I want to get sauced!

There's just something about BBQ. When I moved to the south in 2007 I was unaware that it was such a big deal. People in the south have loyalties to certain styles of sauce, certain dilapidated shacks are elevated to shrine-like status because (they all seem to make some sort of butt joke) "we have the best butts in town" or some other bad pig pun.

I'm not an expert on BBQ, but I know what I like.

I saw a billboard for a place on the Northwest side of Atlanta called Hottie Hawg's. It advertised "smokin' BBQ" and had a cartoon pin-up girl with a red dress, great legs, a pig nose and a curly tail. How could I resist trying a new place out, especially since I hardly find myself on that side of town? I followed the arrows through a part of town I've only been in a few times and finally found the restaurant.

The building looked like an old brick house converted to a restaurant. I liked the exterior paint job and the vibe, although it's obviously a newer operation and almost too sanitized for my taste. I strut in, ask for a menu, and almost immediately decide on the pulled pork sandwich (if you can't get that right, there's no use trying anything else on the menu). Since I was on the clock, I grabbed it to go and ate it in the edit bay as I ingested footage of angry Target customers returning crappy Christmas gifts.


 

The first thing I noticed was the tiny cup of sauce. Nowhere near enough to get that meat wet. If "the secret is in the sauce" as some BBQ connoisseurs claim, then I say, "let me have some of that sauce!" For real, Hottie Hawg - don't be so stingy! I'd like to tell you about the sauce, but there really wasn't enough to taste after it was applied to the meat.

Speaking of meat, theirs was tender and flavorful. I like that there were some larger chunks in there to mix things up texture-wise. There was some sort of dry seasoning blend shaken on the meat that I thought was pretty good, but all I really wanted was more BBQ sauce. The kaiseresque bun was apparently buttered and fried on a griddle which was a really nice touch, a bun that good could really make the sandwich sing if they'd only give you more sauce. A lot of BBQ places just cop out and give you a crappy piece of dry Wonder bread that just gets thrown away or, in my case gets fed to my fiance's roommate's begging dogs.

I chose the baked beans as a side, and they were ok, maybe a little bland. There were some pretty interesting side-item choices on the menu that I will definitely choose over the baked beans next time. I would love to try the "southern fried bottle cap pickles and peppers with tiger ranch sauce" or even "Uncle Cooter's stew" even if the idea of "Uncle Cooter" kind of grosses me out in ways that should be self-evident.

They were out of paper "to-go" menus, so it's up to word-of-mouth for this restaurant to get their name out there. They have a good thing going with the name and the image, the smoke and the meat seem to be working, but without bigger portions of BBQ sauce, the lifesblood of any good BBQ joint, this place won't last, even if they are across the street from a fire station.