Gomez A.
Yelp
Before I give my opinion in any detail beyond some stars, I feel it's important to say...
I don't give a damn what your favorite style of BBQ is.
That's because I didn't grow up with a BBQ tradition to have been indoctrinated into. In fact, I never knew what good food of any sort was until I escaped the midwest. The midwest has some nice values, so it's a good place to be FROM. It's a good place to be FROM because the midwest doesn't know anything about decent food except comfort foods, and some of those - such as Aunt Agnes' Famous Jello Salad are referred to be entirely different names in other parts of the country. Names such as Culinary Abomination or Crime Against Humanity.
Having that sort of gustatory upbringing really makes one appreciate good food all the more once one is finally exposed to it, and it tends to dissuade one from religious beliefs about food.
As a result, I am BBQ agnostic. I think if BBQ is made well, the style doesn't matter, it will be tasty. And, like pizza, I believe that if you are one of those who claims there is only One True BBQ, and no other sort is worth making or eating, then I suggest that maybe you don't actually like barbecue as much as you think you do.
All this to establish my biases about barbecue, since so many people seem to think said biases are so darned important. Ragin Hog is proud that they make Southern Style barbecue and none other. Well that's fine and dandy, but you dear reader need to understand that I couldn't define Southern Style BBQ if you put a gun to my head. I don't CARE.
What I do care about is quality, and for me that revolves around the moisture/dryness and texture of the meat, the sauces or rubs not sucking (obviously) and especially how heavily smoked it is.
A major let-down for me is when the meat just doesn't smell smoky to me. Note: I don't smoke tobacco and I have a damn fine sense of smell when I'm not having a rare allergy moment. There's a Texas style joint in Superior that smells great when you walk in, but if you take the meat away and smell it later, it's as if yours was made somewhere else, somewhere without all that annoying smoke in the air.
So if I get some joint's takeout home, I hope and expect that when I open the container it will smell like a campfire.
Ragin Hog's meat is like that. It's smoky. It's good too. They have Georgia, Memphis, and Carolina style sauces, which aren't overly sweet (yay!) and I do love me some sauces, but if you don't, and your priority is nicely-smoked meats, man, you can just stop looking, at least in the Highlands area - we don't have anything else in the area that I've found that even comes close.
Their portions are generous; we picked up takeout 2 days ago (they hardly seem to do any in-house business, they only have a small dining area, and I've never seen anyone using it so CV-19 hopefully isn't impacting them too badly), I bought what I assumed would give us two meals each, and my wife and I have just finished meal pair #3 and we still have leftovers. So the price ends up being good too.
