Saturday, August 19, 2006

Subversive Bar-B-Q

What does a man do when he finds himself far removed from the Bar-B-Q he likes best?

Such has been my plight for a year a half as the family and I have struggled to find a restaurant akin to the 'southeast-centric' Sonny's. I know Sonny's is not the cream of the red sauce crop, but there is a certain quality to their food that is comforting and unchallenging. It had become a favorite 'once and a while' eatery when we lived in Georgia.

When prowling for the familiarity of Sonny's after relocating to Texas, we quickly discovered that Sonny's Bar-B-Q has only spread as far west a Louisiana. This became a less daunting hurdle when it was confirmed that the 2006 GIJOE Convention was to be held in New Orleans. That in itself is a story for another time, but suffice it to say, I planned to drive to the Big Easy rather than fly and found there was a Sonny's in Baton Rouge...enroute. So, the plan was made that Sonny's would be our dinner stop as we drove south toward the coast.

It was all we remembered it to be - including the 'honey-variety' of sauce that the family prefers. We were so pleased with the meal that we made it a dinner stop as we headed back to Texas five days later. On the second visit, Taura made a point to buy a bottle of our favorite sauce for later use in Sonny's-Free Texas.

Tonight, we were thinking of Bar-B-Q for dinner and armed with a small squeeze bottle of our favorite sauce we headed for a restaurant we had never frequented called 'Cousins'. The food was actually pretty good and combined with our subversively introduced sauce, we had an experience that was Sonny-esque enough to truly satisfy.

Yes, we actually brought our own sauce to a restaurant. Desperate times call for desperate measures and though I felt like I was carrying a NIV Bible into a KJV-only church, the end result was almost as satisfying.