Jean and I just got back from our trip to Charleston, SC. We ate at two
places.

One was Sticky Fingers. We both ordered full slabs of ribs. (Not a full
slab but spare ribs with tips cut off, though some of the tips did make
it through)

(Sticky has a web site with all their locations throughout the
south/south east and a pdf menu)

They say the ribs are cooked with wood (but no smoke flavor!) and seem
to be!, they had some bite to them and weren't that sick soft/mushy bite
with par-boil process.

They leave the membrane on, but it is edible and doesn't get in the way.

You can order them simply cooked, no seasoning, no sauce, which leaves
you with a rib that has a plain taste which makes you want to add sauce,
there is no smoke flavor at all.

You can order them Memphis style which is the plain cooked ribs that are
coated with a dry seasoning After cooking. I liked it that way or, you
can order the plain cooked ribs with one of their sauces already added.

They have a variety of sauces, which to me were the same basic sauce but
with flavor additions. Whiskey, habernaro (not hot!), Memphis original,
sweet, smoky and a mustard. I didn't like most of them, seemed to have
a common off taste to them. I did enjoy the mustard which had a
slightly sweet, vinegary, mustard taste. This was the first time I had a
mustard based sauce of any type. Plus they keep Tabasco on the table.

On the day we ate there, they had a special of one free bottle of sauce
for each full slab dinner. I got the mustard and Jean got the Memphis
Original. ( I make better sauce!)

I had sides of potato salad which had dill pickle and a second side pork
N beans (the beans tasted like original sauce was added) I liked the
beans. Jean had green beans and slaw, the slaw was somewhat plain but
better than the typical horrible slaw one mostly finds at restaurants.

I recommend Sticky Fingers (considering they are a chain).

I suggest you try the Memphis dry, or they will apply half the slab with
dry and the other half with nothing so you can try all the sauces as you
go the first time. Nothing stops you from applying sauce to the Memphis
dry either.

The full slab dinner was around $18.95 each. They play old blues music
over the PA system. Lunch time they had a small all you can eat buffet
minus ribs, just pulled pork and sides.


Place number two was seafood, a very unique joint called, The Wreck, and
that is what it looks like! A big shack that is extremely hard to find,
hidden amongst 4-5 thousand sq foot homes. There are no signs leading
the way not even a sign on the building. They take cash only! no
charges! After crossing the new bridge going to Mt. Pleasant stay left,
print a map, and have patience for it is still very hard to find!

You end up on the water, right where shrimper boats dock. There is a
dock where the overflow waited 45 minutes for a table. All of us sharing
a common bottle of bug repellent. An old black lab waddled around on
the dock. While you wait they have an ice chest full of beverages. It
was nice with the pelicans flying about, the seagulls screaming, the sun
going down, used oyster shells piled up under two old plywood tables!

Once seated inside the shack, with widow screen covered with clear
plastic. They start you out with boiled peanuts! Which is a southern
thing and not bad, taste like cooked slightly salty beans.

The menu is a hardcore seafood menu. I got the fried platter, with
shrimp, clams, flounder, scallops, lima beans, red rice, small square of
fried hominy and one hush puppy. Jean got the fried flounder dinner. You
can get everything non-fryied too!

Everything was outstanding! All for around $39.00 for the two of us. I
highly recommend The Wreck, you can find info about them thru third
party sources on the internet. Copy the address, then get a map off the
internet, make sure you do a close up detail for all the roads thru the
residential area.

I got lost and ended up looking for street signs (tall, square, cement
poles with street names written on them), then followed the signs road
by road until we came upon a large shack, and luckily a couple were
standing there that confirmed we had arrived, all the patrons were the
other side of the shack out of view, and there is no sign on the building!
--
Regards,

Piedmont

The Practical Bar-B-Q'r at: http://web.infoave.net/~amwil/Index.htm

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless,
whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism
or the holy name of liberty or democracy?

Mahatma Gandhi, "Non-Violence in Peace and War"