From the covered wagon out front to the plethora of Texa-cana objects, it is clear that the big yummy here is going to be the barbecued beef. Chopped down from brisket and cooked with a light but sweet sauce, this dish sends a clear message to the pork-centric barbecue snob.
Mike's Southern Classic BBQ
7117 U.S. 301 N., Tampa, 813-626-5222
From Dade City down to Tampa, the land gives way to Chinese buffets sandwiched by strip malls that finally ease back into hammocks of oaks, the lushness of Hillsborough State Park and pastures full of white-faced cows. A permanently startled-looking bunch of moos gives way to houses and the stark man-made beeline of Bypass Canal Park. The sign over the oasis of Mike's Southern BBQ announces a welcome and permanent $1 draft.
Calling Mike's an oasis isn't hype. This is an exotic place with a waterwheel pouring water into a well-kept fish pond full of fat, lazy koi. There's seating inside, outside and on the porch in between. A huge tiki hut rises up in a field to the left under two heavily moss-draped oaks. To the west, the broken and chopped remains of the oaks' brethren are stacked high against the firebox. Over it all, a simple red tin roof.
Mike's isn't just show. Here the beef is serious. No sauce. No rub. Just slow-smoked on oak.
The pork, rib and chicken get rubs, but the emphasis here is a dry barbecue that treats the meat like the centerfold and the sauce as a not so necessary dressing. A carefully worded table placard explains the pinkness of real barbecue's smoke ring to ease the blood fears of the barbecue virgin.
If a full stomach isn't enough of a souvenir, the $15 Mike's shirts that read "From Rooter to Tooter" are the sign of a true barbecue devotee.
Hog Wild Bar-B-Q
10715 U.S. 301 S., Riverview, 813-629-4138
Through the grasping tendrils of the manic growth that is Brandon, U.S. 301 cuts straight through strip malls over the black beauty of the Alafia River past feed stores interlaced with the broken ground of new development, where the road narrows and eases between trailer parks.
Here in Riverview I look out for the smiling pink pig cutout with "Open" on its porcine belly.
"BBQ Bob Rauchmiller," owner of Hog Wild Bar-B-Q, is not only one of the most lively purveyors of slow-cooked pig and foul, he's also a scholar of barbecue history. He picked up his stand from a man who had practiced the vinegar and mustard Carolina method. Rauchmiller calls his contribution to the craft Riverview BBQ.
His method: a dry marinade, followed by three and a half hours of persistent 225 degree heat from a mix of charcoal and oak. After cutting up the meat, he adds his sauce.
"It is ketchup-based with some brown sugar," he says, in the fashion I've begun not to trust. The oral tradition surrounding barbecue seems to be oversimplification.
When you order at his trailer, you order from an unused shuffleboard court with a pig totem to your right. I couldn't resist the Sloppy Pig, a Memphis-influenced mix of chopped pork and coleslaw. You can't drive down the road eating this sauce-soused behemoth. Rauchmiller tried a barbecue pork burrito to help out drivers who pig out and drive, but it simply didn't work.
Perhaps the larger part of barbecue craving is the unrepentant mess of it all.
El Nortena Tacqueria @ The Little Store
18130 U.S. 301 S., Wimauma, 813-633-8327
When I tell Rauchmiller I'm headed for Wimauma to the El Nortena Tacqueria for barbacoa, he asks if it's goat or cow head. Apparently there's a method of barbecue in Brownsville, Texas, where entire heads of livestock are cooked slow in open pits.
Barbecue scholar that he is, Rauchmiller turned out to be at least part right.
From here U.S. 301 threads past yards that morph from azalea landscaping to cactus gardens. Stopping at an Our Lady of Guadalupe shrine on the left, in front of a cathedral that honors her name, I pause to consider the end of my journey. The shrine has many offerings, including work gloves, a ball of white string, a potted begonia, assorted flowers (some silk with plastic tears) and Ziploc bags of food.
