When you think of the Midwest, chances are good that St. Louis is one of the first cities that comes to mind. When you think about St. Louis, you think about great barbecue. No, this isn't another bad DirecTV commercial telling you to get rid of cable so that some tragedy doesn't befall you. It's the introduction to Pappy's Smokehouse, which is the best barbecue in a city that knows how to smoke meats.
I spent four years at college in Missouri, but I never once ventured to Pappy's because for 3/4 of my college life, the restaurant didn't exist. It's only been around since 2008, but in that short time, it has become the place in St. Louis to find fantastic barbecue, appeared on Man vs. Food and made it on to the Chowdown Countdown at 48.
How good is Pappy's? As you can tell by the grass in the picture, I couldn't actually eat it in the restaurant. I had to make it to work in Iowa (four hours away), so my only chance was to call for takeout and eat on the streets of St. Louis. That's how long the lines are. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
What makes Pappy's so amazing is the quality of everything. First, you aren't going to find anything that wasn't made fresh that day at Pappy's. The restaurant doesn't want to serve day-old barbecue, so what they do is make a pre-set amount at the start of the day based on the crowd they expect for their hours. Once they hit their amount of an item, they don't make more of it. It goes up on the board at the store to mark that they've sold out of that particular food, and it won't be available again until tomorrow.
When they sell out of all of their items, well, that's when the store closes. Pappy's says it's open until 8 p.m., but that's just a suggestion. They almost always shut their doors before that time comes.
The reason is because Pappy's knows how to do great barbecue. They might have only been around since 2008, but their owners have a combined century's worth of experience smoking meats. The St. Louis staple of ribs is one of the top choices on Pappy's menu, and you've got three sauces to choose from. Other meats available for you to select are pulled pork, pulled chicken, beef brisket, turkey and hot link sausage.
I love barbecue, and when I find a barbecue place, 90 percent of the time I'm going to go with at least one and possibly both of my two favorite meats: pulled pork or beef brisket. That's what I did here, and it was incredible. Throw some of Pappy's original sauce on it, and you have a barbecue meal that simply can't be beat. There's a reason it won the best barbecue in St. Louis three years running, and its streak was stopped only because the editors of the magazine didn't want to make that category an automatic win for Pappy's.
If you want to step outside of barbecue, the Frito Pie might catch your attention. This is basically beans, onions, cheese served on top of a bed of Fritos and topped with your barbecue of choice. I haven't had it yet, but I'm sure I'll be back in St. Louis again.
It's probably a good thing this place didn't exist while I was in college. I didn't have money, and given how often I went to STL, I'd have been losing money left and right standing in line for some Pappy's. It's that good.
Recap
Time to go: Early. Pappy's mantra of cooking all food fresh means that there is no guarantee the restaurant will even be open by the time you arrive if you get there later in the day. The restaurant opens at 11, and I'd advise being there near that time.
Wait during my visit: Here's the other reason why you need to get there early. If you don't, you'll be waiting for well over an hour, or you're going to be calling it in and having a picnic.
Remember Ike's Place? Pappy's is very similar, as lines can easily go for over an hour. To-go orders can jump the line, but if not, you'll be waiting a while. My advice is that if the line extends outside the restaurant, call in your order.
Location: Pappy's can be found near the campus of St. Louis University, at 3106 Olive Street in St. Louis.
Parking: You'll find some. Being near the university, if you can't park at Pappy's, garages and street parking can be had.
Cost: Average. Pappy's does feature two pricey items in the Big Ben and the Adam Bomb, but these are not meant for one person. The Big Ben includes a slab of ribs, beef brisket, a pork sandwich, a quarter of a chicken and four sides. The Adam Bomb adds a hot link Frito pie to all of that.
Those go for over $40. However, sensible meals at Pappy's cost roughly $10-15.
Website: Pappy's Smokehouse
Signature items: Barbecue, Frito pie
Yes, there's more to Ames, Iowa than Iowa State University and its wonderful buttermilk brownies. Those who know me from college are very familiar with my assertion that Iowa State will dominate the Big 12 if the Cyclones are ever smart enough to give their football recruits the brownies they serve in the press box at Jack Trice Stadium, but Ames is also home to some excellent pizza at Black Market Pizza, just north of the university's campus. Given that I've yet to review anything from the Hawkeye State, which I now call home, it's the perfect time for this review.
What sets this pizza apart at Black Market is the unusual kinds of pizza you're going to find on the menu here. Black Market is famous for taking sandwiches and turning them into pizza form. See if you can recognize what inspired their Witness Protection Pizza based on its ingredients:
Ground beef, Thousand Island sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed crust.
If you guessed a Big Mac, you're absolutely right. Other pizzas served at Black Market include taco, Reuben, chicken bacon ranch, bacon double cheeseburger and Patty melt. Every ingredient you'd find on these creations in their normal form shows up on the pizza. The Reuben, for example, uses rye seeds to mimic the rye bread one normally eats a Reuben on. It's an interesting concept that really works.
Of course, the reason it works is that Black Market uses quality ingredients and makes sure the flavors match up perfectly. In my pizza at the top, ranch sauce is used in place of tomato sauce on the pizza, and it's then topped with chicken, bacon and tomatoes. I can hear the purists howling in New York, but it's actually really good this way. A pizza isn't much different from an open-faced sandwich when you think about it, and Black Market certainly has.
If you're not up for a sandwich as a pizza, Black Market also serves the traditional thin crust and deep dish pizza those in New York and Chicago respectively have grown up eating. In fact, its Chicago-style pizzas are just as much a part of its identity as its sandwich pizzas. If you want something really different, try one of these pizzas using a sweet potato crust. Different toppings also routinely dot the specials board and are available for customers to try.
Size-wise, these aren't ridiculous sizes like at Big Pie In The Sky. Black Market serves their pizza in a standard size, with 16 inches being as big as they go. The 10-inch pizza, their smallest size, can feed one person quite well.
It's a shame that Black Market couldn't sustain a second location in the Des Moines suburb of Altoona, but some places are just meant to be in one spot. Clearly, that applies to Black Market, which has found itself a home in the college town of Ames.
Recap
Time to go: Lunch or dinner work well here. The small pizzas work great for a lunch serving, while one big one can feed a family for dinner.
Wait during my visit: None outside the wait for the pizza to cook. It's Ames, not nearby Des Moines. There's not going to be a ridiculous crowd unless you've decided to go when the Cyclones are playing a home football or basketball game.
Location: Black Market Pizza can be found at 2610 Northridge Parkway in the northern part of Ames, Iowa. It also delivers to locations around the Ames area.
Parking: Again, it's Ames. You shouldn't have a problem here.
Website: Black Market Pizza
Signature items: Sandwich pizzas, deep dish
Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Dan Angell, and I'm a sportswriter in Davenport, Iowa. Ever since graduating college and taking my first job in Idaho, I've discovered that in addition to sports, I love both travel and food. When they're together, there's almost no better experience, especially because I can usually involve a sporting event, fulfilling all of my passions.
When I first discovered Man vs. Food, I was intrigued to learn about the specialty foods of each city that appeared on an episode. I had always loved finding specialty foods in each location, but in most places, it was simply a generic food, with no idea what was the best that served it or what the signature dish even was in some cities. For instance, I'd never heard of a Juicy Lucy, a Minneapolis staple, or coffee milk, served in Rhode Island. Thanks to MvF and some of my own research, I had a guide to what I wanted and where to get it, and that led to me deciding to try visiting some of these iconic restaurants whenever I could.
As that continued, naturally, some friends started to get envious of the places I was able to see (thank you, Idaho State basketball beat) and the foods I was able to try. After hearing about several of them, one asked me to start taking pictures of the places I was visiting and post them online. Step two had been taken, and I began taking pictures in Tucson, Arizona, one year after getting the job in Idaho.
That was when I realized that trying these places had developed into more than just pictures for my friends. It had become a real hobby, and as the show kept visiting new places, I saw more and more things I wanted to try. Travel Channel followed Man vs. Food with their 101 Best Places to Chow Down, giving me even more restaurants that I wanted to experience for myself. Step three was the formation of my map, keeping track of every place I'd visited.
Now that I'm approaching having reached 70 of the show's restaurants, it's time to describe my experiences and share them with the public. That's what this blog will be.
Each post will be about a restaurant I've had the pleasure to visit, some on MvF, some from the Chowdown Countdown and some from neither show but worthy of inclusion because it was a great experience not to be missed. Many will have pictures. Some will not. Some of the places I've visited were so long ago that I will not review them, as it's been too long for me to give a good review. Sure, I've been to Chunky's Burgers in San Antonio and Arthur Bryant's in Kansas City, but that was almost four years ago. I'd need another visit to properly review it.
Three more things before we get going. First, I'm always open to suggestions. If you know of a place that I need to visit, please leave a comment or e-mail me at nighthawk892005@yahoo.com to let me know. I can't promise I'll get there immediately, but I'll put it on my list and I will try to get there when the opportunity arises.
Second, as I make each post, I'm going to tag them with the type of cuisine and the geographic location, including city, state and region. For example, a place with standard American food in Missouri will get a Midwest label. The geographic groups will be as follows: New England, Mid-Atlantic, Great Lakes, Southeast, Midwest, Southwest, Rocky Mountains and Pacific.
Third, since I've been to 66 MvF places, I've got a lot of posts that will be coming. As I add more and more restaurants, if there's a certain one I've been to that you want to see reviewed sooner rather than later, let me know.
How do you know which places I've visited? Here's my map, with all the information you need:
Dan's food map
Welcome to my ultimate hunger quest. This is Dan vs. Food.
