Mighty Quinn's Barbecue

What I love about eating in NYC is the variety of dining options available. What ever you feel like, chuck it into google, and you'll be directed to the nearest restaurant or take out place serving the subject of your hankering. There are perhaps hundreds of different cuisines and food ethnicities represented amongst the 30,000 restaurants in NYC. Well today I had a hankering for slow cooked meat.



Barbecue is another quintessentially American food, involving the slow smoking and roasting of meat (typically beef and pork) over wood or charcoal at a low temperature. This allows fatty and tough cuts of meat to become amazingly moist and tender while the wood imparts smoky flavour through the meat.

Definitely different to what we call a barbie - uncle Fred burning the snags on his trusty 4 burner on Boxing Day. Yes, I know it has gourmet-ed up since I was a kid but the point still stands.
 
The Americans take their barbecue very seriously, especially in the south. There are  numerous barbecue places in the city, but many cater for the tourists and don't follow the traditional techniques that are so integral to the outcome.

Mighty Quinn's Barbecue is a great unpretentious barbeque place in east village. You line up to be served canteen style as your plate gets piled high with a choice of brisket, pulled pork, burned ends or ribs. Slaw is a staple pairing with barbecue, as is some form of picked veggie (onions or cucumbers) but the best side is the epically rich pecan and maple sweet potato mash. It's so sweet and fudgy it could be a dessert.


Now the meat. The ribs are glazed in sweet barbeque sauce and are so deliciously tender that they fall of the bone. The brisket is also juicy and tender, but my favourite are the smoked pork cheeks. The smoky flavour is prominent but not overpowering, and the shape of the cheek is conserved during the cooking so that you can imagine the jowly face of the pig whence they came.  

How about a closeup of the ribs




 You can see the smoky pork cheek peeking out of Nic's bun
There is just so much right about American barbecue. And its relatively cheap too, considering time and effort involved in preparing the meat this way.