Holy Smokez

I’ve got to write this one quick, before I fall asleep.

“But Leo,” you might ask, “it’s the middle of the day and clearly you’re at the office working for that fine publication, Spirit of the City. How can you be sleepy?”

Because, dear reader, if you’d eaten the sandwich I just had for lunch, you’d be fighting off the Sandman too.

You may have noticed that Mother Nature hates us today, with a mid-April afternoon high of 0°C and SNOW. So I needed something summery to counteract this nastiness, and I thought “barbecue.” (Eh, that rationale is as good as any, I figure.) I’d heard of Holy Smokez through other media channels that shall remain nameless, and it’s only about a 10-minute drive away from the office, so what the hell.

Holy Smokez is located on Dundas a bit east of Tomken. Owners Rick and Robin have had it for about a year and a half. Everything is slow-cooked (18 hours for the brisket) and they make their own barbecue sauce. And that’s some good sauce: sweet and smoky, but it doesn’t punch you in the gut with smoke. It’s on the sweeter and tangier side.

The place is tiny; like, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it tiny, so keep an eye out. It’s clean and well maintained, but more to the point, it’s well ventilated. I’ve been to other barbecue places and while their food was tasty, they could sometimes be a bit smoky inside. This place has none of that. The walls are adorned with awards and write-ups all praising the food; I was about to find out why.

I ordered the pork ’n’ slaw, which, if we’re being honest, is really the only way to have a pulled pork sandwich. This thing was HUGE. It was packed with meat, well sauced, and the balance of slaw to pork was good. It wasn’t a creamy slaw, either; it was tart and light, but flavourful, and most importantly, it didn’t overpower the other flavours. The star of the show was the meat and sauce, and the slaw did what it was supposed to do: complement it. The bun was big enough and strong enough that the various sauces and juices didn’t destroy it; it held fast right to the end. Most of those juices ended up on my left hand. How I suffer for my art.

On the side: corn bread. Oh boy, the corn bread. It’s fresh-baked to order, so it arrived warm and sweet and… is that… jalapeño? I wasn’t expecting that, but thankfully it appears in tiny amounts here and there in the bread. It plays the same role as the slaw in the sandwich. I brought some back for a colleague, and she practically swooned over it.

I devoured that sandwich like Jabba eating a frog-thing. Like Cthulhu consuming humanity. Like a hungry guy eating a sandwich. (OK, I didn’t try on that last one.) Maybe because I hadn’t eaten since breakfast (six hours ago), or maybe because it was just that good, I don’t know; it’s probably a little of column A and a little of column B. The restaurant could’ve burned down and I wouldn’t have noticed, I was that engrossed in the meal.

When I go back—because oh yes, I’m going back—I’ll try the cheese steak sandwich, on Rick’s recommendation.

Folks, if you love barbecue, do yourselves a favour and head over to Holy Smokez. And bring a pillow.

Holy Smokez
1133 Dundas St. E., Unit #2
647-799-2273
holysmokez.com

Cthulhu image from Dr. FaustusAU, from his children’s book adaptation of The Call of Cthulhu.