GrillGrates amplify heat, eliminate hot spots, and block flareups. This is the concept behind the expensive new infrared grills. A must add-on for all gas grills. 
The Best Restaurant Guides For Barbecue Lovers And More
The web has a lot of great restaurant guides. If you're looking for a place just around town or when you're on the road, there are a lot of handy resources to tip you off on where to go, and where not to go. You should also check out the popular food message boards. They usually have sections devoted to restaurant discussions. And they're often up to date on who got cited by the health board and who lost their chef. Here are the restaurant guides I use.
Texas
Touring the Texas Barbecue Belt. Meathead's extensive guide to barbecue in and around Austin.
Texas BBQ Trail. Some of the best Austin area BBQ joints.
Chicago
LTH Forum. Chicago-centric, this very lively and active board knows where all the best restaurants are, especially the little neighborhood joints. They also discuss other cities as well as cooking. Gary Wiviott, maestro of the Weber Smokey Mountain was a founder and hangs out there.
Carolinas
A word about YelpI am not a fan of Yelp, the popular crowdsourced restaurant guide. I frequently read ignorant and uniformed reviews from people who clearly know nothing about food, and others that I suspect are planted by employees or competitors. Worse, there have been numerous complaints by restaurateurs that if they do not buy ads from Yelp, positive reviews are hidden. |
SCBBQ. A pretty complete list of barbecue joints in South Carolina has grown to include other states.
Gamecock Central. A big list of barbecue joints in South Carolina has grown to include a number of other states.
Discover South Carolina. A website with a guide to all sorts of restaurants in SC has a nice list of barbecue joints.
Carolina BBQ Joints. Jim Morgan runs this fan site for Carolina BBQ. The message board has a lot of good info.
North Carolina Barbecue Society. They have a Barbecue Trail that includes most of the important places to see and taste including a map, address and phone, and background info. It's all here.
North Carolina Barbecue Joints.
Rest of the US
Barbecue Fun. Barbecue joints in 'bama.
Epicurious. The Best Eats section is good and the BBQ section is also helpful.Roadfood. Although Roadfood is ostensibly focused on inexpensive restaurants on the highways and byways, the discussions on this message board often include restaurants in cities as well as recipes. They have a section on BBQ and it contains a lot of great joints. Some good tips. Easy to use.
MenuPages. Menus and more for NYC restaurants.
Pigtrip. Barbecue joints in Boston.
Zagat. The Zagat guides are among the most respected in the world. But you've got to pay to see the entire database. There are bits and pieces available for free online, but to get the complete reviews and to add your reviews, fork it over.
Other countries
Eat My Town. Honest restaurant, bar, pub and hotel reviews in England.
...more to come (to be notified when new recipes and other articles come online, be sure to subscribe to my free, spam free, email newsletter).
This page was revised 8/7/2008
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