There’s restaurant quality barbecue and there’s competition grade barbecue. Most restaurant BBQ is pretty mediocre, and you wouldn’t even know it unless you’re lucky enough to know someone who wins contests.

In the greater Los Angeles area, several of my contest buddies have opened up businesses where you can taste their award winning BBQ.

My teammate Neil Strawder runs BigMista’s BBQ, a mobile catering company that sells at farmer’s markets all over greater Los Angeles. In less than a year, he’s surpassed old school stalwarts like Woody’s and Phillip’s and earned a reputation as the city’s best.

This month, two new restaurants have opened. In Huntington Beach, Chris Rocke of Rancho Rocke BBQ and Brian Zalewski of the Four Kings Q team have partnered up and run the kitchen in a sports bar called Octane Alley. What used to be a barely functional kitchen before their arrival now puts out serious brisket and pulled pork under their capable hands. While the bar atmosphere is better suited to casual dinners, lunch is served to those unafraid to eat by the glow of giant plasma screens and neon beer signs.

How good are Chris and Brian at contests? In the last one where my team cooked against Chris’, they spanked almost everyone else with their pulled pork.

2009 Que’n for Kids BBQ contest Costa Mesa, CA
2nd place pork

Octane Alley
5874 Edinger Ave
Huntington Beach, CA 92649
714-840-2129

Just this week, Phil Carter has  opened 7 Kinds of Smoke in the City of Commerce. Like these other friends of mine, the Carter family has catered events for many years. Now they have a storefront where you can stop in for a meal for one, or take out enough for your company’s sales meeting.  Carter will focus on catering gigs during week’s end, but those of you working near Commerce can stop by for lunch during the week.  Dinner service is expected to start after some of the inevitable opening kinks are worked out.

At the same 2009 Que’n For Kids contest, Phil did exceedingly well in every category. Every team strives for consistent scores from the judges:
1st place chicken
7th place ribs
5th place pork
3rd place overall out of 33 teams

7 Kinds of Smoke Competition BBQ Team and Restaurant
4838 S. Eastern Avenue
Commerce, CA 90040
323-786-6519

Yes, you too can make great BBQ at home, and there’s a class coming up next month in Yorba Linda where you can learn those skills. But if you’re looking to scratch that BBQ itch without all the work, these just might be the best BBQ  joints you never knew about.

My barbecue teammate Neil Strawder, aka BigMista, is a TV spokesperson for Fresh & Easy, the grocery store chain owned by the British Tesco conglomerate.

What’s Fresh & Easy? It’s sort of a convenience store supersized into a supermarket, with a focus on low prices. It’s for someone who wants to cook their own meals, with minimal hassle. Think blister packed fresh meats, many ready-flavored, in family sized portions to make dinner prep fast and easy.

Fresh & Easy hired Neil because he’s got a reputation as Los Angeles’ best BBQ cook among many Chowhounds, Yelpers and the general public, which voted for our team as People’s Choice champion in numerous BBQ contests. Well that, and his natural telegenic personality.

This Fourth of July, he’s been making the rounds on TV morning shows in Las Vegas, Phoenix, and San Diego. Here’s BigMista on Fox5 in Vegas. On other shows, he gives BBQ cookout tips to make your Fourth Fresh & Easy. I can’t work in that phrase into this post any more times, people.

He’s a natural! Watch for Neil and family in an upcoming episode of Over Your Head on HGTV, too. Get this man an agent, quick!

We live in a great food nation. It’s greater still that we have a President who apparently loves the regional food traditions we have across these united states. Apparently, Barack Obama is one of us.

Last Friday, New York State authorities temporarily shut down H&H Bagels, the renowned bagel baker on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. The New York Times reports on the story here.

The shutdown affected both the retail store and a second production facility.  Opinions vary on how “good” H&H’s bagels are within the New York City bagel bubble, but H&H is among the few producers that sells authentic bagels (parbaked and frozen) wholesale to restaurants and bakeries across the country. A permanent shutdown of the bagel production plant will have a far reaching effect on customers such as Barney Greengrass in Los Angeles, where expat New Yorkers go for their bagel mit schmear.