Phillip's

Southern BBQ in Southern Central
Brad Paisley, Kenny Chesney, and Zac Brown played Stage Coach Festival this weekend and I had tickets. As soon as I planned to go I opted out. I just have way too much homework, and if you’ve been to graduate school you’ll understand. In the last couple of years I’ve taken to country music and I especially favor the storytellers, the hard shot of whiskey veterans like Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, and Lucinda Williams. But I also love the heartbreaking females voices of Brandi Carlyle and Kasey Chambers. Since I couldn’t go the to the South this weekend I let it come to me. Phillip’s on Crenshaw would qualify as a southern barbecue entrant at any competition from Dallas to Memphis. Their pork ribs are just plain sick (and by sick I mean great). There’s this pepper-charred texture on the meat that would be fine even without the sauce. Ah, but the sauce! It is appropriate when dealing with it to use your bread to sop it up. Napkins are a waste of time with this high octane sauce (they only supply you with one anyway) so I suggest you use a more assertive paper material to prevent stain accidents. I used a newspaper but a slab of high-quality poster board would work, too. There are signs posted inside acidly warning you to familiarize yourself with the menu before you step to the window to order. To prevent a toxic incident from occurring (who knows what the sauce will do to you if a pot of it were thrown in your face). I’ll provide a summary of the menu. A dinner of ribs or links comes with two sides and white or wheat bread. They offer regular, hot, or mixed barbecue sauce, I suggest you get mixed, and the sandwiches come with one side. My only suggestion when you tear into your ribs dinner: play the “Highwaymen” CD while you eat. You could do worse than dinner with Willie, Waylon, and Johnny.