Roadfood_ Revised Edition - Jane Stern [100]
Blackberry pie is the go-to dessert. It is dark purple and winey, with a rugged berry texture. The crust could have been flakier, but the filling was first rate.
S&B Bakery
720 E. Main St.
304–986–3247
Mannington, WV
L Tues–Sat | $
While the S&B bakery is open from 7:00 A.M. to 4:30 P.M., lunch is served at the handful of tables only midday, starting at 11:00. We arrived too early to sample the hoagies (made on S&B buns), hot dogs and sloppy joes, but even at 10:00 A.M. there were pepperoni rolls ready to eat. At lunch you can have one toasted and topped with sauce and peppers, but we were thrilled to pluck a couple off the shelf and eat them unheated. They were only hours out of the oven, so there remained a faint residue of warmth about them. What a joy to eat!
This is one of the best pepperoni rolls you will find in north-central West Virginia, where every bakery and most grocery stores make their own. The sticks of pepperoni are firm and mighty zesty, the tunnel of bread that completely envelops them is soft and fluffy and slightly sweet: a terrific contrast. Our cold one also contained cheese (an option), and while we no doubt would have liked it even better if the cheese had been molten and the pepperoni sticks hot enough to be weeping piggy moisture into the tender white bread around them, we hit the road whistling a happy tune as we ate them off the dashboard of our car.
By the way, on Fridays, S&B makes pizza.
Stewart’s Original Hot Dogs
2445 Fifth Ave.
304–529–3647
Huntington, WV
LD | $
Like passionate eaters in almost every other place in the United States, West Virginians believe their hot dogs are the best. The place to test that claim is Stewart’s, a curb-service drive-in since 1932. The formula includes local Logan hot dogs and Heiner’s buns and, most important, all the trimmings: onions, mustard, and—drum roll, please—Stewart’s secret-recipe chili sauce. The sauce is thick and pasty, not too hot. The basic configuration—in which the dog is set on top of its trimmings and presented wrapped in a paper napkin—will set you back all of $1.14. Most West Virginia hot dog connoisseurs will tell you that the picture is not complete unless you also get coleslaw as part of the trimming constellation; Stewart’s is creamy and smooth.
To drink, nearly everybody swills renowned Stewart’s root beer, available in quantities that range from a four-ounce mug for kids to a thirty-two-ounce drink to a gallon jug. Or you can enjoy it as the basis of an ice cream float.
Note: there are four other Stewart’s locations in the Huntington area: First St. and Adams Ave. in West Huntington; in the Huntington Mall; 1025 Oak St. in Kenova; and 205 Towne Center Dr. in Ashland.
Alabama
Bob Sykes Bar B-Q
1724 9th Ave.
205–426–1400
Bessemer, AL
LD | $$
Bob Sykes opened in 1957 as a hamburger stand. Bob soon built a pit and started cooking barbecue. At one time there were fourteen Bob Sykes barbecues in northern Alabama, but in 1977 the Sykes family decided to concentrate on one location only and moved into Bessemer, southwest of Birmingham. For the last thirty years, this smokehouse, now run by Van Sykes, has been a smoke signal of good eats.
Cooked over slow-smoldering hickory wood, the pork is finely chopped and succulent; ribs are beautiful burnished mahogany with great hefty ribbons of meat around each bone; chopped beef is particularly flavorful. “Big Bob” dinner plates include your barbecued meat of choice with baked beans, coleslaw, and French fries or potato salad, plus rolls. There is even