Oklahoma Joe’s - Kansas City, Kansas
After the meaty disaster of Arthur Bryant’s BBQ, I was left with a bad taste in my mouth. Is Kansas City-style barbecue just bad meat, badly cooked, then doused in sauce? If that was the case, I had no food related reason to be in Kansas City at all - I could probably just mail order the sauce and pour it on stuff at home. That’s a bit severe, but Arthur Bryant’s was severely bad.
I’ve left Kansas City now, and after my brief visit, I don’t have much of a handle on it. From what I can tell, it’s a black and white city (in a racial sense), with the abandoned downtown, where a fat bloody chum of fresh lofts is being spread in an effort to repopulate it with “upwardly mobile” types, functioning as a DMZ between the wealthy and poor, and the white and the black. There’s a tension here, a tension that touches on something that’s almost wholly alien to my city, and my way of life. Being unawares of the history of the place, I don’t think I can come to understand it.
But Oklahoma Joe’s made me feel better about it. Oklahoma Joe’s has restored my faith in barbecue, moving into second place behind The Salt Lick, an official shrine on my eternal meaty pilgrimage. Mated to a Shamrock gas station, festooned internally with the odd trophies and monochrome vinyl banners belonging to the awesomely named Slaughterhouse Five Barbecue Team - unknown to me, but imagined as smoky, apron clad madmen, armed with mirror finish tongs and black cast iron grills. It’s well lit, clean, and smells like heaven on earth. The menu is clearly written, and you can get silverware and other stuff without inserting yourself back into the line of customers.
Both the fellow who took our order and the woman working the register were exceptionally nice. The woman at the register in the gas station section was equally nice. The team at Joe’s is enjoying their success and it really shows. They’re proud and happy. Every bit of weirdness about Kansas City melted away after our meal here.
above - My meal, the pulled pork. It reads “our specialty” over this item, and it’s my territory, so I went with what I know and love best. The side - red beans and rice, pretty uncommon at barbecue joints, and a welcome sight, as they’re my favourite side, after collard greens (why don’t more BBQ places have greens on the menu?)
The pork was properly shredded, and had a nice chew to it, a little resistance, but not rubbery or dry. Slightly smoky, with the kind of good pork flavour that I associate with suckling pig. It’s definitely edible without sauce, but combined with its bun, the pork becomes a well set stage for both of Joe’s sauces. I don’t know why they cut your sandwich in half for you at Joe’s, but I like to think of it as two twin sandwiches, one for each sauce.
The two sauces served at Joe’s are a spicy and a more regular tomato based sauce. I cannot describe either, only to say they both blow any non-North Carolina sauce I’ve ever had right out of the water. The spicy sauce had a low, but steady heat that stayed with you, drawing out the finish of each bite, and the tomato based sauce was sweet in a manner that I can only describe as honest and real. These sauces have the power of Greyskull my friend, they will make a He-Man out of your taste buds.
My red beans and rice were insane - they’re everything I’ve ever wished red beans and rice would be. Soft, yielding rice, deliciously smoky, no hint of mystery chemicals or tricks. I discovered a bay leaf in my beans, the sure sign of actual cooking.
above - Michele’s meal. Her usual, beef brisket, pit beans and potato salad. I only got to taste a speck of brisket, the chow was so good that I failed to sneak up on Michele’s sandwich before she finished. The piece I had was the best brisket I’ve had any side of Texas, and I bet if I sat down with a pile of the brisket for a while, I’d be considering my loyalty to the Lone Star State.
The pit beans at Joe’s are a unique animal. Someone has invested a great deal of experimentation in getting them just right. A mix of black, red and white beans, strewn with stray bits of pork, like the beans from the red beans in rice, they are magically smoky. There’s a sweetness to the beans that was right up our alley, smooth and fresh like the sweetness of a good orange. Everything at Joe’s has a great deal of depth of flavour, and the beans really capture that sensation, with every bite you discover something new, and you want to get to the bottom of why they’re so goddamn good, but the mystery just gets deeper with every bite. It helps that I’m a sucker for white beans - white beans should be the new black, but the chefs of the world don’t seem to be on the same page with me on this one.
My quest to understand and possibly come to love potato salad continued at Joe’s. Small, well cooked bits of potato, mixed into what I’ll call a “medium” level of sauce, very delicately flavoured. This is potato salad that’s been tested and re-tested. Competition grade potato salad, giving me knowledge that every item on Joe’s menu has likely been worked over with military precision. It is subtle in flavour, but at its heart is the gentle push of dill, which gives it definition and makes me want just a little more after each bite.
Food Porn!
above - Michele’s Beef Brisket in progress. From her “The best fucking food I’ve ever had in a gas station!”
above - The inner workings of my Jumbo Pulled Pork sandwich. This meat needed no sauce, but the two sauces at Joe’s elevated it beyond any expectations.
The Damage
We ate at Oklahoma Joe’s and spent under $20 between us. A full rack of ribs will still cost you about $17, but I can only imagine how delicious the ribs are here. Next trip will tell - this is the place to bring your dozen best friends so you can taste stuff from everyone’s plate. We bought bottles of both of Joe’s sauces for home, and they were an easy $3.99 each, a good price. The woman who sold us the sauce following our meal asked us if we were on the road, and when we said yes, she wrapped our bottles to prevent breakage. That’s what I’m talking about.
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