In the gents' loo at Morepork BBQ, there's a picture of a helpful young woman changing the whitewall tyre on a sleek, two-tone, mid-century roadster. You can tell she's not from Automobile Association because she isn't wearing a uniform.
What she has on instead is a yellow pleated dress that - how to put this delicately - if it were any shorter, would be a choker. The effect is enhanced because she is bent over so as to present her near-naked haunches to the viewer, although doubtless she had to do that in order to change the tyre. A prominent sign in the background enjoins us to "Eat Beef".
I mention this only by way of suggesting Morepork does not appear to be aimed at people who - how to put this delicately - take a nuanced view of sexual politics. A man whose most treasured possessions, in order of value, are his truck, his dog and his woman would feel right at home.
Neither is it aimed at those of refined gastronomic disposition. As the name and the Facebook page (peek if you dare) make clear, this is less eatery than meatery. Many animals were harmed in the making of the menu, which I was assured is all free-range. The serviettes are roller towels, which is smart, and the iced tea comes in plastic disposable cups, which is not. I assume they can't accommodate a big dishwashing station, which is why you pick up paper plates and the meats come on a board. It's a get-down-to-business kind of place.
I gave the Professor the evening off, as she will relax her vegetarian inclinations only for salmon, and took my younger brother, who shares my view that when you have spent 100,000 years working your way up the top of the food chain, you've earned the right to eat everything below you. (To forestall the letter-writers, I hasten to add that I recognise the environmental imperatives of cutting our meat consumption: I don't eat meat a lot, but on occasion I eat a lot of meat. This was one.)
The menu lists five kinds - brisket, pork (pulled and ribs), sausage and chicken - and lamb ribs and beef cheek were on the specials boards. You order by weight and we tried the lot, although, to lend a semblance of decency to proceedings, we ordered a couple as a sort of second course and called it dessert.
You can get all sorts of sides, which they call "fixin's" (I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt on the apostrophe, although not on the spelling of barbecue as "barbeque"): collard greens, potato salad, hush puppies and a Caesar salad, which, lame croutons notwithstanding, was better than many. The tater tots, by contrast, were woefully uncrisp. Burnt ends, a Southern barbecue glory, appear available only in baked beans. Tabasco and chilli sauce is on the table but they bring good mustard if you ask for it.
You will have noticed Southern barbecue has been, er, smoking in Auckland for the past couple of years, played straight (Miss Moonshine's) or as the basis of inventive fusion (Woodpecker Hill). Unlike the sizzle of Korean or South American joints or in your backyard, the newcomers employ indirect heat from a wood fire.
At Morepork, it's applewood. This cooks the meat, long and slow, with hot smoke, which imparts, particularly in brisket, a distinctive red edge near the surface of the slice.
Pork ribs, greens and slaw. Photo / Getty Images
Alas, the smoke ring was not evident in chef Clint Davies' brisket, which was rather grey and dry. It's an art to keep brisket succulent without its falling apart and he hadn't nailed it that day. I wonder if it was cooked too fast.
But the rest answered the demands of the most demanding carnivores, which we were.
Lamb ribs had a black, hard crust, yielding an interior of fatty, fall-apart goodness. The pork ribs were equally moist and generous, although those sausages were hellishly spicy. And the beef cheek was a revelation, proof that underused cut packs plenty of flavour in any form of slow cooking.
Morepork, which was packed when we were there, runs a takeaway operation, too, and I would certainly consider it for a meaty lunch on the run. Whether it's a dining-out operation is another matter. There's some pretty beefy competition in the hood.
Meats $8-$11.25 per 110g (half-rack of ribs $18); salads $10-$12; sides and fixings $6; sandwiches $14.40-$18.50.
Verdict: Just what it says on the packet. Beef and lamb, too.
