bbq crawlin’ with bloggers

BBQ Crawling with San Diego bloggers was sure to yield a good time.

Who was in the crawl? Carol of CAB Cooks (fab organizer), CC from Pink Candles of Ridgemont High, Dennis from A Radiused Corner,  Marie (and D.) from Meandering Eats, Leanne (and T.) from Three Dog Kitchen, Kirbie (and FH) from Kirbie’s Cravings and Jake (and I).

In order to not be a broken record, my post will be hopefully short.

Coop’s West Texas BBQ
2625 Lemon Grove Ave., Lemon Grove, CA 91945

Very accommodating for our large group of 11 crawlers!


Pork ribs. Doesn’t come with sauce. But there’s 2 kind of sauces on the table – a slightly sweet one and a slightly spicy one. Pork ribs are not my favorite (I prefer the beef ones) but these ones were good. Good smoke.

Ribs, beans (with pineapple chunks) and collard greens. I actually like these beans, which is saying a lot, since I don’t like beans in general.

The brisket was also pretty darn good. I liked it with the sauce.

Coop himself came out to offer us some of his BBQ Spaghetti on the house. It had a bit of a kick to it and some of their homemade sausage in the mix. Good, but I wouldn’t want it to be my only meal.

General consensus? You should eat here and work your way through their whole menu.

Barnes BBQ
7820 Broadway, Lemon Grove, CA 91945

Not too far from Coops, we headed over to Barnes in the Downtown part of Lemon Grove.

We got bread in sandwich baggies. It amused me for some reason. Stack o’ bread.

The sides: macaroni salad and beans. The beans kind of look like they’re drowning in the sauce. Very, very sweet. The macaroni salad was “eh”.

We again got pork ribs and brisket. Both were drowning in sauce, the complete opposite of Coop’s. I found the sauce to be too sweet for my tastes and would have preferred it on the side. Distinct notes of honey. I quickly discovered the use of the bread: to counteract the super sweet sauce! The ribs were tender but didn’t really have much of a smokey flavor.

General consensus? Curious about the 99 cent menu. Sauce is too sweet.

The Barbecue Pit
920 East Plaza Blvd., National City, CA 91950

Everyone got their own food here. Not that we didn’t like eat other anymore, but that it didn’t seem to lend itself well to it anymore. Was getting full at this point. Jake and I deviated from previous menus here.

Cafeteria-like inside. The fruit jello thing kind of freaked me out.

Jake and I got the Link Plate. I cut the sandwich in half. The link was incredibly dry, even after I put BBQ sauce on it. We also got beans and potato salad. I didn’t care for either of them.

I did get something I liked though, the pecan pie. Only pecans on top though. All goo on the bottom. Still tasty. Good crust.

I don’t remember what the consensus was, but my meager experience and dry links indicate I will probably not go back.

Jake and I didn’t go to the last stop since he had to work that afternoon. We went home and took a nap together.

Kirbie brought these cookies with large chocolate chunks in them. I ate it when we got back to Jake’s before I took my nap. It was tasty!

Dennis also gave everyone a little Japanese toy. This was mine. I love the little cup!

Can’t wait until the next blogger get together!

Read more recaps for a more intense reading experience: CAB’s post, Kirbie’s post, and CC’s first post.


10 thoughts on “bbq crawlin’ with bloggers

  1. Hi Dennis – Thanks for telling me what I got! I would have never known. I do know that I love the tiny pink plate and tiny cup though. 🙂

  2. Just thinking of Coop’s ribs and brisket makes me happy. Looking at photos of Barnes beans makes my teeth hurt. I suppose it’s a style some people enjoy, but it’s too sweet for me!

    Not really a crawl, but Marie mentioned we should all get together for dim sum sometime. Whatcha think?

  3. Hi Mary! I’m so glad you and Jake were able to make it. Love your pictures. I wish I had gotten a slice of pecan pie at BBQ Pit to compare to the one I got at Huffman’s. Maybe I’ll stop in if I’m in the neighborhood but I probably wouldn’t go back there anytime soon. The link sandwich you got does look dry, dryer than the one CC and I shared. Too bad since I thought ours was decent.

    Wait, did someone say dim sum????

    1. Hi Carol – Oh god, our link sandwich was so dry and overcooked. I guess we got the lame ends of the links! The pie was good!

  4. hi mary – great post on all the places we visited! man, that pie at the Barbecue Pit looked pretty good. I may have to try that soon. i just wouldn’t go back for their ribs though. i did like my sausage link sandwich – i didn’t think it was too dry although their sauce wasn’t as good as coop’s. as for barnes, i liked the sauce. but not a lot of it at once. it was overly sweet. i kind of liked how soft their ribs were too. my fave, as with everyone else’s was coop’s! coop is the man!

    1. Hi CC – I think you got the better link at BBQ Pit. Ours sucked. Too bad! Coop’s was good. It’s not too far from Jake’s either so I’m sure we’ll be back to try other stuff. I want beefy ribs!

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