Bandana’s Bar-B-Q

103 Truman Blvd
Crystal City, MO

http://www.bandanasbbq.com/

 

To celebrate Adam’s upcoming birthday* we let him choose a place. I know, it was probably his turn anyhow, but it’s the thought that counts, right? We did tell him there was no pressure to find a new place, he didn’t need to consider the review at all, even if it was a place we’d been to recently. Free choice without pressure or repercussions, that’s the greatest gift of all.

I was a little surprised when he chose Bandana’s but only a little. I knew he liked it, but not that it was at the top of his list.

I had been shopping earlier in the day, mostly finished but a little frustrated. None of the stores I went to had those big cans of popcorn, the ones with three kinds, cheddar, plain and caramel. Granted, I’d only gone to two stores, but for me that’s an ambitious shopping trip.

The evening was simply gorgeous. The setting sun enflamed the few wispy clouds, the temperature was nearly perfect, high fifty’s or low sixty’s. The drive was uneventful and rather quiet. On arrival I was expecting the outdoor loudspeaker to be blasting that awful country music. I was pleased to note they’d turned it down considerably from the hideous shouting level it had been set to on our previous trips. Inside it was pleasantly, barely audible at all.

The Place:

It was only half full, or maybe less. Not bustling, a very relaxed pace. The place was only modestly decorated, felt red stockings hung from above the opening to the kitchen, each with a name written on it, maybe one per crew member. A small tree sat in a corner and that was pretty much it.

A few families were spread around the long aisles, the black-clad crew scurried about clearing tables, sweeping the floor, carrying orders.

We were shown a booth near the back and situated ourselves. The menus were dropped off, drinks ordered (tea, sweet tea and Pepsi) and the server drifted off and left us to consider options.

The birthday boy, and my tea.

Our drinks arrived quickly, we weren’t quite ready to order yet. It took another five minutes or so before we finally decided. After much internal debate, I chose the turkey sandwich and fries. Angel, the chicken and pork plate with ‘fried corn’ and fried okra. Adam went for the beef and chicken plate with fries and coleslaw.

While we waited, in what has become a sort of ritual, Angel pulled out her new-fangled smartphone, checked her Facebook and email, then browsed through some online comics. Adam didn’t. Instead he occupied himself tearing the straw wrappers into tiny little shreds, then rolling the shreds up into tiny little balls.

Angel then showed Adam one of the comic strips, he seemed only slightly amused. “Comics are for old people.” He said, which caused his mother to get all red-faced and defensive. “I didn’t mean old like you, I mean old-old.” He defended himself, though it didn’t really help.

I think he was just trying to get a rise from her. He does that a lot, something he inherited from his mother. She’s always trying to rile me up, pointing out petty infractions and forgetfulness, just trying to ring my buzzer; I don’t take the bait though.

The Food:

Turkey Sandwich, pre-sauce

The food arrived quickly, just as advertised. There are no surprises at Bandana’s, just tasty smoked meats.

The meat is served dry allowing one to sauce it up to individually desired levels. They provide four different sauces at each table, I think there used to be more.  I’d tasted them all before and went with my favorite, Chicago Sweet, and plenty of it. This doesn’t mask the smokiness of the meat, it’s chopped into thick chunks, it merely perfects it. My bun was toasted and buttered, the fries were  just right.

Angel’s fried corn turned out to be corn on the cob, cooked, then grill-fried until most of the individual kernels were a light brown. It was diapered on the plate in what looked like an oblong coffee filter. We debated this, and decided that it might not actually have been a coffee filter since we couldn’t figure out how or why a coffee maker would require an oblong filter. On subsequent research, and playing off a brilliant hunch, I looked up 'restaurant supplies' and ‘hot dog wrappers’ and sure enough, voila! You can see them here.

Fried corn on the cob.

The corn itself was very good. I know this because Angel said it was almost as good as Jeff’s. Jeff is my younger, but bigger brother. He smokes meats himself but unfortunately he lives a couple of hundred miles away in the sprawling metropolis of Cerulean Ky. When he prepares a meal he puts his heart and soul into it. Lots of planning, hand chosen wood, days of preparation. His corn is indeed awesome. For Bandana’s to come even close by comparison is quite a commendation.

Her okra looked just like it tastes, like breaded and deep-fried cow snot.

Adam tried his coleslaw then never touched it again. I asked him about that. “It’s not their fault, I’m just really, really picky about coleslaw.” He responded without further explanation. He is indeed rather picky about certain foods, another unfortunate trait he gets from his mother.

Adam asked me about the tea. “Flat, tasteless, but I knew it would be.”

“Then why did you order it?” he asked as if the answer wasn’t obvious.

“I had to see if they bothered to improve it, they haven’t.”

He doesn’t seem to understand the harsh sacrifices that are required to become a professional, highly rated and respected restaurant critic.

Summary:

The food was, as I’ve said, very good. Adam didn’t like the coleslaw, but even he properly blamed that on flawed genetics rather than a failed effort by Bandana’s. The tab was a bit high, forty six dollars before the tip, but good food is good food, and really good comestibles** are worth a few extra farthings.

After we finished we hopped over to Big Lot’s to see if they had the tins of popcorn. Nope. The next day, on a tip form Angel, I found some at K-Mart. Mission accomplished.

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* Birthday.  Adam’s is the day after mine but we agreed to split the celebrations. He would choose a place to eat, I’d choose a movie to go to. None of these celebrations would actually occur on our actual birthdays. We’ll be going to see “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” on Friday.

**Comestibles. An established author and Facebook friend Nicola Griffith used this word in a post last week. I had to look it up since I’ll admit that there are a still a few (a couple of dozen at most) pretentious English words missing from my otherwise vast arsenal. I thanked her for the generous gift and assured her that I would try to use it in the near future. This almost-superfluous usage was an intentional means of increasing my word power (it pays). As for ‘farthings’, I only need to mention that this same friend is British by birth.

Main Street BBQ

1620 Highway Z

Pevely, Mo.

http://www.bbqonmain.com/

Earlier this year Main Street BBQ in Imperial, Mo. merged with Bobby Tom’s BBQ and moved into its Pevely location.  It’s located just east of the Pevely exit  off interstate 55. A tidy, modern and busy place. I’d heard about it a while back and came across it on the interwebs recently while researching another place. We had our doubts. We are big ‘Bandana’s’ fans and have found few places that compare. On the theory that barbecue, like sex, cheesecake and Glee episodes are even at their worst better than most alternative offerings, we decided to give it a try. 

   We met there, Angel and Adam drove in from home, I from a nearby car dealership where I’d spent the day unloading the Mighty Alero and picking up its reluctant and lackluster replacement.  My mind was still abuzz with interest rates, extended warranties, and family stories from the two very nice sales ladies (one very pregnant with her first child. I LOL'd)  and the lot’s business manager, a very nice, chatty man with several adopted kids and a few rescued dogs. (Yes I gave him one of Angel’s business cards.) Usually I don’t do a lot worth thinking about on Saturday afternoons, but on this busy, anxious day I hadn’t thought much about eating or critiquing, so this review may lack some detail and depth. I’m a single tasker. If my mind’s a-whirring on something it takes a bit of time and effort to shift it into another gear. This isn’t usually a problem really, it just means that I’m generally very, very focused on whatever task may be in front of me. I’ve been known to lose track of time and a few other dimensions as well. People have had entire conversations right in front of me of which I missed completely.  I’ve also missed several of Angel’s hair styles and colorations due to this intense, focused, un-awareness of my surroundings.

Anyway, we met there and stepped in after Angel and Adam gave the new(er) little car a quick glance. It’s the same general shape, color and size as the old one so there really wasn’t much to look at.  We stepped in and found ourselves at the ordering counter. Large boards on the front of the counter listed the offerings, and a pile of glossy, colorful menu sheets were stacked on top of it. I grabbed a couple and we stepped back and pondered.  In pretty short time we stepped up and placed our orders. Angel paid up and we took our plastic tumblers to the tea dispensers, then found ourselves a table in the large seating area. We chatted a bit about the car, the car transaction really, since I rarely do something that big and important without Angel along. She keeps the books for us and is much more in tune with petty little things like budgets, cash on hand, insurance and the name of our bank. It’s a tribute to her really. She does such a good and thorough job with our finances that I simply don’t have to think about them much. I’ve said it before, I won the wife lottery.

The Food:

We sat with our tea, tea and sweet tea.  I was a bit panicked that I didn’t have my trusty little notebook with me.  I ended up making notes on the menu instead, using an ink pen that Angel re-assembled from parts dug out from the distant and dark basement area of her voluminous purse. We didn’t have to wait long, typical of barbecue places almost everything is already cooked before you even get there.

I’d ordered the Main Street Special, a pulled pork sandwich, along with red potato salad and baked beans. Angel’s ½ chicken surprised me, I ‘d assumed (hoped) she'd get the back half of the chicken, that would have been hilarious, instead they’d sliced it lengthwise, so she  ended up with a leg, thigh, wing and breast instead of just its ass-end. For sides she had corn on the cob and coleslaw and they even threw in a couple of half-slices of toast, which had also been cut lengthwise.

Adam’s was called a ‘Bird of Paradise’ sandwich, implying fowl, in his case chicken, though turkey was also available. His was served on a toasted croissant along with bits-o-bacon and cheddar cheese.  It was accompanied by a bag of kettle chips and baked beans. My sandwich was on a hoagie roll and topped with a little slaw and a couple of dill pickle slices. The meat was all sweet and juicy with the house sauce. Angel’s chicken fell off the bone, slow and perfectly cooked. My pork was also tender and smoky, delicious, though the hoagie was a little thicker and heavier than I would have liked.  Adam’s croissant-bun held together nicely and didn’t look near as heavy.

We exchanged slivers of sides and meats and tasted pretty much everything everyone had ordered.

The red potato salad was creamy and piled high. Not too sweet, not too mustard-y, about as good a potato salad as you’ll find anywhere other than by your own gifted hand.  Angel’s coleslaw was light on vinegar and a little sweeter than KFC coleslaw. In her rating system, KFC is the coleslaw gold-standard.  The baked beans were sweet as well, but that’s the way I like them. They were as good as KFC, or ‘Off the Hook’, and much better than most other places. Adam discovered a shard of onion in his and abandoned them, even when I pointed out the many bacon bits. Angel handed him her slaw, the chicken, corn and toast were filling her up.

A young family entered and took the table next to ours. Among them was a young lad about two or three feet tall and however old boys of that height are, maybe three or four. I caught him staring at me so I broke character and acknowledged his existence.  As soon as I did he started rambling on in a slobbery lisp about something completely incomprehensible, but whatever it was , it seemed very exciting and important to him. About all I got out of it were a couple of words which I could not squeeze into a coherent sentence or paragraph. His parents seemed amused at the rambling speech and my dutiful, yet confused attention to it. I decided to repeat back to the tyke, in the form of a question, as much as I thought I understood. “So you ate your horsey?”

He laughed for a mere second, then looked frightened and turned away, I think I made him cry. This is never my intent but it is the most common result of my interactions with children, bank on it, most often someone’s gonna scream or cry.

I only finished half my sandwich since the high stress of a major financial transaction and the separation anxiety that accompanies the abandoning of a well-used vehicle tends to shrink up my belly. I knew they had boxes though. I was the only one that needed one.  Angel’s former chicken half was bare bones, Adam’s croissant-ed sandwich a mere memory.

Summary:

The bill came to only twenty seven bucks and change, this similarity and subsequent comparisons to Bandana’s were natural. We debated it for a while, Adam couldn’t decide which was better, so that should tell you something. Angel commented that Main Street’s meats were moister than Bandana’s, I agreed. The pork at B’s is certainly smoky, tender and tasty, but it is served dry and must be lubed up with a considerable amount of sauce to make it swallow-able after the first few bites.  Main Street’s default sauce is at least as good as any of Bandana’s varieties, the sides were basically the same in both places. So which one is better? I’d have to say neither. They are a bit different, but they are both very, very good.  If you like barbecue and live in or around Jefferson County, stop in and certainly give Main Street a try, you won’t be disappointed.

I didn’t take any poor-quality photos this trip, Main Street’s web site has several good ones though: http://www.bbqonmain.com/photos.html

Bandana’s

Festus, MO

Why We Went Back:
We were planning to go to Pevely to try out Hillbilly’s, a place that had been recommended by a fan. However Angel did not feel qualified to try out a new place this weekend, she’d suffered an incident and was afraid that it would cloud her reasoning abilities.
I had been outside shoveling the driveway, again. Saturday morning arrived with four brand new inches of the stuff. I had given up on clearing the entire driveway after the icing we got earlier in the week. All I was trying to do at this point was to clear the uppermost point of the driveway. I’d been parking my car up there since Monday anyhow. I moved (at a crawl) Angel’s 4WD Trailblazer up there Saturday morning once I’d cleared enough to make room for the big beast. Coming indoors after noon I found Angel sitting on the couch holding a hand over one eye. She pulled it away revealing swelling and redness. “That looks like it hurts.” I consoled her.
“It does.” She replied.
I didn’t ask what happened, Angel has a history of unusual accidents. It was enough for me to know that she’d injured her eye without needling her about the details. She explained anyhow.“It’s a paper cut.” She started.
I just looked at her. She eventually continued.
“I was pulling a paper off the shelf above the desk. It was under a pile of stuff.”
At this point I was suppressing a sympathetic giggle.
She went on. “It was stuck, so I yanked on it and it did a whiplash sort of thing right into my eye.”
Angel is no more accident prone than anyone else, it’s just that her accidents are typically more comical. This leads to embarrassing trips to the Urgent Care Center and having to explain about the coconut, the curling iron, and now, the paper cut to the eye. So she was not feeling up to trying a new place, so we agreed on a family favorite, Bandana’s.
The Place:
Like everywhere else in the region, stuck between high, dirty and slowly dissolving parking-lot snow banks. The lot was only half full. The country music blared from that same, awful outdoor bullhorn-ish speaker. The music is about the only thing about this place I would change. Some people actually like country music, so I hear, so I suppose it’s appreciated by someone.
The staff’s uniform is jeans and black logoed tee shirts, all the workers in the front are young and female. We were taken to a booth in the back and introduced to our waitress. She was tall, surprisingly tall. She was also slender, surprisingly slender. I would guess she was nearly six feet, and perhaps eighty pounds dripping wet. She was very nice and professional though, I’m certainly not one to speak ill of the freakishly tall and slender. I imagine being that way, like being any other way, has its advantages and disadvantages. She handed us menus, took our drink requests, turned sideways and disappeared.(just kidding)
The booth was in a corner, and seemed to be designed for a taller person. In order to hover over my unremarkable tea, I had to scoot up to the edge of the big seat. It felt kind of like something designed for Peewee’s Playhouse.
The table had the requisite iron pipe and lumber paper towel holder. Next to that was a six-holed beer carton which held the six house sauces, cute.
The Food:
I thought I wanted a sandwich. I’d eaten a decent lunch as I was bulking up for a day of manual labor, so I didn’t need a lot of food. So a sandwich would be about right. Then I remembered the Texas Toast. If you order a sandwich, you don’t get the two chunks of the absolute best Texas toast in the hemisphere. So I changed my mind. They have several combinations of dinners, you just choose your two or three meat choices, add a couple of sides, and you’ve got a meal. I selected pulled pork and turkey with fries and coleslaw.Angel asked for the ribs and turkey with green beans and potato salad. Adam went for Turkey, beef, fries and corn.
The drinks were delivered, Angel continued to cup her swollen eye, Adam needled her about how she could possibly get a paper cut there. To him, her story simply didn’t seem to hold up. I didn’t question it any further, if what she described was not what actually happened then the real story must be really bizarre and embarrassing.
The food arrived. The first thing I did was try the coleslaw. It had been several weeks since I’d had decent slaw and I was curious as to whether the technology to make a decent batch had somehow been lost to mankind. It was smooth, sweet and creamy with a hint of a bite. Perfect. My faith in mankind had been restored. Next was the toast, two fist-sized chunks, buttery and tanned to a delightful crunch. The fries were good, the meat was awesome. They smoke their own meats, all of them, for several hours. They apply only a dry rub on them during the slow cooking process and the lengthy method really pays off. The meat is tender, smoky, and delicious. Among the six table sauces I chose my favorite, Chicago Sweet. I glopped a lot of it on the turkey, not so much on the pork. I could tell from the start that I’d be taking much of it home for a really, really good Sunday sandwich.
Angel tore through her ribs like Fred Flintstone. She loved the glazing and didn’t mind the work of digging every edible morsel from the bones. Adam’s food disappeared quite quickly. Between the fries and the bread I was filling up fast. I decided that this was okay, I’d eat the stuff that doesn’t travel/reheat so well, and get a box for the meat. There was enough left for a couple of average sized sandwiches. Reheated with some onion and bell pepper Sunday’s sandwiches would be superb.
Our tall, rail thin sliver of a waitress appeared a couple of times to refill our drinks in a timely manner and to ask if we wanted fried donut holes. We declined and asked for a couple of boxes. Angel wadded up the twelve or so sticky paper towels she had used as face and finger mops, and we left.
Summary:
The bill came in at around fifty bucks, more than the little diners we frequent, but not near as much as a chain. The payoff is fantastic food and plenty of it. The next time we go I’ll probably pass on the fries and get potato salad or baked beans instead, that way I’ll have more room for the meat. The service was exceptional, prompt, efficient and not overly fussy. Except for the music the atmosphere was relaxed and comfortable.
Epilogue:
By Sunday morning Angel’s eye was puffy and swollen. I drove her to the urgent care where we found out that she had indeed scratched her eyeball. Not too seriously though, she was given prescriptions for eye drops and something else, certainly nothing to cheer her up. She spent the day with a warm compress, not whining too much. Out of sympathy every time I talked to her I closed one eye and crinkled up my face. I advised Adam to do the same. Nothing makes a person in misery feel better than making fun of them.

Bandana’s Bar-B-Q III, or IV

Festus MO

Adam’s choice, lunchtime Saturday. He had class in the morning then work a little later, so we met him in between. As before the place smelled delightful, meat smokers were un-polluting the city air. The lousy, cheap outdoor speakers were blasting country music, which would normally drive me away immediately, but Angel and Adam had their hearts set, so I sucked it up like a proper family man and just silently cursed to myself.

As we approached the door, the very moment I was in direct line with the awful racket-maker, an obnoxious hook-line in the song etched itself into my brain and would not go away. The words were burnt into my frontal lobe as if scorched in with a fat soldering iron from a 60’s era wood burning set.

“Like a tumbleweed in a tilt-a-whirl”*

I kid you not.

I didn’t catch any of the rest of the words, so I wasn’t quite sure what the other half of the analogy was, I was too busy trying to scrape the awful noise out of my head. But it stayed. The so-called song was still playing as we were shown to our booth.

We ordered our drinks, tea, tea and Coke.

The problem I had with this lyric was that while I certainly appreciate a good, well constructed and image-producing analogy, I just could not figure out how ‘like a tumbleweed in a tilt-a-whirl’ was a definitive analog of anything other than an actual tumbleweed in a tilt-a-whirl.

I knew immediately that a tilt-a-whirl was a carnival ride, though I was having trouble remembering specifically which ride it was, probably not the teacups or the spinning, bouncing horses. I confess to not being a carnival aficionado, so the analogy kind of broke down right from the start.

An analogy should, by definition clarify something in a timely manner. For example:

“When my sister yells at me it sounds like a cat in a garbage disposal.”

You don’t know my sister but the picture I’ve painted using this simple analogy gives you an accurate, universally understood indication of what she really sounds like.

“I was sweating like a greased kumquat on Arbor day.” This one does you no real good. It makes you think too hard. “I think I know what a kumquat is, maybe. I don’t know how much liquid one excretes when greased, and I can’t really remember when Arbor Day is, or what impact that would have on the amount of moisture excreted by the vegetable, or is it a fruit?”

It’s catchy, colloquial and cute, but it doesn’t really add any usable information to the conversation. Analogies need to be based on certain commonality. The listener needs to know/understand/recognize the things that you are describing.

I saw a tumbleweed once, in person. I was living in Texas at the time and sure enough, just like on “Gunsmoke”,** there went a tumbleweed rolling down the hot, dusty path toward the corral (parking lot). It was a scrawny thing, smaller, sparser than those on TV.

As it turns out tumbleweed is not native to the U.S. It, like macaroni, fireworks, lead-based toys and poison baby formula are originally from Asia, having spread to the U.S. in shipments of agricultural seeds from Asian countries, probably the communist ones. Tumbling tumbleweeds have been disappearing in the arid southwest, their function having been replaced by the more durable and ubiquitous, plastic shopping bag.***

A tumbleweed weighs about as much as helium, and therefore just goes wherever the winds blow it. I can’t for the life of me imagine how it would behave in a twisting, torquing carnival ride. So there, Mr. Twangy Country Music man, your stupid analogy is a dismal failure!

Just another reason country music should be completely eliminated from society.

The Place:

I’ve described it before, friendly, black tee-shirted staff, ample room for booths and tables, a little barn-sh looking with large tin wash basins as lampshades and iron pipes and fittings to hold the necessary paper towel roll. One napkin is never enough here.

The one downside is the music. I suppose it’s okay if you like twangy intellectually-insulting, three-note, two-beat music, but those of us with superior tastes find it unpleasantly distracting, like a wasp in a urinal. (See what a GOOD colloquial analogy can do?)

The Food.

I knew what I was going to order before we even got there. Pulled pork sandwich and fries; I added a side of baked beans. Angel went for a lunch special, a quarter of a chicken with green beans and potato salad. Adam once again ordered the spicy ‘Wet Bandana’ sandwich (chicken + turkey) and fries on the side.

None of this was new, we’ve been to Bandana’s before, a few times, and have found nothing disappointing. The meat is always awesome, they have a wide variety of sauces, and the sides like the beans and the potato salad are made in-house and are all church-picnic awesome.

The meals were served in baskets lined with country-looking paper, my sandwich and fries in one basket, a small bowl of beans in another, yeah, they served me beans, in a bowl, in a basket.

Since Angel had a plate rather than a sandwich, she got two slabs of Texas Toast, the best Texas Toast in the region. Adam and I stared her down and made guttural growling noises like pit bulls in front of a raw steak. In fear for her own life and limbs she tore one of the slabs in two and tossed them cautiously at us. Smart move.

I poured about a cup of the Chicago style sauce on my sandwich, I like it the best since it tastes just like Chicago. The pork was chunky, a little on the dry side as smoked meat is prone to be, so generous portions of sauce were called for. This did not diminish the experience at all. We all ate fast and well. Adam started to succumb to the spiciness after a while, he boxed up the last quarter of his sandwich. My plate (basket) was empty and Angel had reduced her slab of chicken to bare bone and gristle. We refused dessert, for reasons that escape me now. Oh yeah, we were full.

Summary:

There was never a doubt that this would be an awesome lunch. We’ve never been disappointed at Bandana’s. They do meat just right and don’t cut corners with the sides. The meal came in at just over thirty two dollars, just a little higher than a fast-food place, but the difference in atmosphere (except for the hideous music) and food quality was more than worth it. The wait staff was attentive and friendly, even the manager came out and greeted us, asking if he could bring us anything else. I thought for a moment about answering “Why yes, good sir, we’d like a pony!” But in the end I spared the poor man a savage slash from my rapier wit.

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* “Heart Over Head, Over Heels” by Clay Walker. For those of you that just HAVE to know. Listen at your own peril, you’ve been warned.

** Gunsmoke: This is a deliberate shout-out to my good friend Dave M. in Maryland. He’s never lived west of the Blue Ridge Mountains as far as I recall and can be a little east-coast/tidewater snobbish. He writes occasionally to shamelessly mock the fine town of ‘Festus’ equating it to the lovable but quaintly illiterate character (played by the late Ken Curtis) by that name in the old TV series. That character is, I think, how Dave imagines all of us out here to be.

*** Tumbleweed/shopping bag: I made this up.

Bandana's again... sort of.

We take a HUGE aside this week. We had planned to dine at the Texas Roadhouse in Arnold. As we arrived a little past five P.M on Saturday we immediately realized there was going to be a problem. The parking lot was completely packed on all four sides, and there was not only a line at the door, there were two lines at the door, one going down each direction of the sidewalk.
Another thing we noticed, many but not all of the folks in line were in suits and nice dresses, which I thought was odd for a steak house. Actually we didn’t really notice it so much there until we decided to skip the Roadhouse and just pop in to the nearby Super Chinese Buffet. Which was also crowded, a long line poured outside, and once again many, but not all of the patrons were better dressed than one usually sees at such venues.
We started driving around the area and came across a place we hadn’t heard of, 54th Avenue Grill and Bar. It looked big and decent, so we pulled in and found yet another packed house with a long line. Once again, several nicely dressed people. The same was observed at a nearby Applebee’s as we drove past it.
It was near six PM by then and we were starting to get frustrated and hungry. So we extended our search down the road a mile or two and pulled in to the half-full Bandana’s Barbeque.
We’ve already reviewed Bandana’s, the one in Herculaneum, so it does not seem right to re-hash that which has already been discussed.
This location looked exactly like the other, the aroma was wonderful and the food quite good. The only recognizable difference in quality was the long wait times between ordering and delivery of the meals. I attributed this to the fact that shortly after arrival the place started filling up with people, many dressed rather nicely. By the time we were done the waiting line was about twenty people deep. The wait staff and management were scurrying about trying to keep up with demand.
The three of us switched up on our orders. I had my notebook with me and found the notes from the original trip to Bandana’s and (yes I carry a small notebook and write in it as we dine. No one has questioned it yet.) was able to recount what each of us had before.
I opted for pork and turkey with a baked potato and baked beans, Angel went for beef and pork, and Adam took on the chicken and the turkey. Adam went for fries and Angel the baked potato, both asked for the corn. And oh yeah, Pepsi, Diet Pepsi and tea. (Ho-hum)
Since we were hungry we ordered an appetizer, something different and something none of us had ever tried; boiled peanuts.
That’s right folks, goober peas.

Sitting by the roadside on a summer's day
Chatting with my mess-mates, passing time away
Lying in the shadows underneath the trees
Goodness, how delicious, eating goober peas.
(Chorus2x)
Peas, peas, peas, peas
Eating goober peas
Goodness, how delicious,
Eating goober peas.

(As I recall it was to the tune of the old Hymn 'Bringing in the Sheaves')

A celebrated old southern folk song, quite popular around the time of the Civil War, or as many of my southern brethren still refer to it, “The War of Northern Aggression.”
I first heard this song in a multimedia presentation* at the visitors center at Ft. Donelson National Battlefield in northwest Tennessee**, not too far from my birthplace and hometown in Kentucky. It was a school trip I’m pretty sure, though I don’t recall what grade I was in at the time. I recall paying attention to the presentation, so I was certainly younger than twelve. (From the age of twelve on I was singularly obsessed with girls and paid little attention to trivial historical matters.)
Anyway, though I heard the song and it stuck in my head I had no earthly idea what a goober pea was. We in Kentucky are considered by many as southerners, but we are at the northern tip of the south and not all deep-south traditions traveled up quite that far. Nor did very many nearby farms grow very many peanuts. Most peanuts I had as a youth were roasted, salted, shelled, professionally packaged, and could be bought for five cents per bag. (Half those would get poured into a fresh, ice cold bottle of RC Cola, or maybe a NuGrape, yummy!)
I like Peanuts, all three of us do. Angel brings home a few bags of the unshelled variety each trip to the market and they are a very common snack around our house. Angel also insists that they are quite messy when Adam and I have them, though I can’t say that I’ve ever noticed that.
We also usually have peanut butter in the house. I like it crunchy-style on off-brand round Ritz-like crackers. (I’m also kind of cheap) If Angel brings home the RIGHT graham crackers (no cinnamon thank you) I really, really like it on those. I like it so much that I’ve asked Angel to NOT bring home the non-cinnamon style of graham crackers because of my limited willpower.
We also like peanut oil, and would use it more often if it didn’t sell for OPEC – like prices. Deep frying anything in peanut oil is far better than canola or corn oil.
So why NOT try boiled peanuts?
They were served hot, very hot, as they should be. My research has turned up that properly prepared, small raw, preferably green peanuts are boiled in the shell for several hours in a heavy salt brine. This softens both the shell and the peas themselves. Additionally this process draws antioxidants from the shell into the pea making it nutritionally superior to other forms of preparation. Once served the shells peel right away with virtually no effort. The peas (peanuts are not nuts, they are legumes) are very, very soft which makes this method favorable to people with significant dental issues such as many of those that populated the deep south in the late nineteenth century.
Seven hours of boiling a green peanut gives you a pea that is nearly as tender as its boiled pea/bean cousins.

So there they were a large bowl of steamy, soggy peanuts. Angel tried one, Adam tried one. They didn’t say anything. I was timid about it and also preoccupied at not staring at the family of little people two tables down. (They were talking about their pet Rottweiler.)
I finally did try one.
The shell fell away very easily, the peas crumbled. The shell had the consistency of intestines; warm, slightly slimy, unappetizing. I scraped the pea bits out and certainly tasted the brine, but not much else. Maybe it was a dud, I thought and I tried another.
In my mouth the pea broke down further, but not completely. It was gritty like a chicken gizzard or coarse corn meal. The taste was brine, not peanut. I didn’t hate the taste; I just could not discern it completely. The texture was wholly off-putting though. I did try a third one and the results were exactly the same. Angel and Adam tried a couple more apiece, but then that was it. The rest of the mushy, tepid peanuts just sat. The final verdict was Angel’s statement “At least we tried them.” This is about as damning a gastronomic obituary as Angel would ever put on a food item that she herself had suggested.
The main courses finally arrived and we gorged ourselves with the meat, the sides and of course the best Texas toast this side of Wichita Falls.*** We did note that the beef tended to be on the dry side but the five sauces that were provided overcame that.
We were stuffed but anticipating future desires so we ordered dessert, to go. Angel and Adam split a batch of donut holes, I asked for and was pleasantly surprised to find out that unlike our experience a few weeks ago (it was in my notes), THIS Bandana’s indeed served apple pie. In fact the waitress mentioned that they had recently dropped all other pie choices. (Perhaps because of my scathing online rebuke?)****
I never did find out why so many people were so dressed up on Saturday evening in Arnold. Maybe some of my local fans can shed some light? A Lent thing perhaps? A festival of some sort?
We’ll get back on track this coming weekend. We’ve now established a policy of having at least one backup place in mind so we don’t get shut out like this again. And unless this hordes-of-dressed-up-people mystery is solved, we may just avoid Arnold altogether.




* Multimedia Presentation, circa late 1960’s. A filmstrip automatically advanced by hidden tones on a narration/music playback soundtrack. I can explain it in great technical detail as I am college educated in audio/visual techniques of that period. For that matter I am also certified to teach vacuum tube theory. Man I’m old.

** Ft. Donnelson. Now that I think about it might have been at Wilson’s Creek Battlefield in Springfield MO, some twenty years later. Help me out fans, does anyone else recall hearing this song played at either of those places?

*** Wichita Falls Texas is home to Sheppard Air Force Base, where I first learned vacuum tube theory and subsequently taught it. See how it all ties together?

**** Apple pie rebuke. You’ll have to open up the original Bandana’s review. I could copy/paste it here for you, but frankly I do, and I do, and I do for you people and what do I get in return? Nada… so open it yourselves… you could probably use the exercise anyhow.

***** Why is it that ‘shelled’ peanuts have no shells but ‘unshelled’ peanuts do? Is someone deliberately making our language more complicated than necessary? It’s like dressing a chicken means to take away it’s feathers, which is certainly more like un-dressing it… Who’s in charge of this stuff?