Eater’s Digest by Ron Beigel
Eldorado Southern BBQ
Pulling Pork in Port Jefferson

When it comes to good BBQ, Long Islanders are generally Q-less.  Sure, we have a few rib joints, and the big chains are always there when you want your baby back, baby back, baby backs. But mention barbecue to your neighbor, and you’ll probably end up in a discussion about that heavy, black-waste-of-space-on-wheels in the backyard.
Have no fear BBQ lovers:  Eldorado Southern BBQ is here to save the day.  At least if you’re not a real pig.

In a free Standing Building in Port Jefferson Station, the same crew the same crew who gave us the Laguna Grille in Woodbury has created a Northerner’s fantasy of what a roadside barbecue joint in the South should look like.  A big Esso gas sign hangs over the dining room and an old wall-sized sign of Schenley’s Whiskey towers over the barroom area.  Wood planks made to look like they were stripped of the side of a barbecue pit form a partition between both areas.  Old soda bottle caps cover tabletops in the bathroom, and neon pig butts and faces hang in the windows. Cans of yams line shelves and blues plays through the speakers, inside and out. The décor screams beef and sauce.

The party at the next table wearing suspenders over their T-shirts looks like they know what barbecue is all about. They're here for that smoky beef and pork that's slow cooked all day and is as commonplace in the South as, well, suspenders over T-shirts. Those of you used to baby back ribs will think the St. Louis Ribs ($15.65) here are everything but fall-off-the-bone. The bones, aided by a peppery sauce, hold the meat close by, but the meat is tender.

The Memphis Pulled Pork Sandwich ($8.95), the benchmark by which all barbecue should be measured, is served on a kaiser roll. The sauce is not the vinegary kind, but tomato-based, and will soak the roll in no time, so grab on and hold tight. The sauce doesn't overpower the meat, just the roll. I suggest that you leave the roll and take the platter ($11.65).

The revelation at Eldorado for me is the Bar-B-Qued Beef Brisket. It's outrageously good. Too often, I take a pass when barbequed beef brisket is served in too thick slabs. But here the meat is sliced paper-thin. It looks like rashers of bacon and has just enough peppery sauce, making this my new favorite.  Have it on a roll with lightly fried onion strips ($8.95) or as the platter called Jimmy's Low and Slow Beef Brisket ($11.65). This is what grandma would have done to pot roast if she had been born in South Carolina instead of South Huntington. There's also fried catfish, pulled, fried, blackened or Buffalo chicken and fajitas, burritos and garlic shrimp. And don't miss the BBQ Rib Smakers ($6.95) for a starter.

Maybe one day BBQ places will as ubiquitous on Long Island as all our Chinese buffets. But until then, if you want to change your neighbor's mind about barbeque, you can buy just about anything on the menu by the tray, quart or pound, and have a backyard barbeque without burning all the hair off your arm for a change.