Barbecue in Philly

Okay, so not really. Really, it was just a one-line mention in a much larger story about the new (?) prevalence of wood-fired BBQ on the East Coast and beyond–about joints, shacks and honest-to-Jesus restaurants that are using wood only (no gas) for smoking their ‘cue in the most authentic way possible.

But what was interesting was that it was a one-line mention for Bubba’s Texas BBQ, which had the misfortune of opening right around the same time as (and just around the corner from) Joe Carrol‘s Philly outpost of his Brooklyn-based barbecue operation, Fette Sau.

Philly went nuts over Fette Sau, and with good reason. But all of this love for Carrol’s ‘cue rather overshadowed the work being done by Robert “Bubba” Kolbasowski and his team at Bubba’s. And by “rather overshadowed” I mean completely and totally fucking overshadowed–which is a shame because Bubba’s does some damn fine Texas-style barbecue in their own right and rarely seems to get noticed for doing so.

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