Where to find the best barbecue in the San Fernando Valley – Daily News

My birthday falls on the Fourth of July weekend—it always does and always will—which brings with it both culinary highs and lows…and even more highs.

That means that, at least on the Fourth of July, I’ll be spending the day devouring hot dogs and hamburgers, cornbread and corn on the cob, and baked beans swimming with burnt ends. And to make my birthday stand out from the Fourth of July, I’ve decided to celebrate with barbecue—lots and lots of barbecue. Meats that smell of smoke and sauce, tender and meltingly good, so good I lose control. It’s my birthday, after all. I can always diet with… another hot dog.

We live in a time when comfort food is not only desired, it’s essential. Oreos comfort me. So does dark chocolate ice cream: the darker the better. And then there’s barbecue, the ultimate non-vegan experience. Munching on a meaty pork or beef chop, or brisket, slow-cooked and filled with the flavor of charred wood: it’s the way to celebrate.

For the sake of standardization, let’s call it “BBQ.” I know it’s also “bar-bq” and “barbecue” and even, in rarer countries, “barbecue.” But that “que” seems pretentious. By changing “que” to “cue” and then to “BBQ,” there’s an element of Americanization at work, transforming the word from its French roots into street slang, redolent of grimy bar stools, bottled beer, and whiskey out of a fruit jar.

Barbecue is a truly popular meal. It may present itself in elegant outfits, but underneath lies a taste for smoky rooms and moody Saturday nights. Barbecue is a meal that you eat with your teeth, your jaws, your whole being. I’m not talking about quiche here, I’m talking about ribs.

Ribs are, of course, not just ribs. Beyond the quality of the meat, the care with which the maître d’ works the fires of the large brick oven, and the nature of the wood used to flavor the smoke, there is the sauce, which often comes in two forms.

The first is what Texans call the “sop” or “mop,” which is the marinade that the meat is first dipped in and then basted throughout the cooking process. The second sauce is the one that is poured over the ribs when the crucial moment of ingestion is near. This sauce comes in mild or hot versions. Don’t take these labels lightly.

A few years ago, I was waiting for an order of ribs at the legendary Vic & Betty’s Soul Bar-B-Q in South San Francisco when the woman working on my order spotted a pimp’s car driving by outside. “Uh-oh!” she said, “There’s that baaaaad dude. If he comes here for a signal, I’m gonna give him some hot sauce to get rid of him.”

I swallowed hard and prepared myself for a long night, as I had already ordered the hot sauce. She was right: it had me sweating, panting, and making strange noises for hours.

Today, what I look for is the flavor of the meat, as little altered as possible by the sauce. That’s why I love the barbecues of the following local wonders, where the smoke is not only in the air, but also in the meat.

Get ready to chew…with a smile. And for me, to celebrate another year in cholesterol-rich style. And in case you were wondering, the best thing to drink with a barbecue is beer, preferably draft. But a six-pack will do.

Dr. Hogly Wogly’s BBQ in Tyler, Texas

8136 Sepulveda Blvd., Van Nuys; 818-782-2480, www.hoglywogly.com

At Dr. Hogly Wogly’s, we call it Texas barbecue, which means there’s an admirable reverence for beef, and brisket in particular.

Brisket is one of the leanest cuts of meat, which means that, in a fun way, it’s a diet meal. It’s not that anyone goes to Dr. H for a diet meal; it’s not the kind of place where the side options include cottage cheese and fruit salad. Hell, aside from the coleslaw, beans and potatoes, the closest thing to a vegetable on the menu are the sliced ​​tomatoes and sliced ​​onions offered on the side. There’s also sweet potato pie, which I guess counts as a vegetable dish.

Anyway, coming back to the brisket, it’s the kind of dish that you really don’t want to finish. Each bite seems to contain nuances, subtleties and tasty bits that weren’t noticed the previous bite.

If I want pork, I opt for the shredded, shredded and sauce-rich model. I prefer baby backs, served in squares, to beef ribs, which require a lot of chewing; I’m split on the ribs, which come in batches of three or six. Hot links are always a good fallback; and there is roast chicken for those who need roast chicken. It’s not a bad choice; it’s just not brisket.

Boneyard Bistro

13539 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks; 818-906-7427, www.boneyardbistro.com

Bacon is an underlying theme at Boneyard Bistro. There’s bacon in the hickory-smoked deviled eggs, further flavored with smoked jalapeños and Sriracha — a dish you can’t resist. There’s a small mountain of bacon in the immodest dish called “Boneyard’s Famous House Cured & Double Hickory Smoked Bacon Building Blocks.” There’s bacon in the cornmeal-crusted okra poppers — along with cheddar and cream cheese and Cajun ranch dressing. And, of course, there’s bacon in the Iceberg Wedge Lettuce Salad. And in most hamburgers.

Believe me, I’m not complaining. Big and nourishing is another criterion here. They make donuts filled with Kobe beef chili and cheddar. Mac and cheese isn’t just mac and cheese, it’s fried mac and cheese. Which is maybe one way to do lilies, but the lilies look so much more golden now, don’t they?

There’s a salad with fried green tomatoes, okra, Stilton blue cheese and Green Goddess dressing; and another with smoked chicken, quinoa, kale and ricotta – which is really crazy. And the barbecue is very good: smoky, but not too smoky, and served in many combinations, including platters for you and everyone you’ve met.

The Evanator platter (and no, I don’t know what that means) offers much of the menu for two to four people, although it should feed more than that. The mini-Mega increases it from four to eight, while the Mega increases it from eight to 12.

Southern cuisine and Sisters barbecue

21818 Devonshire St., Chatsworth; 818-998-0755, www.lessisters.com

As befits a broad description as “Southern cuisine,” the cuisine at Sisters’ Southern Kitchen & BBQ is quintessentially Southern. There’s Cajun and Creole cuisine from N’awlins, smoky Low Country BBQ, classic Soul Food — and even “Southern Burgers,” which are apparently typical of the South because they’re topped with salad. homemade cabbage. They love their slaw Southern. Everywhere and on everything.

But most of all, they love spices. At Les Sisters, we don’t bother with spiciness. We don’t bother with crunchiness either: there’s plenty of crispiness on the menu.

And, not surprisingly, that crispiness begins with fried chicken, which is a triumph of the art of applying a well-flavored, herb-flavored batter to legs, wings, thighs and breasts, then frying the bird until it is tender and moist inside, but crisp as it could be without.

And I like the two-meat BBQ combo, a great deal that gives you chicken and a choice of sausages, BBQ beef, ribs, spare ribs, and even a honey-glazed pork chop. Personally, I opt for the ribs, which are tender and sweet, and, yes, fall off the bone easily. In this case, the old cliché is true.

The Bear Pit Bar-B-Que

10825 Sepulveda Blvd., Mission Hills; 818-365-2500, www.bearpitbbq.com

This northern San Fernando Valley legend dates back to the late 1940s, when founding owner Ben Baier left Missouri and opened a shack in Newhall, serving the Show Me State’s distinctive meats. Some 70 years, and several changes of ownership (and location) later, The Bear Pit is a Mission Hills legend, a place that oozes age and tradition – and plenty of smoke in the meats that “tickle the palate” (beef, pork, ham, chicken and turkey).

Watch out for the vinegary coleslaw and sweet barbecue beans. And the many combo feasts on the menu. This is a dish best suited for large groups – large, hungry groups – who like their meat and smoke.

Big Pop’s BBQ & Grill

10755 Glenoaks Blvd., Pacoima; 818-896-5599, www.instagram.com/bigpops_bbq/?hl=en

Big Pop’s shares its mini-mall with a pizza place, a Thai-Chinese shop, a barber shop, and a well-known tattoo parlor: Sin City Tattoo. At night, Big Pop’s is a brightly lit shop; it glows as you pull into the mall’s parking lot. There’s a crazy assortment of signs on the walls—everything from “No High Fructose Corn Syrup” to “What If Hokey Pokey Is Really What It’s All About?”

The menu here manages to hit all the right notes. I like the St. Louis-style pork ribs, heavy with a spicy kick, tender and moist at the same time, a slice of meat to contemplate as you slowly chew each morsel.

There is pulled pork, for those who don’t want to chew at all; it is defined as tender and melts in the mouth.

Rather than fried, the chicken here is grilled, which allows the sauces to soak into the meat really well, filling each bite with a warm, soothing bite of tender chicken and palate-stimulating peppers and sweetness.

Merrill Shindler is a freelance food critic based in Los Angeles. Email mreats@aol.com.