Adam & Eats: Ralph’s Pink Flamingo

Editor’s note: Adam Brandt is a graduate from the Cobra Kai School of Culinary Callousness, where he received their highest award, the Red Apron of Merciless Eating. Aside from eating and talking about eating, he makes pots, paintings, prints, books, photographs, and generally, a big mess. He has been the studio assistant at Mudpuppy Pottery for almost nine years and is attending a local university in a desperate attempt to earn a biology degree.

After last week’s unfulfilling pulled pork sandwich rendezvous, I was left feeling quite distraught, and, well, hungry. I was about to give up on my quest, and eat a whole pot of lil’ smokies in KC Masterpiece, when I decided to check my email in the hopes that some brave knight in smoky armor would come to the rescue.

My knight’s name just so happened to be Ralph Taylor. Ralph, as in Ralph’s Pink Flamingo BBQ, emailed me and invited me to come and eat a pulled pork sandwich. Let me tell you, anybody who emails a food critic and invites the guy to come eat at his restaurant has got balls. Big ones, made of some sort of stone. Now, I know that Peter has written about Ralph’s in the past, and I don’t normally like to recover old territory, but drastic hunger calls for drastic measures.

So, what’s a guy to do? I had to accept the challenge. As soon as I walked into Ralph’s Pink Flamingo BBQ and out of the much-needed rain, the smell of barbeque enveloped me and I knew this was going to end well for me. The décor of Ralph’s PFB is a hoot. It is bright and energetic and strangely comforting. Plus, the music playing in the background rocks. I could have done without the Jimmy Buffett, but I won’t quibble over musical details.

As you walk into the restaurant, you will begin to follow the signs leading you to meaty goodness, and you will walk past a wall of awards for various cook-offs. If that doesn’t tell you something about the food you are about to eat, then I don’t what will. I also enjoyed the cafeteria style ordering process that Ralph’s has. It makes me wish I could go back to High School if only school food was like this.

Anyway, I could talk forever about how cooky the décor is, and about how friendly and helpful the staff is, but I think it is time to get to the meat of the matter, literally.

To say that Ralph’s has a friggin’ amazing pulled pork sandwich, would be the understatement of the year. Not only did it temporarily quell my jonesing for a pulled pork sandwich, but it made me, well, happy. The rich, complex, succulent flavor of the pork, the subtle heat of the sauce, all of it, made me happy. Like little kid happy. My face and hands were covered with food, and I didn’t have another care in the world. It was just me and my sandwich.

It was right after my newly found nirvana set in that I had a real revelation. With my sandwich, I got a side (Carolyn’s Cheesy Potatoes and the potato salad are the bee’s knees!) and a piece of Ralph’s Famous Smoked Sausage. This is when I discovered what a smoked sausage should taste like. Everyone knows what a smoked sausage looks and tastes like. We have been eating them for years. We buy the vacu-sealed package from the grocery store, the one that looks like a Rottweiler’s lawn cigar (and it doesn’t taste much better), and we eat it with mac-n-cheese when we are growing up.

When I bit into the sausage at Ralph’s, it dawned on me that this sausage was actually smoked, and it tasted like it had been smoked. It was truly heavenly. It is called a smoked sausage for a reason. And, to me, that reason is named Ralph.

So, if you are hungry and you want to eat the best friggin’ smoked sausage of your life (and possibly the best pulled pork sandwich of your life) go to Ralph’s. I may not be a Parrot Head, but I can say that, without a doubt, I am definitely a Flamingo Head.

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When he’s not beating his eggs, Adam makes time to respond to e-mails that get past his hard-ass spam filter. You can try to reach him at [email protected]

Adam also has this thing called Sandwich Control.