Southern barbecue is sort of the antithesis of parking in LA. Think about it: barbecue is slow and generous -- piles of meat infused with the sweet scent of smoke, tended for hours and often served at large gatherings -- while LA parking is quick and ruthless, a hair-pulling experience liable to leave you hating your fellow man. So it was in the spirit of slow and generous living that I proposed a Foodbuzz 24, 24, 24 meal* for my friends on May 30th, with food from Territory BBQ & Records, a brand-new Southern-style barbecue joint just at the end of my street. No car required.
Territory is the brainchild of Tony Presedo, a former indie record label co-executive, and Curtis Brown, ex-frontman of the band Bad Wizards. A North Carolina native, Brown is also behind the Brooklyn taco truck Endless Summer, so he's used to bringing regional foods to the hipster masses. The restaurant itself is sparse; all the seating is at outdoor tables covered with checked tablecloths, alongside a refrigerator that diners can open up to grab sodas in glass bottles. It's charming, but no match for my own apartment, where my friends and I can stay as long as we want and go back for seconds or even thirds -- slow and generous, remember? I got our meal to go.
Back at my apartment, my friends gathered around the kitchen table as I opened to-go containers brimming with pulled pork, beef brisket, fried chicken, fried catfish, collard greens, mac and cheese, baked beans and gigantic biscuits. Two small boxes were filled with apple butter, caramel-brown and flecked with spices, to be slathered on the biscuits. One container held only sauces: pepper vinegar and sweet red barbecue sauce, to appease fans of various barbecue styles. To drink there were sodas from Territory -- Bubble Up, Jolt cola, orange and grape Crush and cherry-flavored Cheerwine -- or the fresh mint limeade I had made that morning. Without ceremony, just a communal "Let's eat!," we started loading up our plates and filling our glasses.
The chicken with its thin, crunchy skin and juicy, flavorful meat was quickly voted a crowd favorite, as were the baked beans, which had a big ham bone planted like a flag in the middle. The cornmeal-dredged catfish was crisp yet succulent, but tasted a little bland until I dabbed on some of Territory's tartar sauce, a light, wonderfully smoky version of a condiment I normally dislike. Of the two barbecued meats, the brisket seemed more deeply flavored than the pork, more redolent of smoke, and was a great match with the fresh-tasting barbecue sauce and plain white bread.
Speaking of bread, let's talk about the biscuits. When I picked up the food, there had been a short wait because the biscuits were still in the oven. Freshly baked biscuits? No complaints from me. I carried them home in a roasting pan, their toasty, buttery smell drifting into my face, tempting me to just bite into one there on the street. I refrained, just long enough to get inside and grab a plate. Then I split one open, spread on a thick layer of apple butter and bit into warm biscuit heaven -- one stop past cinnamon roll paradise, just before croissant nirvana -- a place of moist, buttery layers and browned, deliciously crusty edges. If you love bread, you will love these biscuits.
Some of us went back for seconds. A few of us even went back for thirds. Miraculously, though I had ordered enough food for 15 people, the nine of us managed to finish almost all of it. This was not due to paltry servings on Territory's part, I feel, but to the general spirit of the gathering. We ate a little, we talked a little, we ate a little, we listened to some records, and then we ate some more. Slowness and generosity and eating till you bust -- isn't that what Southern barbecue is all about?
Territory BBQ & Records
534 N. Hoover St.
Los Angeles, CA 90004
(323) 662-4100
* Every month Foodbuzz, the company that sponsors the ads on my blog, chooses 24 bloggers in 24 different places to have a meal within the same 24 hours, paid for by Foodbuzz. The meals are all wildly different in concept, so it's an interesting snapshot of eating around the world. You can see all this month's meals here.
I'm so glad that space is finally being used for something good! I used to live on Bellevue many many years ago and always loved that little building. I think when I lived there it was a Chinese restaurant, but it was always too scary looking for me to try :)