Southern BBQ at Mac's Speed Shop

On our last day in Charlotte, in order to help us recover from the previous day's festivities as well as indulge in some southern fare (its only right, after all) my brother took us to Mac's Speed Shop.  While completely different from our great Friday night dinner at Cowfish, it was really fitting considering we were south of the Mason-Dixon line, and Nick's only request for our brief vacation.

When we pulled into the parking lot of Mac's I really wondered if were in the right place because it basically looked like a pretty nice garage.  Seriously - there was a carport 30 yards long with motorcycles under the entire thing.  Also, there were loads of picnic benches in the front with people eating away and a fence that hid the table tops, but I trusted my brother.  We walked in and were greeted with a what you always thought a Southern BBQ place should look like: plenty of beers and BBQ.  Add bikes to that and you have Mac's motto. 

Quote reads, "where bikers stare at cowboys, who are laughing at the hippies who are praying that they'll get out of here alive..."

That quote basically sums the place up, which was the perfect spot for a great plate of BBQ to cure our St. Paddy's Day-sized hangovers!  If "hair of the dog" is more your style than this is the place to come, with more than 50, and probably closer to 100, beers to choose from, there is one to match whatever will help you the most.

Coolers to the left filled with all sorts of beer

Nick and I stuck with the diet cokes, but my brother basically got a road soda of bud light - pretty impressive that you can get those somewhere outside a gas station.  Gotta love the south.

While there were a lot of tempting things on the menu, including a great fried chicken special that our server said was her all-time favorite, we were there for BBQ.  Honestly, we did not have to look too hard because my brother suggested we order what is called "The Whole Lotta Stuff."  Basically, you select 4 of 5 different meats and 4 sides - its was perfect for those of us who really want to taste a bit of everything.

I actually laughed out loud when the plate came because there was so much food on it.  The following pictures are of all the different angles to make sure I got everything!  The three of us feasted on hand pulled pork, beer can chicken, St. Louis ribs, and some beef brisket.  For sides we chose some mac n' cheese, onion rings (obviously, a theme for the weekend), collard greens (needed some color), and cheddar grits.  For some reason they also thought we needed some toast.

The Sides and some of the Pulled Pork

Chicken and Ribs

More Chicken

Once again, the food was fantastic.  The three of us ate most everything on that plate.  The BBQ was delicious - such a great treat!  My favorite was the brisket and the pulled port - so yummy.  The brisket had a really great char on it and an amazing smokey flavor.  Mac's offers their own variety of sauces the represent different BBQ styles throughout the South.  These were a lot of fun to taste and offered a variety of flavors for each part of the plate.  Also, while I laughed at the bread when it came out, I totally used it to soak up the mixture of sauces at the end.  Needless to say it was amazing!

Somehow, even after all the BBQ we had a bit of room for dessert - when in Rome, I suppose. First we got the Apple Bread Pudding with a whiskey sauce and vanilla ice cream, which our server said she loved "even more than her mama's."

Apple Bread Pudding

This was a great blend of apple pie and bread pudding.  The whiskey sauce had a great sweet kick to it.  We also decided to order the banana pudding with vanilla wafers and whipped cream.

Banana Pudding

I don't normally like banana pudding, but this was good.  The crunch of the vanilla wafers added a lot of nice texture to the pudding dish.

Mac's was a lot of fun.  Our server was really friendly and offered great suggestions.  I would recommend this place for those needing a BBQ fix in a heartbeat and and as a go-to stop for those northerners wanting to fully experience the south. This delicious food totally helped our hangovers!

Cowfish Sushi Burger Bar - totally crazy but amazing!

This past weekend Nick and I headed to North Carolina to visit my younger brother - it had been way too long since I had been down there! Charlotte is a nice city, and with the addition of the EpiCentre there is a ton to do right downtown, which, in my opinion, was lacking a bit previously.

For a nice intro to the weekend my brother took us down to the South Park area of Charlotte.  Because my brother knows me well - I love burgers and I love sushi - when it came time to decide what to do for dinner on Friday night, The Cowfish seemed like the most natural choice.

Like their menu says - they do burgers, sushi and drinks. When you walk in you are struck with the large, bright Japanese stylized prints on the wall (think more Andy Warhol than landscapes.)  Another fun element was the the oversize bento box above a section of the bar.

The Bento Box

The drink menu was huge, with beers from all over (including Fat tire, which you don't see much on the East Coast), but Nick and I went with the good ol' $5 PBR tallboys!

I know more than a few people would appreciate the sriracha sauce at the table along with the other condiments.  There was something for all types of food - burgers AND sushi.

After having a little edamame while waiting at the bar, we settled on down with the menu. Our first choice were what I like to call the "big a** onion rings" and what the menu likes to more-politely call their panko and coconut battered onion rings, which came with both sweet & sour and Cowfish sauces.

I basically do not want to have my onion rings without coconut from now on.  It added a great sweet flavor to the dish and really put a fun twist on a pretty standard dish.  Also, as my nickname implied, these things were enormous.  Each order must be made from more than a few onions.

Our other appetizer was the blackened ahi tuna nachos, which were unlike any other nachos I have had.

The seared tuna was on a nice, crispy wonton chip with loads of avocado.  The tastes and the combination of textures all went together so well.  The tuna was perfectly cooked and seasoned, and the little squeeze of lime made the whole dish come together.  This was not what you expect when you order nachos, but totally a welcomed surprise.

With the appetizers being so great, we were looking forward to the main course.  We ordered three different types of sushi, the first being The King’s Roll, which was made with fresh tuna, kani, jalapeno, cream cheese and scallion, coated with panko and then flash fried. Each piece is topped with seasoned crab salad, masago, sriracha and cream sauce, and served with ponzu dipping sauce.  The second roll was the eeZ Eel Layer Roll with kani, scallions and avocado, topped with eel and baked with a sweet and spicy sauce.

King's Roll in the front, eez Eel in the back

Both of these were fantastic.  The eel tasted really fresh.  The King's roll was unlike any sushi roll I have had before, which always makes a dining experience more fun.  There were a lot of components on that roll, all of which could have competed with the other.  Instead they all came together to make for a great tasting sushi roll.

Something I thought was really innovative on their menu was the build your own sushi roll area.  I have not seen such a section before and thought it would be a lot of fun to play around with.  But that would have to wait for a different visit, because we had a date with the "burgushi" section right above that.  Burgushi is either a sushi roll with meat inside (filet or ground) or sandwiches with slices of fish tucked in there.  Both sounded completely crazy, but I wanted to try them all!

We decided to orderthe Taste Explosion Roll, which had seasoned natural Angus ground beef, applewood bacon, fresh jalapenos and spicy cream sauce inside of a sushi roll coated with tempura flakes. Each piece is topped with marinated Roma tomato and pepper jack cheese, then baked to perfection and drizzled with cashew cilantro pesto to finish.

The Taste Explosion!

This was such a fun dish - completely unexpected from start to finish.  You eat it like you would a normal sushi roll and then as you bite in there is a blast of the ground meat on the inside that takes the whole dish somewhere new - it was such a great element!  You could actually taste each component of the dish, which can be tough when combing so many things together.

My brother promised us that their milkshakes were not to be missed, so for dessert we split two of them - one banana and one vanilla cake one.  Both were a great way to top of a fantastic meal.

All in all, the next time I go to Charlotte I will absolutely be making a stop at the Cowfish.  I would recommend it to any one heading down to that area in a heartbeat - it's such a fun location with great food.  Better yet, I would suggest they come open a Boston location so I can go even more frequently.  Who knew my two favorites would come together so well!