I smell pork

For everything culinary that Alton Brown has taught me, inspired me to try and reinforced through Good Eats, I have to say the Feasting on series may just be my favorite of his projects. At the very least, I have equal admiration and affinity for both GE and Feasting.

The first of the series captured my attention for the history, the culture, the road and how these pieces interweave to create captivating TV and the story of our unique culinary American experience.

So on the trip from West Virginia to Tennessee, I decided to pay homage to Alton's wonderful program and sought out a location on the route.

Part of my journey to Nashville lead me on to US Route 60 through Lexington, KY. In FOA, AB traveled this highway en route from Corbin, KY (another location I have visited) to Bowling Green, KY. Although in the travel montage, there is a continuity error he passes the famous "Kentucky Castle" in Lexington before reaching Lexington... but I digress.

Knowing Bowling Green was a city along the route, I checked into the places visited there. And as luck would have it, The Smokey Pig, home of the Monroe County style BBQ, was right off of exit 28 on I-65.

Now I love good Q.

And it is a place AB had been to.

Easy sell.

I was stopping.

I told mom to be on the lookout for a pink pig on a telephone pole, Alton's rational for stopping at the restaurant. That and JC smelling pork at Duncan Hines' grave. We joked about the pink pig on a telephone pole all the way down, I love that line.

The place was a little hard to find from the Google map, there's a reason why I don't trust them. But it wasn't that much off of the beaten path or the exit. The most difficult part was trying to turn into Smokey Pig Road from the highway--there was a car turning around at the entrance of the road (wrong turn?). I growled a bit at the man, hey he was in my way. Don't get between Q and hungry traveler.

The restaurant wasn't fancy. A low-key place. Orders are taken at the counter, you get the food in plain foam containers and to the dining room. The nice guy making the food told us about the extra room over looking the river. That's where we sat.

Both mom and I opted for the pulled pork sandwich. I added tater salad (that's how it appeared on the menu) and baked beans. The sweet tea was great, a perfect blend of sweet and not too sweet. The woman who took the order told me it was sweet, but either in that part of Kentucky "sweet" sweet tea is exactly how I make it or they don't understand that sickeningly sweet Southern style ;)



The Q was great. I didn't try the Monroe County style because the pulled pork called to me. I'm glad I got it. They also had fountain RC products, hadn't seen that since I was a kid. Mom loves RC, so that was another plus. The tater salad was almost as good as our secret family recipe. The beans were tangy. I used the hot sauce on my sandwich. It was hot, even by my insane hot tolerance level. That was the sauce, I believe, the owner talked about with AB in the show.

As we were leaving, I peered into the smokehouse.


So that's my little FOA recreation stop. I didn't have a BMW motorcycle, but I have a German engineered car... does that count?


Yeah, I love Feasting on Asphalt!