Black Sam's smokin'

I am really not equipped to judge good smokehouse barbeque. So when I saw on Facebook that the new Joburg pop-up phenom, Black Sam Smoque, would be parking its food truck / mobile smokehouse in the middle of Parktown North, I recruited my resident expert to accompany me for a taste.







My husband Vince is a bona fide expert on barbeque, especially smokehouse barbeque. Weaned on it in Kansas City, he has made a mission of eating barbeque in all its forms across the United States of America and the world. Since his job has had him traveling a couple of million miles over the past 20 years, that's been a LOT of barbecue.









He also has cooked a lot of barbecue, at home and in the rag-tag grills that are available in self-catering places that we've stayed at over the years. Both of our boys can create a credible rub and turn out more than credible barbecue themselves.

Vince even built his own quad-purpose grill / smoker / cold smoker / wood-fired oven at home, as a project with our younger son. It's a re-purposed Weber kettle barbeque that was otherwise headed for the trash heap. Dubbed the FrankenWeber, it has turned out smoked turkeys, briskets, chicken, pork shoulder, and pork belly, cold-smoked bacon and salmon (aka lox, see to the right), and made some pretty decent "brick oven" pizza!

Armed with a couple of USA-made and imported smokers and inspired by all the major styles (Carolinas, Texas, Memphis and Kansas City) of barbeque, Sam has added a South African twist to Black Sam Smoque by using local Kameeldoring and Mopani wood for his smoking.

His pop-up menu yesterday was pretty simple - brisket and pork belly SAMwiches and ribs. We had to get a sample of all three.

The brisket SAMwich was topped with a homemade barbeque and / or chili sauces - we got half and half - and the pork belly was served with an herbal salsa verde. Both were topped with a generous scoop of some yummy apple and cabbage coleslaw and served on a Portuguese roll.

Although not as smoky-flavored as we're used to (the local wood is milder than the hickory, cherry, and pecan that is typical in the US), Vince says that it is far and away the best barbecue that we've had outside the States - and that includes places like Australia, which has as strong a braai tradition as South Africa, and the Caribbean which is where it all started as barbacoa.

Everything was really well executed. The ribs were actually perfect. The pork belly and brisket were more lightly done than a US BBQ place would do it, but with great smoke rings and really tender and juicy. Kudos to Sam for the brisket, which is a) hard to do well in the first place, and b) is a difficult cut of meat to find in the right style for proper BBQ. We asked him about that specifically, and he said he has his local butcher (a closely held secret it appears) do a special cut for him, then trims it to spec himself. Nice!

Bottom line - Black Sam Smoque might not be ready to go head to head with institutions like Arthur Bryant's in Kansas City, or County Line BBQ in Austin, but it's a heckuva BBQ place, and a welcome find. Follow Black Sam Smoque for his next pop-up.