Destination - Beans?

BBQ Beans at Smoque

I have always considered beans ‘push around’ food. Something that appears on my plate accompanied by rice, and if I have some room at the end of a meal I may go through the motions of pushing around the tasteless little suckers and eat a few. Certainly, they were not something that I would make a point of ordering deliberately. That was until recently however, when I discovered how true Kansas City barbecue beans are made – in the bottom of a smoker where they catch the flavor of smoke and drippings from a cornucopia of delicious meats. Being a slow cooked meat kind of guy, I made it a point to order a side of barbecue baked beans at one of my favorite Chicago barbecue joints, Smoque BBQ on North Pulaski. Like a wine that fills your mouth with different aromas, I found myself detecting a multitude of flavors- the garlic, the onion, the meatiness of bacon and smoked brisket, sweetness from brown sugar, and the spice of pepper. I have found myself returning to Smoque, sometimes just for the beans. Just to be thorough, I decided to sample a few more north side barbecue restaurants to see if barbecue beans can in fact be destination food.

Smoque - 3800 North Pulaski Road

These beans lived up to their namesake, bursting with intense smoky flavor. These tasty beans consist of a thin, woody-flavored barbeque sauce, with tender pinto beans and LARGE chunks of brisket that make for a sweet, slightly tangy, mouthwatering experience. My only complaint is that the smokiness of the sauce was a bit overwhelming. After eating every last bean my mouth tasted like I had just smoked a cedar wood cigarette.

Smoque = 3 Food Babies

Fat Willy's - 2416 West Schubert Avenue

I had high hopes for my next sampling, but what a disappointment. Sadly, Fat Willy’s “7 Bean Baked Beans” fell flat. Sure, you had seven beans (I could detect pinto, lima, navy, kidney, and fava), but all of that variety didn’t add much in terms of flavor. These beans definitely came straight from a boiling pot of water on the stove top, not from the glorious depths of a smoker. What sounded like an exciting combination of flavors turned out to be a gloppy, mushy, mundane dish that had me wishing for cornbread instead.

Fat Willy

's = 1 Food Baby

Robinson's # 1 Ribs - 655 West Armitage Avenue

My disappointment grew after sampling this nasty concoction from Robinson’s. I could be wrong, but I am almost positive I have tasted these beans out of a can before. What should be a hearty stew was more like a soup of over-sweet, monotonous, soggy beans.

Robinson's = 0  Food Babies

Smoke Daddy - 1804 West Division Street

My great experience at Smoque was thankfully not an aberration. Unexpectedly, these magic beans were best rendition I have tasted in Chicago. The sauce was thicker than Smoque, allowing you to eat it with a fork. With a deep, dark burgundy color, the sauce was filled with sweet hickory essence and little black specks of pepper flavor. Rather than large chunks of brisket, shreds of meat layered the sauce and surrounded the beans rather than vice-versa. The aftertaste was also delightful, leaving my mouth with a tingly sensation from the spices and slightly smoky aftertaste as opposed to the overwhelming smokiness of Smoque’s beans. The perfect beans? Maybe, but there’s many more places to sample, especially on the South Side.

Smoke Daddy = 4 Food Babies

What I discovered from my tour of north side BBQ joints is that when done right, barbecue beans are a microcosm of everything that is good about barbecue. They can be a melting pot of all of the different flavors of a smoker- the little pieces of meat, smoke, spice, and sauce combine with the beans which act like a sponge to absorb all of the flavors. Barbecue baked beans are truly a dish of their own and don’t deserve to be pushed to the side for anything- not even you, slow smoked St. Louis style ribs.

-Alex