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Ray's serves up solid, delicious barbecue

Tom Spain
The Post and Courier

Ray's BBQ

Ray Waldrup gave up a career in one kind of wood (furniture sales) for another kind — smoking with hickory.

This spring, Ray's BBQ sent out smoke signals from the previous Red Pepper Squirrel location on Coleman Boulevard in Mount Pleasant. At first, it was hard to keep up with the community's appetite for 'cue and so Waldrup increased capacity with another smoker and quantity with more pork and ribs.

A Fast Eddy's by Cookshack Smoker takes it nice and slow to smoke-roast pork, ribs, chicken and brisket for 12, 18 and even 20 hours. The Fast Eddy is a wood-burning smoker that employs technology, which gives the pitmaster precise control over temperature. Fast Eddy (Ed Maurin) made his debut on the Food Network grooming Bob Blumer ("Glutton For Punishment") for the Kansas City barbecue competition last fall. Ironically, a Fast Eddy is slow.

In fact, it was by participating in amateur competitions that Waldrup cut his "smoking" teeth and embraced the barbecue lifestyle.

The former gas station has been transformed by mellow colors of mustard and smoke ring-red, leatherlike booths, limited bar seating, outdoor picnic tables and memorabilia of its Valvoline days. The previous garage door fronts can be opened, bringing the outside into this small barbecue joint.

The ribs, meats and poultry are massaged with a spice rub and then the Fast Eddy gets to work. The low-and-slow smoke of hickory tames tendons and muscle fibers into succulent strands of barbecue, either chicken, pork or beef brisket.

Waldrup is ecumenical when it comes to his sauces. Playing no geographical favorites, this Georgia Bulldog fan provides house-made sauces to please the South Carolinian with a taste for mustard's sweet tang, a thin, vinegar-based sop for those who prefer the acidity of eastern North Carolina barbecue, a smoky and slightly sweet Memphis juice, a Louisiana hot sauce to temper "ragin" Cajun tastebuds and three styles of Georgia from mild to extra hot. The sauces are presented as a pump-bottle buffet, and you can mix and match and even custom-blend them. Pump carefully as some of these thin sauces have a tendency to splatter — but then who eats barbecue and expects a clean shirt?

Ray's macaroni and cheese is flavored with smoked Gouda and pimiento cheese with a hit of spice. It is an assertive foil to the smoky barbecue flavors.

Slaw appears as mayo or vinegar. Each is a blend of cabbages, carrot strings, sweet pickle bits and celery seeds. Both could use a reworking: upping the acidity in the vinegar slaw and refining the smoothness of the mayo-based version.

The deviled potato salad is quite good — fresh tasting, swirled with hard-cooked egg yolks, a dash of mustard and bits of celery. It is the moderator for all the smoky flavors going on with the barbecue. The limas are tender, and the collards will find the requisite pickled pepper condiment on the tables.

The smoked pork ($4, $8, $11) manages to have the textural contrasts of pot roast and cracklings with the evidence of a red smoke ring. This provides assurance that the meat was cooked slow and low. It is a tale of denatured proteins best left to scientists.

Ray's also serves a barbecue bog ($2, $4) which is essentially a jambalaya-like rice dish "seasoned" with barbecue bits and pieces and tastes very similar to Ro-Tel-seasoned Tex-Mex rice dishes with the smoky accents of pork and chicken.

The ribs ($4, $7, $10, $18) are meaty; crusted with the house rub and tender at the bone. Eat them "naked" without any sauces.

The chicken ($4 white, $3 dark, $7 half, $14 whole) was delicious, succulent and finger-lickin' good.

The barbecue is topped with cottony white bread, all the better to wipe your hands; the pickles are Wickles (50 cents), and what sweet-heat pleasure they bring to your tongue.

The sides could be hotter (temperature); the fries rest under a heat lamp, which quickly drains their snap.

Quintessential banana pudding and Southern fruit cobbler are on the dessert menu, but neither were tasted. Ice-cold watermelon awaited at home, a sweet finish to Ray's smoke-roasted goodness.

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