Best Bar-B-Que in the International League

The city of Syracuse has already claimed the prize of having the best hot wings in the 14-city International League, and now they’ve won best barbecue.

Although technically there’s also a location in Rochester, I recently visited the original location of Dinosaur Bar-B-Que in downtown Syracuse. While this landmark first opened in 1988, the famed smokehouse actually started as a “mobile concession unit” in 1983 using nothing more than a 55-gallon drum cut in half.

The eatery has gone to to have such wild success that it even published a best-selling BBQ cookbook, Dinosaur Bar-B-Que: An American Roadhouse.

What I loved most about this place is that virtually everything is homemade. Sure, they smoke all their meats for hours like any good BBQ joint, but it goes way deeper than that. My Carolina-style pulled pork sandwich came topped with homemade slaw and a choice of sides that were all prepared in-house.

I went with the jalapeño macaroni and cheese paired with my first ever collard greens experience.  Living in New England, I figured there probably wouldn’t be many opportunities to give collard greens a shot anytime soon, so I went out on a limb.

The mac and cheese was dynamite, and I’m thinking that as far as collard greens go, the ones I tried were among the best.

The star of the show was of course the pulled pork sandwich which was smokey, yet had tons of flavor. Easy to say that Dinosaur Bar-B-Que was one of the most memorable meals I’ve had on the road this year.

-AG

@aaronmgoldsmith
agoldsmith@pawsox.com