Welp, I Was Wrong. Some Parisians DO Understand BBQ!

Time for me to eat a little crow.  (No, not LITERALLY, that's just an American expression.)

Last week I wrote about how Parisians -- and even some Yanks -- don't understand BBQ.  Turns out I was wrong about the Parisians.  Wrong, wrong, wrong.  But more on that in a minute.

This is what made me change my mind about Parisian BBQ

First, I want to tell you about a rather geeky tradition in our household called "BBQ Day".  It's a fairly recent practice, only becoming a "thing" after my wife bought me a "Big Green Egg" grill and smoker several years ago.

The Big Green Egg is a smoker AND a grill

My Egg used to let me grill steaks at 600 degrees (about 315 degrees Celsius), or I could barbecue a brisket for 18 hours at 225 degrees (about 107 degrees Celsius).  We had to get rid of the ol' girl when we moved to Paris and I miss her.  <sniff>

Okay, back to "BBQ Day".

STEP 1:  THE ANNOUNCEMENT
During the summer, if it looked like we were going to have some nice weather, I would suddenly proclaim to my wife, with as much regalness as I could muster, "Saturday... is BARBECUE DAY!" She would usually roll her eyes a little and sigh, deeply; but fortunately, she puts up with me and my shenanigans.

STEP 2:  PICK UP THE MEAT
During the week it was my wife's job to drive down to our meat place and pick up either a brisket or a pork butt.

For those of you taking notes:

brisket - a cut of meat from the breast or lower chest of a cow
pork butt - the American name for a cut of pork that comes from the upper part of the shoulder

STEP 3: TRIM & RUB
Thursday night I'd trim up the meat (removing a lot of inedible fat), add my spice rub, and then wrap the meat in foil and stick it back in the refrigerator.

STEP 4:  THE FIRE
Friday night, a little before midnight, I'd clean out my Egg, load the bottom with hardwood charcoal and some aromatic wood chunks (like pecan, apple, or hickory), and then light it with a flamethrower.

The flamethrower was an efficient way to light the charcoal (and kinda fun)

Once the fire was well established I'd lower the lid and adjust the vents (top and bottom) to only allow a tiny bit of air in.  Pretty soon the wood would start smoldering and then I knew it was time for me to put the meat on and head off to bed.

STEP 5:  TRY TO SLEEP
Most smokers need constant tending, but the Green Egg is such an efficient cooker I never really had to worry about my fire. Didn't stop me from being concerned, though. I was always terrified I'd run downstairs the next morning to discover that my fire had gone out in the middle of the night, meaning that big hunk of meat -- and BBQ Day -- were both ruined. Never happened, though.

STEP 6:  A DELICIOUS ALARM CLOCK
Our bedroom was directly above the patio, so I can't even begin to tell you how good it smelled on Saturday morning. After 7 or 8 hours the meat would be starting to turn brown and the smell of the cooking meat, mingling with the pecan or apple wood smoke, would drift up from the patio and waft into our bedroom.  As birds chirped hello to the new day, and the occasional sprinkler played a soft ratatatat song in the neighbor's grass, that smoke would embrace us in a warm blanket of meaty goodness.  Heaven.

STEP 7: THE CALL
I don't know WHY I started doing this, and I'm not particularly proud of it, but my special day always started with an early morning call: "IT'S BBQ DAY, BITCHES!" (Seriously, don't ask me. I don't know why I started doing this.)

STEP 8: ALCOHOL
We used to begin drinking pretty early on BBQ Day, and we didn't eat breakfast or lunch, so it didn't take long before we were feeling really good.

STEP 9: BBQ SHOWS
At about 9:00 AM, drinks in hand, we'd start watching barbecue shows like "BBQ Pitmasters", "Man Fire Food", "BBQ Crawl", and many more.  One episode right after the other.

The host of "Man Fire Food" with what appears to be beef ribs

STEP 10: CHECK THE MEAT
After about 10 hours I'd start checking the meat. Pork butts are very forgiving when it comes to cooking times, but brisket is notoriously difficult to get just right.  It goes from tough, to perfect, to dry and falling apart, in a very short amount of time, so you have to know just when to pull it.

STEP 11:  WRAP & REST
When the meat would come off the Egg I'd wrap it in tin foil, a blanket, and then stick it in a cooler to rest for at least 30 minutes. I can't tell you how difficult this was because after drinking and NOT eating all day, and smelling that delicious meat, and torturing ourselves watching barbecue food porn on TV, we were ABSOLUTELY STARVING!

STEP 12:  TIME TO EAT!!!!
Oh, sweet lord. I'm not really a religious man, but when I bit into that first piece of meat I KNOW I heard a choir of angels singing. Each juicy, smoky, bite was divinely good. I won't lie, I sometimes shed a few tears.

*  *  *

So... after last week's blog post: "Parisians Don't Understand BBQ", several people recommended that I try "The Beast", a BBQ joint in the 3rd arrondissement.  I was already planning to do that sometime this summer but when I realized that it was going to be nice on Saturday I thought, "Hey, maybe we should try out The Beast this weekend!"  And then it hit me.  We... could... have... a... BBQ... DAY... HERE... IN... PARIS!!! (Minus the part where I actually COOK the barbecue, of course.)

So that's what we did.

To be honest, I expected The Beast's barbecue to be somewhere between "terrible" and "okay". It has really good reviews online, but as you can probably tell by now I'm very particular on this subject.  I think I know good BBQ and even a lot of the restaurants in the United States don't measure up to my exacting standards. (It should be noted that I've yet to eat at any of the authentic places in Texas, Kansas, or the Carolinas.)

I got to the restaurant a little early, so while I was waiting for them to open I grabbed a beer from a bar down the street. It was nice, sitting outside, enjoying the warm weather, watching the world go by, and waiting for some, hopefully, good food.

The Beast isn't a very big restaurant, but it sure smells good in there!

My friend Steve said that when you walk into The Beast you can immediately smell the smoke and the cooking meat.  It even lingers on your clothes after you leave.  He was right!  This was a promising sign of hopefully good things to come!

I was going to be bringing the food back to Melanie, and I wanted to get a decent sample of their fare, so I ordered the following 'emporter' (that means "to go" in French):

• 1 beef rib
• 1 order of baby back ribs
• 1 order of brisket
• 1 order of pulled pork
• 1 order of mac and cheese
• 1 order of bbq beans
• 1 order of steamed greens
• 2 biscuits  

I was a little weak in the knees by the time I got the food home.  I'm not really a huge fan of beef ribs (they are always a little tough) but for some reason I decided to try my rib first. Maybe because it was taking up so much room on my plate.  See pic below.

This was my plate, with the big beef rib right in the middle and some sides, in cups, at the top

The first thing I noticed is that I could pull the meat off the bone with my fingers.  I've never seen a beef rib as tender as this one.  And the flavor.  Holy cow!  It was smoky, beefy, and the barbecue sauce gave it a wonderful tang and just a hint of heat.  Outstanding!

With excitement I dug into the rest of the food, and with the exception of the biscuits everything was amazing -- especially the meat dishes.

I was pleasantly surprised.  We will definitely be returning to The Beast the next time we have a BBQ Day.  Which may be next weekend...

Just kidding...

Or maybe not.