Meet the Meat: A Barbecue Trilogy Pig's Alley | Rib Shack | Brook's Bridge
By Bruce Collier

Pig’s Alley Bar-B-Q
9848 Highway 98 W Destin
654-3911

The menu at Pig’s Alley is a short read, and can double as a placemat. Pit-cooked chicken, hamburgers, and hot dogs are all offered, but pork rules here, in pulled and rib form, and you can smell Pig’s Alley up to a mile away—and considering the restaurant sits directly fronting a heavily traveled section of the Sandestin area of U.S. Highway 98, is saying something. The location may also account for the steady weekday stream of construction workers, law enforcement and EMD people, and on-the-clock offi ce workers that pull in, pick up their lunches by the bag, and merge back onto the road from late morning to early evening. A few plastic picnic tables on the deck permit onsite dining, but between the exhaust, traffi c noise, and recent windy weather, you may prefer to call ahead.

Central to the menu are the pork sandwich and rib plates. Both come with bread, baked beans, and either creamy coleslaw or potato salad. The pork is moist, silky in texture, with a rich smoky savor that almost doesn’t need the sweet/tangy red or creamy/peppery white sauces. Use them, though. Though I didn’t try the ribs on this visit, I know from past meals that they are a classic version. I did try the chicken plate. A chicken breast and wing managed to be both crisp (skin) and juicy (meat) at once, and the portion was generous. Pig’s Alley’s baked beans are probably my favorite of the ones I’ve tried hereabouts, if only because they are sweet enough even for me. You can buy Zap’s potato chips by the bag, as well as iced sun tea, which you can watch brewing in large pickle jars on the deck rails.

Rib Shack of Destin
605 Highway 98 E Destin
837-9314

Children’s menu available Rib Shack seems to know its customers. Judging from the densely worded menu, they like to order in bulk and by the party pack. Living large seems to be the rule here, and repeat business has led to the restaurant offering a custom meat smoking service (75 cents a pound, no limitation mentioned on species) and smoker rentals. One of the dessert items, a moist chocolate cake, is referred to as “damm cake,” owing to a comment made by an overworked baker. I ordered to go here, though the restaurant has a goodly number of inside tables. My solo meal consisted of the meat sampler—ribs, pulled pork, beef brisket—with onion rings and Spicy Misery slaw on the side, and a chunk of the damm cake.

The onion rings were very salty, which I liked, and managed to stay crisp even though I had to carry them home on a covered plate for about a fi fteen-minute drive. The brisket was lean and tender with a strong smoky mesquite and hickory fl avor. The ribs were fattier than the brisket, but had a good proportion of tender meat, which I gnawed (yes, gnawed) in the privacy of my home. The pork pretty much melted in my mouth. The slaw was the vinegar dressing style, mild enough until you hit the bits of raw pepper, which supplied the spice and misery. Not really, but unlike many “hot” items on restaurant menus, this delivered the goods. The cake had an old-fashioned “mom put this in your lunch box” quality. A banana pudding is also available.

Also on offer are sandwiches of chicken, turkey, sausage, chicken salad, burgers, hot dogs, and assorted sides of Texas toast, fries, tater tots, beans, traditional coleslaw, potato salad and a chicken and sausage gumbo. Most items are available at lot prices.

Bar-B-Q, Barbecue, Barbeque, or Bar- B-Que? Growing up in the Midwest, it really didn’t matter to me how it was spelled, since I generally avoided it. What passed for barbecue there was either the “Sloppy Joe,” hamburger stewed with bell pepper in something that tasted like unsweetened ketchup, or the more palatable homemade version consisting of leftover roast beef cooked in store sauce. It wasn’t until I spent a summer in Alabama that I tried real slow-cooked pork barbecue, at a place that also sold Brunswick stew, fried whole catfi sh, and cornbread with pork crackling. I’ve been in love with the stuff ever since, and everything that goes with it. I’ve eaten barbecue all over the South and the Southeast, and have come to realize that there are many versions, particularly regarding sauce. All are good. This part of the Panhandle is blessed with more than its share of barbecue establishments, of which the preceding is an exemplary, though by no means exhaustive, list. Please note that I am not ignoring the excellent Texas-style barbecue, which is in a class by itself. I simply am not aware of any Texas-style barbecue restaurants in the area. If any exist, please write me at The Beachcomber, and I’ll race you to them.

Brooks Bridge Bar-B-Que & Café
240 Miracle Strip Parkway SE
Fort Walton Beach, 244-3003

Children’s menu available/ Cash only accepted Of the three restaurants reviewed herein, this is the only one that offers non-barbecue style food, and has the most traditional sit-down restaurant atmosphere. You don’t have to like barbecue to fi nd a meal here. But our mission was barbecue, so I can only chronicle the alternatives. The left side of the Brooks Bridge menu is devoted to barbecue—beef, pork, chicken, and smoked sausage. Sampler and combination plates are available. On the right side are fried catfi sh with homemade tartar sauce, chicken fried steak with milk gravy, liver and onions, hamburgers, BLT’s, and homemade vegetable soup. Vegetables occupy the center section of the menu: baked beans, black-eyed peas, coleslaw, mashed potatoes, potato salad, turnip greens, green beans, corn, cabbage, fi eld peas, carrots, green lima beans, sliced tomatoes, and additional daily specials listed on a blackboard. All are offered as sides, though a four-vegetable plate is also available as an entree. A blackboard lists other specials, such as meatloaf.

Listed separately under the barbecue are spicy onion rings, fresh cut French fries and fried green tomatoes. We ordered the latter two with our entrees, which in my friend’s case was pork ribs and in my case a combination plate of beef and smoked sausage. My beef was lean and very tender. The sausage, sliced crossways, was salty and smoky, and the lot came sauced with a more vinegary version of the classic sweet/spicy red sauce, which made a nice contrast to the richness of the sausage meat. My friend’s ribs were meaty and very tender.

The fries were good, nicely browned, but could have been a little more crisp. The tomatoes were pretty much perfect. The coating was hot, crunchy, and greaseless. If you like a salty coating, be prepared with a shaker, but I prefer to add my own level of saltiness to food. Better yet, try the bottled peppers-in-vinegar sauce that sits on most of the tables along with assorted hot sauces. You can shake a few drops on the tomatoes while waiting for them to cool.

caDon’t skip dessert at Brooks Bridge. On the blackboard the night I was there were peach and blackberry cobbler, pecan pie, and a pecan/chocolate pie. We ordered the cobblers, reserving ours early in the meal. My friend had had a premonition that they’d run out otherwise, which turned out to be the case. Both came hot, with more fruit than cake, but what was especially good about the blackberry was the virtual absence of seeds, which has always put me off about blackberries. I guess I was just lucky that night. Seeds or not, it’s worth saving room.

Long time residents of the area know that Brooks Bridge has been around for some time, as witnessed by the trickle of obviously local diners that came, ate, chatted, and drifted back out on the Monday night we ate there. Take out and bulk orders are also available.