North Carolina Piedmont Tour de Barbecue: Speedy’s Barbecue of Lexington, Lexington

Speedy’s Barbecue of Lexington is 0.3 miles from Smiley’s, a two-minute drive.  I was thinking of Speedy Lohr’s of Arcadia, NC, which cooks with wood, when I saw the sign.  So I stopped in to check their barbecue.  It looked promising.

It was busy inside.  It was a nice-looking, comfortable place.  They had a pig that they had commissioned, sort of like the donkeys and elephants in DC and the, what, cows in Chicago?  I saw several of these pigs around Lexington.

Some pig.

Since I had eaten  supper approximately four minutes before, allowing for one minute to walk out of Smiley’s and another to walk into Speedy’s, I decided just to have a sandwich to go.   And some extra dip.  I left and went to eat it on the trunk of Blue, our car.

First I took a look.  Lots of meat.  A good mix of inside and outside meat.  A generous portion of meat, especially for $3.75.  So far, so good.

I took a bite.  It tasted good, but there was no smoke flavor at all.  I had the wrong Speedy’s.  Speedy’s of Lexington cooks over electricity, not wood.  There was no smoke taste.  There was, however, a good slow-cooked pork with vinegar and pepper taste, and a  good slow-cooked pork with vinegar and pepper taste is a pearl of great price.  Compared to pork cooked over wood — especially when that wood contains hickory — it was a big disappointment.

Without wood, Speedy’s just can’t measure up to the high standards of Lexington.