B-night: Bourbon and BBQ that is...

Boston is known as Beantown and has some fabulous B-schools (business for those of you uneducated on the term, not B as in second tier), but BBQ and Bourbon are not 'B' terms usually associated with our hometown city on the water. Last week, Tremont 647 hosted one of their many yearly events, which have all become quite the popular Monday outing for Bostonians. This one was the annual BBQ tasting and Bourbon sampling event. We were super excited about our BBQ dinner and completely unaware of the Bourbon tasting, perhaps we neglected to read the fine print, as we often do, but it seemed like a great added benefit until we saw 4 poured shots per person sitting on our table!

Tremont 647 is known for its locally sourced cuisine ingredients and intimate setting, at address 647 Tremont Street in the South End (way to be real original with the establishment's name, Chef Husbands, way to be original). Anyway, Chef and owner Andy Husbands (who also owns and runs 647's neighbor to the right, Sister Sorel) is not new to the scene of high class cuisine, nor is he new to the BBQing scene. He won the World BBQ championships with the hog recipe he was preparing for us that tonight and his excitement showed when he squeaked into the microphone "I smoked the hog myself yesterday, its going to be awesome!"

We started the night with various appetizers including: fresh hush puppies, smoked trout remoulade over English pea cakes, and smoked chicken cakes. The hush puppies were to die for with plenty of corn kernels and moisture to spare in a golf ball sized, deep fried package. The chicken cakes were also delicious, but if you didn't stuff the whole thing into your mouth all one time, in one swift movement from serving platter to pie-hole, you were going to be walking on. The cake was very brittle and did not hold together at all, which is sort of a must if you are going to use it for a passed appetizer and thus it must be eaten sans utensils. Smoked trout was ok, I could have done without it though - a little to acidic for the people in my party.

Then we sat down for the bourbon tasting and just as Chef predicted, 1/2 way through it no one was paying attention to the girl hosting the tasting, because they were all drinking and feeling good. I, however, was pretty sickened by the bourbon. I would have rather drank urine - way to harsh for me - I almost did the head spin that Will Smith mastered for the intro to Fresh Prince of Bel Air, due to the stringency of it.

First course was three different kinds of ribs with matching coleslaw: America style, Jerk Style (read SPICY!!!!) and Chinese style. The ladies liked the Chinese style best probably because it was coated in brown sugar, the men, though they were crying and bright red, powered through the jerk ribs and even started in on seconds, proclaiming that it was their favorite. America was neither good nor bad, it was just kind of boring compared to the other two! All the ribs were tender, moist and flavorful, but the Chinese style ones were banging for sure!

Then we cooled off with a wedge salad: iceberg lettuce, pickled onions, BACON, and as one of my dinner dates proclaimed in excitement "FULL FAT DRESSING - THERE'S NOTHING LIKE IT!" It was a good break from the spice of the ribs and a nice cleanse before the family style main course. Paper boats of food covered our table minutes later, full of: blackened catfish, pulled pork, greens, beans, watermelon, potato salad, coleslaw, burnt ends, and honey covered cornbread. The Catfish had a little to much cayenne in it for me but it was cooked very well so that the integrity of the flesh was maintained and the moisture level was spot on. The beans were fabulous, slightly sweet with a touch of cumin, I could have eaten a whole bowl of those if I had room. The cornbread took a couple bites to get used to. It was very sweet from the honey and I am more used to a fatty hunk of cornbread due to high butter content. I liked the idea of it though, as it seemed to help the heat issue in the mouth after the catfish. Greens were good, no complaints - they just aren't my favorite option at the BBQ to begin with. I was truthfully expecting more from the World Championship winning BBQ recipe on the hog, but I was not disappointed - I guess I was just expecting fireworks. There was also potato salad and coleslaw neither of which I tried because I don't really appreciate mayo as a food item and I try to boycott it whenever possible. The burnt ends were fabulous though! Contrary to belief, they were not dried out and were so flavorful - LOVED LOVED LOVED them!

Dessert was a strawberry shortcake with a twist. They used home made vanilla wafer sugar cookies for the outside instead of biscuits and instead of strawberries with cream on the inside the two were blended together into more of a creme filling for the cookies. A few dark chocolate chips rounded it out. I would have liked a bushel of the cookies to take home - they were fantastic! Sweet, with more then just a hint of real vanilla bean - definitely no short cuts were taken in the recipe for those puppies.

You can take full advantage of all the events Tremont 647 and Sister Sorel have to offer by going to Tremont's website and joining their email list for first crack at all the goodies!