Thursday, November 17, 2011

King's Barbecue

2910 South Crater Road      
Petersburg, VA 23805
Sun, Wed-Sat 11am–8:30pm; Mon-Tue Closed
http://www.kingsfamousbarbecue.com/
 

                      I knew that if I reviewed K&L and did not review King’s right after all of my loyal readers in Petersburg would get upset. This is why last Sunday after a morning full of shopping I took Amanda to tryout King’s “famous” Barbecue.
                      From the start King’s is almost indistinguishable from K&L except that it is open on weekends and accepts credit cards. Inside it looks more like a typical country style restraint than a BBQ restaurant; there just weren’t enough pig decorations to give off a BBQ vibe.  The menu was barebones and kept it simple. It had pork and beef BBQ minced or sliced, barbecued and fried chicken, burgers, and a variety of country style side items. Amanda and I both went for their “world famous” pork BBQ dinner minced with two sides and biscuit for $6.95. It was not too expensive but it did cost more than K&L and it did not come with a sweet tea.  On recommendation from my boss, I ordered onion rings for an appetizer.
                      Our waitress was very good and kept our cups filled with sweet tea. It only took a few minutes for our onion rings to be served. These were obviously freshly prepared with just the bare minimum of batter necessary to cover the thick cut slices of onion. A $2.95 order did not come with very many onion rings but the ones we did get were delicious although a few at the bottom of the bowl were extremely greasy.  Amanda and I knocked out the rings in a few minutes and not long after our BBQ arrived. We both ordered cole slaw as one of our sides because everyone knows you cannot have BBQ without cole slaw. This was the very finely chopped almost soupy king with a lot of mayo. While it’s not my favorite kind, it served its purpose and tasted good. I decided to try out their potato cake as my other side and Amanda ordered the sweet potato sticks even though I warned they were the kind she did not like.
                      My barbecue was minced to oblivion and had practically no flavor so I had to cover it with cole slaw and slather BBQ sauce all over it for it to have some sibilance of flavor. Their BBQ sauce is the exact same as K&L, Virginia version of the NC vinegar based sauce but with more body.  The potato cake had a nice crunchy outside but its inside was extremely dry and unappealing to my taste buds.  After the onion rings, Amanda’s sweet potato sticks were best part of the meal. Amanda did not like them but I loved them. They were the type that are fried on the outside but have creamy mashed sweet potatoes on the inside and are covered in cinnamon sugar. They were delicious and one thing that K&L does not have.
                I love Virginia traditions and I know people will find this blasphemous but I did not love or even really like King’s BBQ. It had a few delicious offerings but overall it was bland and lack luster. I recommend that if you are in Petersburg drive a few minutes in either direction and go somewhere better for BBQ. It might have been the best around 45 years ago but there are other BBQ restaurants in the Tri-Cities that reign supreme nowadays.

1 comment:

  1. This is a ridiculous review. Kings BBQ is a very good southern family cooking restaurant with very good BBQ. Go try it out.

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