We decided to forgo breakfast in favor of an early lunch at
Brobeck's, as it was only a couple miles from the hotel.
This is a newcomer to the KC scene, but it has had its share
of accolades. The location is unprepossessing, a corner lot
in a strip mall. Even though it was well before noon when we
arrived, the place was full, and there was a line. Luckily,
this is a pretty fast place, as befits its appearance, and
we were seated in ten.

You are greeted with a sample of what we were given to
understand was the house specialty, ham salad - nice
and smoky, a lot of onion in the mix, not too much binder.
I liked it; lili was unimpressed.

We ordered a representative sampling: burnt ends were ok,
authentically burnt but really quite lean and kind of tough
in spots. It appeared to me that they trimmed off a lot of
fat before smoking, which makes the lean meat smokier but
drier - I think a bad compromise.

Baby backs were good, a little on the crusty side, but the
spare ribs were truly excellent, the additional fat on this
cut making up well for the tendency of the pit to oversmoke
the meat.

The sauces on hand are a house-made hot (wimpy) and sweet
(yucky) of the thin sugary variety; but several competitors'
(Gates', Bryant's, what have you) are available, which is
kind of cool.

Our sides were an ordinary slaw with a rather thin and
tasteless dressing and some very sweet beans with chunks of
ham that were not nearly so good as that in the salad.

On the whole we were pretty pleased, but we'd go to Woodyard
or Jack Stack before we came back here.

Oh, yes, there's a mundane beer list, Boulevard Amber being
the best of the offerings.

BB's Lawnside, our next stop, on the other hand, is a bar
with barbecue rather than a barbecue with beer. We sidled up
to the counter and had some Boulevard brewskis and waited
for the kitchen to wake up and fix us some 'cue. This was
worth the wait, the just smoky enough and fatty but not
cloying burnt ends among the best of the trip. The canonic
two sauces - the sweet boring, the hot thin and very sweet
but with good spice and surprisingly moreish. We ate some on
premises and took some back to the hotel to eat with the
Shingleback Red Knot Shiraz (McLaren Vale) 10: this was
pretty decent - it started off strong like the Box Head but
didn't have the midpalate sag. Some mint-eucalyptus gave it
some interest; I'd buy this again, despite the silliness of
the name and though it was a couple bucks more than most of
the others.