Price’s BBQ, Gilbert, South Carolina

I rolled out of Carolina BBQ after my third meal of the day, and drove back eastward for an hour to Price’s BBQ at 408 Ervin Price Road outside Gilbert. I actually tried to take the scenic route to give myself more time between meals, but my GPS was obdurate and put me on I-20. Gilbert is a small town up toward Lake Murray, home to 601 souls at last count. Price’s is seven or so miles north of Gilbert in a less crowded area of Lexington County.

Price’s sits up on a small hill in a plain brick building.

Like most of the South Carolina places on this trip, it’s only open Thursday-Saturday, and it features a buffet. Best of all, Price’s cooks big pork shoulders in an honest masonry pit over wood coals. Inside, there’s not much in the way of decoration, but none is needed.

At the start there’s a whiteboard menu, which is a great help in planning how to arrange your plate at a buffet.

Then the buffet:

You walk up, grab a plate, fill it, and find a seat. Your choice of beverage will appear on your table.

Here’s my plate.

You’ll notice right away that I relaxed some of my self-imposed standards by succumbing to the macaroni and cheese, and that I took two slices of streak o’ lean, aka fatback. And that was just the start. You also may not immediately realize that the barbecue is there, hidden at the south end of the hash and rice. You can see, however, that the pork is a fine chop with a mustard sauce.

What the photo doesn’t show is how the flavor of that wood-cooked pork shines through, moist, tender and smoky. The sauce has a bit of a ballpark mustard bite, and it works. The sauce doesn’t upstage or drown the flavor of the meat. This is excellent barbecue.

The hash at first looked a little soupy, but the moisture sinks leaving behind an appealing texture.  The hash had some tang in the flavor, and just a touch of liver, a will o’ the wisp of deeper flavor. I loved it.

I added some fried chicken and again found that what I supposed was a thigh turned out to be a portion of breast. It seems that chicken breasts are so big now that they get cut in half or thirds. The chicken had an excellent crust. The interior wasn’t quite as remarkably moist as at Shuler’s, but it was more moist than usual for white meat — significantly above the average.

The rest of the buffet, the green beans, corn, and macaroni and cheese were just what you expect on a Southern buffet. The macaroni and cheese was the real deal, the kind you find in church suppers, rather than the usual pasta with sauce poured over it.

Those two slices of streak o’ lean were fantastic, just like the one I had at Maurice’s. After I’d cleaned my plate, I decided I deserved just a taste of banana pudding, so I walked over to the dessert array and got just a sample.

That’s some good banana pudding. I thought about getting more, but as it happened on my way to the desserts I’d picked up three more slices of streak o’ lean. I deserved them, too, so I restrained myself and forewent more pudding.

My bill for the buffet, including the extra for the governor, was $13.49. Amazing. I’d have paid that just for the streak o’ lean. Excellent wood-cooked pork, outstanding hash, and other Southern delicacies. Friends, make it a point to go to Price’s BBQ some Thursday-Saturday. You’ll thank me.

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