Big Apple BBQ Visited 6/13/10 4 Forks

Big Apple BBQ  by Madison Square Park (23rd street up to 26th street between Broadway and Madison)

 Is this place a complete shit show every year? Absolutely.  Are the lines maddeningly long? Yes.  Is it worth it? Definitely.  The way to tackle the Big Apple BBQ is to go early and know which vendors you want to tackle before hand or before you enter the park.  There will undoubtedly be tons and tons of people, but if you go with the expectation that you will have to wait in line, it will make waiting in line much more bearable.  I would also suggest going EARLY - before noon preferably.  In the past we made the mistake of eating breakfast/brunch first and then going around 2-3 pm.  Big mistake.  First, that is the peak time and you're just going to eat lots of meat, so you should go hungry, not on a full stomach.  So this year, Dan and I got there at 11:30AM and while there were already lots of people, the lines were much faster/shorter than in years past.  I was bummed that favorites like The Salt Lick weren't there and there seemed to be too many New York/local BBQ vendors (I'm looking at you WildWood and Blue Smoke), but overall, if you stick with 3-4 vendors, you will leave happy and full. 

I had read that Bob Gibson's pulled pork sandwich was a must, so that was our first stop.  The line was long but we probably got to the front in about 20 mins.  Everything at the BBQ is $8 (which I think is in increase from last year?) and I think that is just about the most I would pay for these single serving meals, anything more seems like it would be not worth it.  On my way to saucing my sandwich I was yelled at my one of the BBQ people. I was intrigued by this "white sauce" and I started putting it on my sandwich and he was like "No!! Put it on the side and in fact you really shouldn't even eat it with this. It should really be used with chicken".  Well then why did you put it out?!?  Instead, I used the traditional BBQ sauce and that turned out to a good choice.  The pork was very moist and seasoned very well and surprisingly, I also enjoyed the coleslaw.  It wasn't too mayo-heavy and it had large pieces of cabbage.  Next, we wanted to try some St. Louis-style ribs, so we headed to Pappy's.  The ribs were not too wet and sauced well.  The meat did fall off pretty easily and I enjoyed it although I'm still not really sure the difference between Memphis, St. Louis, North Carolina style ribs.  We decided our last meal would be beef brisket.  The line for Jack's Old Smith was right in front of us, so we went with that vendor.  Honestly, I was a bit disappointed with it.  First of all, we got the smallest serving. Everyone else seemed to have gotten 3 decent sized pieces but our cashier happened to pick up the one with the 3 smallest cuts, so that already put me in a bad mood.  Then the meat had this weird greenish - shiny look.  But I will say that the meat was cooked perfectly, no cutting was really needed. It broke up very easily but I thought there was no real taste to it. No seasoning or BBQ taste.  The beans were mixed with peach, which was an interesting addition.  

I felt a bit bad for the New York based vendors as I think most people had the same mentality as me in that it made no sense to go to them since you can go whenever you want.  I think the BBQ can be improved by having more non-local vendors and spreading the lines out even more, although I think they did do a pretty decent job with crowd control given how many people were there.