Get Your Grill On

It’s already April and I’m still making my way through last month’s magazines. The March Men’s Health had a nice little feature with advice from some of Food Network personalities, and I was glad to see Mario Batali included. Two of Mario’s recommendations were familiar mantras from the Molto Mario shows: establish good relationships with your fishmonger and your butcher to ensure getting the best available product.

By sticking with one purveyor, and not trying to simply find the lowest price at different stores, you create a rapport that translates into the freshest items and best cuts being saved for you. Maybe the purveyor will also prepare the meat or fish in a way that isn’t possible for the majority of his customers. Maybe he’ll place a special order for you or let you in on some new product before it’s available to the general public. If you’re a competition cook, having a butcher or meat supplier you can count on is a must. It’s really quite simple: if you’re loyal to him, he’ll be loyal to you.

The concept also translates to barbecue restaurants. Remember on Cheers, how every time Norm Peterson entered the bar, they not only knew his name but cheered it? You can bet Norm got faster service, better bar snacks and a better all around experience than the extras in the background. If you’re a regular, you might not only get cheered like Norm but also get treated better than the norm. You might get served ribs from the batch that just came out of the smoker even though there are still a few racks left from the night before. You might get noticeably bigger portions of the side dishes. Or you might be the first to weigh in on a new creation for an upcoming menu change, free of charge.

Yes, it’s good to be a regular. In the dining out manifesto Turning the Tables, food critic and eGullet founder Steven A. Shaw (a.k.a. “the Fat Guy”) explores the topic for several pages, starting with this:

The best restaurant isn’t the one with the highest Zagat rating, the most stars from the local paper, or the cute celebrity chef. It’s the one where you’re a regular.

Even if you’re not a regular, you can still get treated well just through sheer effort:

• If a combo comes with a quarter chicken, ask for the part that you prefer (white meat or dark meat). Some places charge more for white meat; some don’t care. It can’t hurt to ask. I’m a reformed white meat guy who now swears by the thigh quarter.
• If you’re ordering a combo with a few ribs, ask that the ribs come from the end you prefer (the short end or the long end). Manhattan’s RUB is the only joint I know that actually lists the long end and short end separately on their menu. The long end’s ribs are bigger, but I like that extra meaty last rib from the short end.
• Ask what’s fresh. You may get the “everything’s fresh” answer born from either ignorance or salesmanship, but many of the smaller BBQ joint owners will tell you. One way of doing this is to order “a combo of the ribs and whatever you think is the fresher today between the brisket and the pork.” Say it something like that and you’ll probably get better ribs too.