BBQ Country, Nondescript Truck Stop in Opal, Just South of Warrenton on US Route 15

[Mountainfried]

A nondescript little place in a truck stop in Opal, just south of Warrenton on US15.

The menu had beef, ribs, chicken, sausage & pork (both plates and sandwiches). I'm not sure if they are known for one type of bbq, so I got a chopped pork plate with fries and collard greens.  They gave me a side of the "spicy" bbq sauce. The sauce was a thicker, tangy bbq sauce with only a slight kick to it. I think the plate was $10 or so. 

The pork shoulder was being held in a hotbox and was unwrapped when I ordered. The pork was dry which was unexpected based on the amount of moisture/fat there seemed to be when they were unwrapping it. It had a good smoke to it but the dryness was tough to work through. I mixed in a little of the bbq sauce which helped provide some moisture, but I wasn't really a fan of the sauce (I lean heavily towards lexington style after spending 5 years in NC). 

The fries had some seasoning on them that I couldn't place ("cajun" or paprika with just the right amount of salt), but were hot and delicious. Collard greens were okay. A friend also had pork with mac and cheese (his review: mediocre) and beans (okay).

I've been searching for good pork bbq in the DC area and still haven't found anything after 15 years that makes me go out of my way to get it. Maybe the other meats here are better? Seems to me people in the area can only figure out beef and ribs...

 

[ulrath]

This is the last outlet of what used to be a local chain.  There used to be outposts in Centreville and Burke.

[southdenverhoo]

I have friends who like this place but I have given it 3 tries when home and really regretted the second two, because of the way, the first time, the proprietor weighed my pulled pork (dry, like Mountainfried's) on a little scale before plopping it on the bread, so as to make sure he didn't give me a fraction of an ounce more than the (quite mean,IMO) 4 fucking ounces the establishment deemed appropriate for a sandwich. 

Sauce wasn't awful, in fact had a nice tangy-ness (my preference is tangy with low sweetness) but the smoke was low (and I prefer a subtle smoke, but this underwhelmed even me). On the pro-side, there was a legit smoke ring, and the wood used appeared to this amateur to be all hickory, and absent the dryness the flavor was good. But for the meanness of the portion-I mean he actually pulled a scant tong-full off the scale and dropped it back in his hotel pan-I might have called it "OK." Which I know exposes me to the Shecky Greene (I think) line about the food is so terrible here, and such small portions...

Second and third tries mirrored the first.

This place got a, like, top "5 or 10 in the South" (I forget which) from the Charleston southern lifestyle magazine "Garden & Gun," which has made me extremely dubious about every other word ever written in Garden & Gun. They may have liked the proximity to Clark Brothers Gun Shop, an absolutely 24 carat honest-to-God southern landmark, which actually is "worth a detour," to (mis)appropriate the Michelin lexicon...

[Bart]

4 minutes ago, southdenverhoo said:

Sauce wasn't awful,

I love that line! 

[southdenverhoo]

1 minute ago, Bart said:

I love that line! 

LOL, and I read the post over 3x before posting, that was a line I could have done better with...

I have had a lot of bad BBQ sauce in my time! "Not awful" is not as faint praise as it would seem...my own, and I have fiddled with it quite awhile, is only "not awful" in my opinion.

BBQ shouldn't need more than a light toss w/ an eastern NC vinegar-and-pepper thing IMO, and the sauce usually is a distraction and a minus. But BBQ Country's dryness, in my experience, the last of which was admittedly over 2 years ago, requires some sauce for much needed moisture.