I want to say that I think my very first food truck dining experience in Raleigh was probably Only Burger while they were serving lunch one day on NC State's Centennial Campus. It was a novelty way back then that has since seen an overabundance of overpriced (and not so tasty eats for the cost) food trucks around the City of Oaks and seen Only Burger open a brick-and-mortar establishment in their home base of Durham. It was a fantastic burger back then and it's a fantastic bu

There's off the beaten path and then there's so far off the path you feel like you're being beaten just trying to get where you're going. Vine Swamp Road in Lenoir County has to be the jankiest, most uneven bumpy bump-fest I've ever been on... and that includes two hours of traversing a Nicaraguan dried riverbed while sitting on the rusty fender well of a shock absorber-defunct pick-up truck. I mean, it is crazy janky. So it's kinda perfect that a barbecue joint pretty much i

An evening photo shoot at Duke had me in Durham the other day and the scheduling meant there'd be no time for dinner at the "normal" time, so I opted for eating on the early side and searched for some barbecue close to East Campus. I found Hog Heaven Bar-B-Q just north of where I needed to be. I'd never been, so I was on lock. The online reviews were all over the place. "Love it! Hate it!" Hog Heaven was either "God's gift of BBQ" or "Nasty as hell." Not much in between it s

It was a bit of kismet that I got a text from my oldest son while I was writing my recent review of Southern Style Barbecue & Fried Chicken. He was heading to Graham with his girlfriend to visit her folks this weekend and he wanted to know if I'd ever eaten at Smokehouse at Steve's. Oh, boy! Have I! I sent him the link to my review from a few years back and his response was, and I quote: "Damn! In your top 10?!" He knows that for me to have any BBQ place butt its way into my

A photo assignment had me in Clinton and then down Wilmington way recently. It's a route I've taken a few times and each of those times I visited my BBQ Numero Uno Southern Smoke in Garland. Now Garland is not exactly on the way to anywhere unless you plan it to be, but I can easily justify an extra 30 minutes or so out of the way for my favorite barbecue sandwich and a visit with pitmaster extraordinaire Matt Register. I have dined there three times, most recently back in Ap