Chicagoans Invade the South on BBQ Road Trip

Kevin Pang and Keith Claxton, two guys from the Chicago Tribune, are off on a barbecue road trip through the South.  Day 1 took them from Chicago all the way to Nashville, then Day 2 and 3 across the state of North Carolina, where they hit such notable spots as the Barbecue Center and Lexington Barbecue in Lexington, Richard's in Salisbury, Allen & Son in Chapel Hill, the Pit in Raleigh, the Skylight Inn in Ayden, and Wilber's in Goldsboro.  That's one hell of a two day winning streak.

Day 5 took them through South Carolina where, I must say, from a purely barbecue perspective, they squandered all their time in Columbia instead of getting off I-20 and heading to Hemingway and Gadsden.  Day 6 was a dash through Atlanta all the way to New Orleans, where they are apparently now off on a raw oyster detour.

One of the more interesting things is their coverage of a stop at the improbably-named J.J. McBrewster's in Lexington, Kentucky, where the staff was resting up and bracing up for the broadcast of their appearance on Guy Fieri's cloying Food Network show "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives."  The interesting part is what an appearance on "the Triple D", as it apparently is called, can do for an otherwise out-of-the-way strip mall restaurant: 3 hour waits, apparently, are par for the course.  Go figure.

The road trip's good stuff, and you can follow it here: http://bbqroadtrip.tumblr.com/.