie had to make a decision. She surely did not want to eat any more and she knew Amico del Signore wasn't going to like that sandwich any more than she did. Neither of them has a dog that would be happy to eat it. The other half of the sandwich went in the trash.

But how could this be? The location on Twin View was successful enough to open this satellite shop. Maybe, she thought, the tri-tip will be better.

Fatboy's Tri Tip Sandwich (Market Street)

So on her next visit, Femme de Joie ordered the tri-tip bun. She was offered choice of toppings - lettuce tomato, pickles, onions, cheese (80 cents)- why was this option not offered for the pulled pork? The tri-tip was cooked medium by some method - steaming, perhaps? - that added no taste. Sliced very thinly, there was about 2 or 3 ounces on the bun plus toppings. It was better than the pork but not any better than a deli roast beef sandwich. A side of potato salad, made with red-skinned new potatoes, was house-made and adequate but nothing really stood out about it.

Well, M. de Joie thought, maybe it's the location. She made a trek up to the Fatboy's on Twin View Boulevard, the old Midway Inn. Walk in, order at the counter, they give you a number; take a seat and they'll bring out your food. There is a salad bar but also an extensive condiments bar with all kinds of spreads and garnishes.

Fatboy's Tri-Tip Sandwich (Twin View)

Once more she gave the tri-tip bun a try to see if it was any better - asking first if it was barbecued there and receiving an affirmative answer. It was modestly more smoky, but the medium-rareness indicated it was not barbecued for very long. Topped off with sauces and condiments it was tasty but not really outstanding and not worthy of the name barbecue. Crunchy coleslaw with tart vinegary dressing, however, was really quite good.

Fatboy's Chicken Pesto Sandwich

On her final visit to the Twin View Fatboy's, Femme de Joie ordered the chicken pesto sandwich with a side of house-made baked beans. A Dutch crunch roll was filled with sliced grilled chicken breast, then slathered with pesto. To be fair, Femme de Joie finds chicken breasts to be the least tasty part of the bird: bland, dry, usually overcooked. In fuller fairness, though, this chicken was dry, bland, and overcooked. Adding some sauce and condiments helped, but not a lot.The second half of this sandwich was discarded like the pulled pork. A brown-sugary sauce made the baked beans stand out.

Apparently Fatboy's fans see something in the food that Femme de Joie does not. You do get an appropriate amount of food for the money, service is friendly and fast, and the restaurants are clean. But the next time you get a craving for barbecue, head down Highway 99 to Los Molinos for Roxie's special of the day.

NOTE: Since this was published in A News Cafe, the downtown location of Fatboy's has closed.

Roxie's Deli & BBQ, 7810 Highway 99, Los Molinos, CA 96055. 530-384-1455. Open every day. Cards, no checks. Limited parking in front or around on the side.

Fatboy's Rotisserie and Sandwiches, 829 Twin View Boulevard, Redding, CA 530-244-7754, also 1501 Market Street (in the Promenade), 530-247-1676. Twin View open daily for lunch and dinner; Market Street open for lunch. Cards, no checks. Twin View location has a parking lot; Market location has Mall parking. www.fatboysredding.com

Femme de Joie and Amico del Signore have been enthusiastic fans of KPIG radio for several years after reading about it from a column by Jim Dyar in The Newspaper Of Which We Dare Not Speak Its Name. It was through the PIG that we first got wind of a BBQ joint in San Francisco called Memphis Minnie’s Barbecue Joint and Smokehouse. Being in The City on unrelated business, we made it our business to pay Memphis Minnie’s a visit.

Before we go any further, let’s stop right here and clarify a few points:

– What people cook in their backyards on a Weber on summer nights is not barbecue. That’s grilling. It tastes good but it is not barbecue.

– Real barbecue is obtained by hours and hours of smoking and slow-cooking large cuts of meat over a wood fire, with maybe only a “mop sauce” to baste.

– Real barbecue is not defined by sweet red sauce slathered all over grilled meat, even if it is your special super-secret recipe that you’ve developed over years of experimentation. That stuff is fine for a few chicken breasts or some ribs you whipped up after work, but would be a travesty to drown real barbecue in.
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Even in as colorful a neighborhood as the Haight, you can’t really miss Memphis Minnie’s.
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The place is pretty small, maybe about ten or twelve tables, most of which seat two people. If you hit it at a busy time, expect to wait for a table. They do a lot of takeout — on a nice day you can get an order to go and head down to Buena Vista Park for a picnic lunch that’ll kick Subway’s butt.

You walk up to the counter and order. The very helpful and friendly counterman will explain the difference between a plate, a taster, or a sandwich.

In the glass care to the left of the cash register are plates and bowls filled with some of the specialties, such as deep-fried peach pie, BBQ pork rolls, or Smokey Mountain Wings. Place your order, leave your name, and have a seat. There’s a self-serve soda dispenser and flatware around the corner to the right of the cash register; if you order beer or — surprise! — sake, they’ll hand that over right away.

We barely had time to take a quick tour of the place and snap a few photos before our lunch was ready.
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A. Del Signore ordered Memphis Sweet-Smoked Pork Plate ($12.75) which came with a corn muffin and a choice of two sides.
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M. de Joie went for the Smoked Cajun Andouille Sausage Plate ($12.75). We both chose Potlikker Greens and macaroni and cheese for sides.
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On each table is a roll of paper towels and a cardboard Shiner Bock Beer six-pack with squeeze bottles of MM’s own house-made sauces: Texas Red Sauce, North Carolina Vinegar Sauce, South Carolina Mustard Sauce, and Beelzebub’s Breath (”it’s stupid hot!”) Sauce to add to taste. If you want to drown the wood-smoke taste with sauce, it’s your business, but the good folk at Memphis Minnie’s won’t be held responsible.

Those tables, by the way, are covered with clear plastic, through which you can take a peek at cartoons done by previous diners:
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We poured tiny samples of each of the sauces on our plates to dip the meat into (by far our favorite was the slightly sweet, vinegary mustard sauce). We mixed the sauces. We ate the barbecue as God Almighty Himself intended, plain pig pickin’, the porker naked as the day it was born. There were no words to describe the fine barbecue. Mostly we sat and ate in rapturous silence, now and then picking off each other’s plates, then leaning back and gazing at each other in a haze of pleasure. “DANG, this is GOOD.”

The corn muffin was a corn muffin: M. de Joie personally prefers the ones she’s been making for a million years from the recipe off the Albers box, but there was nothing really wrong with these, and Lord knows they were ten thousand times better than that sugary mouthful of cakefluff Marie Callendar’s dares call cornbread. The mac and cheese was divine: oversized macaroni baked in a cheesy bread-crumby sauce.

But what really wowed us were the potlikker greens. Sweet and hot and tender, these chopped stewed greens brought tears to our eyes. The counterman wouldn’t give up the recipe, acknowledging only the greens were collards and there was a healthy splash of the mustard sauce. If there was a disappointment, it was only that there wasn’t really enough potlikker at the bottom of the bowl to dip the cornbread into.

And then, after clearing our plates, Femme de Joiedid something she almost never, ever does: She went back up to the counter and ordered more food. A slice of the homemade pecan pie ($4.75) for her:
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And for Amico del Signore, an appetizer bowl of the rib-tips ($5.95).
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The pecan pie was exactly as promised: made from scratch with a homemade crust, served with honest not-out-of-a-spray-can whipped cream. Packed with pecans and a nearly-creamy filling, it was worth every calorie. As for the rib-tips: lean, peppery, smoky-flavored bits of pork melted off the bone, crispy bits of fat lending moistness and flavor. When we were done it looked like a pig had been staked out on an anthill.

While we were dining we kept a close eye on what the tables next to us were having. One young man brought back what he told us was the Minnie’s Maxi Cheese Burger ($9.95), made with pimento cheese and house-cured bacon, served on a bun that had more in common with a Kaiser roll than a spongy Wonder Bread bun. It came with a mountain of fries. He said there was nothing like it anywhere.

It is to our everlasting regret that the next day was Monday, when Memphis Minnie‘s is closed: We woke up with a barbecue hangover, craving more. We didn’t get to try the fried peach pie, the pit smoked beans, the sweet potato pie, or smoked pastrami. We’ll be back.

Memphis Minnie’s Barbecue Joint and Smokehouse, 576 Haight Street (between Fillmore and Steiner), San Francisco. 415-864-PORK (7675), fax 415-86-8081. Open Tuesday-Saturday 11 AM - 10 PM, Sunday 11 AM - 9PM. Cash and cards. Closed Mondays. Beer and sake. God help you if you’re a vegetarian or have cholesterol issues. No parking whatsoever but Muni lines 5, 6, 16X, 21, 22, 24, 71, 71L, and the N Judah all run either right in front or within comfortable walking distance (see Muni website at http://www.sfmta.com/cms/home/sfmta.php). Website and menu at http://www.memphisminnies.com/

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Old Mill Delivers Real Barbecue in Shasta Lake
Sauce Is King at Fat Daddy’s Gourmet Bbq
Head to Airport Road for Smoked BBQ
Brick’s Brings Barbecue to Redding
Sweetie’s Restaurant Stands Out On South Market Street
A Tale of 2 BBQs
Out of Town For Memphis Minnie’s BBQ

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Where to Eat in Redding and Shasta County, California

Entries tagged with bbq

Old Mill Delivers Real Barbecue in Shasta Lake

Sauce Is King at Fat Daddy’s Gourmet Bbq

Head to Airport Road for Smoked BBQ

Brick’s Brings Barbecue to Redding

Sweetie’s Restaurant Stands Out On South Market Street

A Tale of 2 BBQs

Out of Town For Memphis Minnie’s BBQ