- Yes.

- Hey, that was easy.

Alright, let's get some ribs.

Oh wait, tomorrow, I'm busy today, sorry.

- Ah (beep).

- American barbecue, arguably the best barbecue.

Brisket, pork shoulder.

- There's lots of cuts of meat.

We're focusing on ribs.

Today on Worth It,

we're going to be trying 3 barbecue rib spots.

At three drastically different price points

to find out which one is the most worth it, at its price.

- Worth it.

- We must be caveat at this with the fact

that we are doing this in Los Angeles.

- Los Angeles has some very good barbecue.

- It does, it's not the South.

Turns out, there's a lot of great barbecue, in Long Beach?

- And if you don't know where Long Beach is,

look on a map (chuckles).

(jazz music)

- [Neil] Hey guys, my name is Neil Strawder,

also known as BigMista,

of BigMista's Barbecue and Sammich Shop.

Barbecue is originally about taking a bad piece of meat

and making something wonderful out of it.

We're doing better quality meat

and creating something amazing.

- How would you define your particular brand of barbecue.

- People assume that because I'm from Texas,

I cook Texas style barbecue.

There is some Texas influence but I've learned

from people all over the country.

It's BigMista style.

I take whole spare ribs, trim them, add our rub on it,

which is called BigMista's Perfect Pork Rub.

- [Steven] Is that a secret rub?

- Yes, you wanna know what the secret is?

Salt.

- (all laughing) Salt.

- And it goes in the smoker for

about three and a half, four hours.

- [Andrew] And what kinda smoke

are you putting in those ribs?

- What we cook on it's called a pellet smoker,

it holds 240 pounds of meat.

We're using pecan and cherry, smoke is an ingredient,

you know, it's like paprika or salt.

It should blend with the other ingredients.

It's temperature goes down,

it'll shoot some of these pellets down into

what's called a little fire pod.

And there's a convection fan that blows the smoke

and the heat down across the meat.

- More traditional barbecuers,

do they shy away from this technology?

- It used to be considered cooking on the dark side.

You know, you have to cut logs

and burn them down into coals.

I don't know about y'all,

but I don't wanna do all that work, I just wanna eat.

We have regular sauce, then we have the spicy sauce.

It'll make your lips tingle but it won't blow your head off.

That cool with you?

- Yeah, I can do spicy 'cause later.

- The spicy does you.

- Yeah.

(Andrew laughs loudly)

- See this off on the side?

Dip it, pour it on top.

What do you think I should do here?

- It's barbecue, just eat it.

- Okay, got it.

- [Andrew] My old friend, Shasta.

- Cheers.

That's not bad.

- I like cream soda.

That was always my favorite as a kid.

This rib looks slightly bigger so I'm gonna take it.

Cheers. (Steven clicks his tongue)

(jazz music)

- Wow, clean off the bone but still holding together.

I love the rub, it has a very satisfying crust

and it's a little bit spicy.

- When I think barbecue, I think ribs, drooling with sauce.

When you have great smoke, this is perfect as it is.

- I've always thought it was kinda like nonsense the way

that dogs chew on bones.

Like what are they doing?

Like why is that fun for you?

But for the first time in my life I'm like.

I kinda know what you mean guys.

(Steven laughs)

- Rib break here for the beans.

Oh my god, this is mine.

- Get off of me.

- This is all mine.

There's a lot of sugar in here.

- There's also a lot of pork in here.

This is like a stew.

You wanna just break that in half, break bread.

(gentle rock music)

Barbecue is the best food, yes.

- I knew you were gonna say that, jinx, double jinx.

You can't talk anymore, I get to eat everything.

I'm going spicy sauce.

You see that? Oh.

Cheers.

(jazz music)

You're gonna need to give me a moment.

I'm gonna, I gotta eat this this way.

- Just censor Steven's face.

- Woo!

(Steven coughs)

- Yes die, leave the food for me.

Oh!

That was the winner.

Stop watching the episode now.

- BigMista threw us a bone.

- In the middle of shooting he revealed

that he had planned a BBQ fact for us.

This is what he said.

- Now I've seen you guys do your thing before.

I want to jump in with this.

Rib Fact!

(all laughing)

- Alright.

- They're generally four types of ribs

that you see in-store.

You're regular spare ribs, the St. Louis cut rib,

your baby backs, and your country-style ribs.

First thing, country-style ribs are not ribs.

They actually come from the pork butt.

Bonus rib fact!

The pork butt is actually not the pork butt.

It is not from the pig's butt,

it's actually from the shoulder.

- I didn't not know that did you know that?

- The pig is a confusing animal.

It's magical but confusing.

- Let's just react to that fact now.

Wow, so those are the (laughs)

(both laughing)

(smooth music)

- My name is Rory Herrmann I'm the executive chef,

here at Barrel and Ashes.

I think the most important thing about barbecue

and you have to remember this is it's slow and low.

We start our fire at about three in the morning.

And we'll let that burn 'til about 4:00 or 4:30

before the ribs will even go in there.

- I'm jealous of your neighbors,

they must be asleep at night somewhere around four

in the morning they start smelling barbecue smoke.

- Today we're using a Duroc rib,

it's a little bit darker of a meat.

Has a little bit more blood in it.

That way if we cook it slow and low,

it contains a lot of moisture.

And we season it very simply with just Kosher salt

and Tellicherry black pepper which we hand grind.

We really want it to taste like the great meat that it is

and the smoke that it is.

We use Red Oak specifically

because it's a little bit denser of a wood.

And we'll cook our ribs for about five hours

at two hundred and twenty degrees.

After that cooking process,

we use a process called crutching it.

We'll wrap and allow them to rest for about an hour.

What that does is allow the moisture

to come back into the rib,

the juices and flavor within it.

And then we have a mop sauce.

It's what we actually brush the ribs

with right before we touch them on the grill.

Which consists of Arkansas city barbecue sauce,

molasses, some chili flakes,

a little bit of mustard and red wine vinegar.

Just to touch on that grill and get a little bit

of tackiness and a little bite to it.

- So how much is the full rack of ribs here?

- 36 dollars, half rack is 19.

Almost everybody that orders the half rack

turns around and goes we're gonna need another half.

(all laughing)

Might as well just order the whole rack to begin with.

- [Steven] Tell me about your drink.

- It's a barrel aged bourbon drink.

You really effed up by always being the driver.

- Somebody's gotta DD. (glass clanging)

Cheers.

- That was so very aggressive.

Shall I carve you a rib?

- Please.

- This is the first time we've had ribs

that are dressed up with a little sauce.

- Cheers.

- Mm.

- That's my winner.

- Oh, this is a much more a really seasoned rib.

And I like that a lot.

- So the slow cooking here,

it's a lot longer than BigMista's.

It definitely pays off, the meat is really loose.

- It's more aggressive smoke flavor.

Personally I kind of like that.

- One of our most famous sides is the Hoe Cake.

It's our version of corn bread made to order.

Take a hot cast iron pan and we pour that batter into it.

Into the wood oven and we hit it with maple honey butter,

malt and salt, and green onions,

a little cracked black pepper.

Comes sizzling at the table and let me tell ya,

you can't miss that with barbecue.

- [Andrew] That's the one, yeah.

- This kinda looks like flan.

- Yeah, it has like a really nice soft texture.

(cello music)

- Oh.

- This is really good.

It's really like a creme brulee cornbread.

- Holy crap and the scallions on top.

In China's Cuisine, there's a scallion pancake.

- Yes.

- This is like that but..

- Cornbread, yeah.

- Dessert version of it.

I think Adam should try this right now while it's hot.

(Andrew and Steven laugh)

- [Andrew] Rib tips.

- Ooh!

Oh!

(Steven groans)

That's like a delicacy.

- Oh god.

I'm having a full body experience with this pork.

- This is making me uncomfortable.

Okay.

- The next location of barbecue is gonna have

to wait until another day. (belches)

Nice.

- Not nice.

(Andrew groans)

- Again, I'm feeling a little uncomfortable

with you making noise, closing your eyes.

I can't be here now, anymore.

That's how you know it's good.

- What do you think human ribs taste like?

- Depends on the human.

What do you think human anything taste like?

- BBQ Fact!

- What do you think the longest barbecue

in terms of time wise for a single person barbecuing.

- 96 hours.

- The answer is 80 hours.

- Oh, I was close.

- You were close.

He cooked 1,000 hot dogs, 200 pieces of corn,

a hundred and four pieces of chicken,

500 burgers and 526 sausages.

- How many ribs do humans have?

- In a rack of pork ribs, you get about 14 I believe.