The hits kept on coming!
The Great Charleston RoadFood Crawl had hit back-to-back home runs at Bowens Island and Marina Variety, and Stop 3 was a sure winner, Lewis Barbecue.
I’ve eaten at Lewis several times, and I posted on it here and here. It’s one of the standout Texas-style barbecue places in the Southeast, roughly on a level with ZZQ in Richmond and 2fifty in Washington. (I’d add Bark, but I’ve only been there once, and it was after three breakfast sandwiches. And there are others in the Carolinas I keep meaning to try, but I much prefer to eat local specialties. Bear with me.) Returning to the subject, every visit to Lewis has been a pleasure, and by this trip I’d pretty well worked my way through the menu. All that remained to try were the rib and a relatively new offering, their hot-smoked pastrami.
I recently had a controversial post — Pastrami Better than Katz’s — on how the very best barbecue is to be found not in traditional delis like Katz’s and Langer’s, great as those two places are, but in barbecue places. Suggesting that the best of anything is outside New York City generates heated disagreement, and pushing the center of that particular universe Southward smacked of heresy. The post also generated a whole lot of agreement and support from people who’d actually eaten pastrami cooked by the barbecue craft masters.
Being in a pastrami frame of mind, I was eager to try Lewis’ version, and rather than coordinating fully with my fellow Crawlers, I ordered a pastrami sandwich for myself (which I did share but hogged) and a poblano sausage to share more willingly. One nice touch of lagniappe at Lewis — as they slice the meat to order,
they cut off a small piece and give it to you to taste. If you look closely, they’re cutting the lean part of the pastrami. I hadn’t specified “moist,” a word that I realize offends many people, but it seems more graceful than “fatty” to me and so the pre-taste was important. I was all set to ask for moist instead. But the lean was delicious. Here’s the sandwich.
I had made a point of asking for the sandwich on rye with mustard. That is in fact a sort of rye bun. Not much of a rye, not a good one as at HammerDown, or the magnificent Manifest Bread rye used at 2fifty (making theirs the best pastrami sandwich anywhere), but a rye. But look at the meat.
Look and just think about it for a minute. That meat was sensational. Succulent, beautifully spiced, and redolent with a beautiful smoky aroma. It was delicious. I jettisoned the bread and ate the pastrami all by its gorgeous self. I shared some with a few other Crawlers, most of whom were transfixed by brisket and a big old beef rib,
and various sides that, although I know them to be very good, I ignored. I did get a taste of rib in return. It was enough to know that their rib was as good as their excellent brisket, and even more tender.
You noticed the Duke’s packet by the sandwich? That mayonnaise had no business there, and I guess someone thought the yellow was mustard. I ignored it. Oh, and the sausage was good.
Lewis is a great example of Texas-style barbecue, and a fine representative of why the product of the wizards who make the best, the Paganinis of the offset smoker, can transform pastrami into what really is, in all justice, a different food. What a great place! You should go there, and take enough friends that you can try some moist brisket, a beef rib, and some pastrami. You’ll thank me.
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