Just look at local elections and you'll immediately see the value of a little oversight when there's a serious popularity contest in the offing. Add in CL's unstructured voting — a la Chicago's aldermen elections, or any high school homecoming court balloting — and that oversight becomes even more necessary. Luckily, I'm here to add a little perspective to CL's Rib-Off.
This week I anonymously visited Hillsborough's eight Savory Sixteen finalists, surreptitiously taste-testing their ribs in the hopes of finding out which joints deserved their spot. I found some that should have been dumped in the first round, some that can serve to quench a barbecraving emergency, and a few that just might deserve to top our Tournament of Ribs. Next week I'll take a look at the Pinellas finalists and crown my own Rib-Off champion.
First, in order of preference, are my takes on Hillsborough's final eight:
This article appears in Mar 24-30, 2010.