Where I am heading if I hang out with the Ryder Boys any longer.

I was generously invited by Tom and Rob Ryder (founder of the Cookhouse) to tag along with them as they hit five BBQ joints in New York City. (The Ryder Boys are BBQ pros. Check out my previous Ryder blog.) Traveling luxuriously in the Ryder’s “big-ass” limousine, we started at 6pm in Daisy May’s on 11th Avenue, finishing the night at Wildwood on Park Avenue South at around 10 pm. Not sure exactly. My watch dial was a little blurry by then.

In those intervening hours, we sampled multiple versions of loin back ribs (from dry-Memphis to wet-Kansas City), creamed corn, fried pork bellies, macaroni-and-cheese, beef short ribs, Szechwan duck, collard greens, briskets fat and lean and in between, plus other choice meat-hunks that were washed down with pitchers of bourbon and beer. (For Tom and me, that is. Rob drank a bizarre combo of vodka, gin and beer.)

As Tom kept on telling anyone who would listen, “We are important food scientists!” So here’s my seriously scientific take:

DAISY MAY’S BBQ
623 11th Avenue (Corner of 46th st.)
Tel 212 977 – 1500

Found it hard to figure the prices on the menu, and the tables in the back resembled the canteen of a sheet metal factory, but the BBQ was a blow-out. Big hits were the Oklahoma Jumbo Beef Rib and the Kansas City Sweet & Sticky Pork Ribs, both gooey and tender. The Memphis Dry Rub Pork Ribs was so-so, but sides like Golden Spicy Corn Bread and Collard Greens slid down the gullet real easy. For quality, down home BBQ, my top pick up the night. But do not go for the atmosphere. Non-existent.

RUB BBQ NYC
208 West 23rd Street (between 7th & 8th Avenues)
Tel. 212 524 – 4300

Unusual-sounding dishes on the menu created great excitement before deep disappointment settled in. The most successful and creative ideas were the Szechwan Smoked Duck, a lacquered duck that was particularly good as a left-over the next day, and a bacon sandwich with fried green tomatoes. The fried pork bellies were so over salted they were inedible, and the dry ribs almost bland until I finally hit a clump of dry-rub. So great ideas badly executed. Tom had to get up and have a word with the bartender when they brought him a sissy-ass thimble of bourbon. The surprise: Tom made us eat the deep fried Oreo Cookie in batter, and I groaned at the thought, but the Ryder Boys must be doing their voodoo on me, because I found it pasty and tasty and deliciously artery-clogging.

HILL COUNTRY
30 West 26th Street
Tel 212 255 4544

Big and rowdy tables, nice staff. You eat your meat, Texas-style, off of waxed paper. I loved the roll of paper towels at the table – nice touch. Best of all was the center pit, where you had to get in line to order your food. The cook slicing the brisket was a big guy with a rumbling, basso profundo laugh. Highly entertaining. Tom and him got into a thing where Tom would yell distracting “64″, “29″ during the placement of orders. The good-natured cook thought his was such a hoot he rewarded us with a row of fatty and lean brisket, and a pink-meat end-piece that Rob explained was the tail of the brisket, just as it slides into the Prime Rib. Loved that; very delicate flavor. (I always sit close to Rob during these things because he can technically explain what is going down my pipes.) The pork ribs and sides were, we decided, pretty second rate. So fun place and tasty brisket but stay away from most everything else.

BLUE SMOKE
116 East 27th Street
Tel 212-447-6058

Easily the best all-round BBQ joint in New York. Not exactly Texas-kosher; every little detail has been meticulously thought out and elevated into something East Coast urbane by fabled restaurateur, Danny Meyer. The barbecue potato chips, for example, came with a blue-cheese and bacon dip, that was not nasty-mayonaisy, but touched by sour cream and butter milk. We had fried pork bellies here, too, and it was the dusting of Asian Five Spices that took this simple dish somewhere else. The place is a must for any serious BBQ fan who isn’t religiously Texas-Memphis-Kansas doctrinaire. My only quibble: during my last two visits to Blue Smoke, I have been just a tiny bit disappointed by how the ribs arrived at the table. When I took an Indian gourmand to Blue Smoke, the Texas Salt & Pepper dry-rub ribs arrived a tad dried out. This evening’s Kansas City ribs were undeniably juicy and delicious, but marred slightly by a last minute dip in sauce during the heating-up finish, which made them arrive at the table a little sick-gooey. (Disclosure: Tom revealed to me, in the middle of our bar-top meal, he was a part owner in Blue Smoke, but he didn’t inform the staff until we were on the way out.)

WILDWOOD
225 Park Avenue South
Tel 212 260 -5444

I must defer to my betters here. While I made it there, and liked the sophisticated ambience, I had to leave before the food arrived to catch my train home. Tom said it was a let-down after Blue Smoke. His note to me the following morning: “Good idea of bacon app flawed by salt like Rub. Can’t remember anything else.”

You have to love the Ryder Boys. You can’t help it – I defy anyone not to get sucked into their life-affirming fun-sprees. One day some smart television executive is going to send a camera crew after the Ryder Boys as they make their wise-cracking, bourbon-guzzling, brisket-chewing way through America’s eateries. It would make great television.

Let me give you just one small example. That night I was telling the Ryder Boys how my buddy in Philadelphia, Jim Arthur, and I roasted a kid (as in goat) last summer. It was delicious; finer than any roast lamb you have ever had. I sewed lemons and oranges into the kid’s stomach cavity, and then dusted it with lavender-laced Herbs de Provence. Jim roasted it to perfection. The Ryders confessed they had tried themselves cooking a goat and failed miserably, so I passed on my insider tips, before sending them, the following morning, photos of my kid raw and dressed for the coals, and then again after it was cooked.

Tom’s email came back instantly: “Don’t be showing me that nasty-assed goat this morning. Got the urban Bourbon flu.”

Rob Ryder - slow-smoking ribs

I had my head down working on my next novel, Buddhaland Brooklyn, when I got an email ping from Tom Ryder, a friend who is a board director at both Amazon.com and Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide. “I am going to hire a car and do an urban BBQ tour in NYC with my favorite [and only] son, one of the Ryder boys. We fully plan to drink too much bourbon and beer and thoughtfully assess the state of NY’s bbq nation. Want to join us for all or part?”

Hell, Yes! So I am fully signed up for THE RYDER BOYS’ URBAN BOURBON, BEER AND BARBECUE TOUR, AVEC COMMIS. Tom tells me (le commis) we will start at 6pm and we’re going to hit five of New York’s BBQ hell-holes before the night is over. Yahooo. Life is good.

Tom and his son, Rob, know their baby backs and have, in the past, taught this Europe-raised American a great deal about our authentic backwoods cuisine. When he ran American Express’s publishing unit, Tom picked up Food & Wine for near-nothing and turned it into the colossus it is today. When he was Chief Executive and Chairman of Reader’s Digest Association, he transformed that sleepy publisher into one of the world’s largest food publishers, acquiring Allrecipes.com and launching Everyday With Rachel Ray. Tom’s blessed with an impeccable palate (and sturdy digestive track) and a blowout sense of humor. That’s on top of his ability to make a mean “maque choux” (Southern-style creamed corn).

Tom’s son Rob, meanwhile, went to Cornell Hotel School, before apprenticeships in the kitchens of the Union Square Café in New York and the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten in Hamburg. Rob has since built Connecticut’s top-rated source of comfort food, The Cookhouse, and once blew me away with his Memphis-style dry roast ribs which were slow-smoked for four hours over hickory, oak and fruit woods. It was a revelation. If the Europeans only knew what goes on in the backyard BBQ circuit of America’s hinterland, they’d all be driving car rentals down Route 66. Rob’s “fried chicken livers in onion and gravy” and his “BBQ Sundae” is, as I once wrote, “James Beard execution of White Trash classics.”

So I am doing push-ups and eating lots of roughage – training for my BBQ-blowout in New York with the Ryder Boys. Hanging in their posse is like hanging with Olympic athletes in meat consumption. You’ve got to be seriously prepared – to eat, drink, and laugh your guts out. I once went with the Ryder Boys to the World Pork Expo in Des Moines, Iowa, where, at the sprawling Iowa State Fairgrounds, Tom was the celebrity judge during a massive BBQ cook-off competition. I am still recovering from that trip – and that happened back in 2006. Tom told me then, while gleefully grabbing another Spam burger from the fairground’s Spam Queen, he was “testing the tensile strength” of his shirt. That pretty much sums up what it’s like to ride with the Ryders.

Will return with full report.

When I am sober and have stopped groaning on the couch.