Wedged comfortably among the mobile home sales centers sprinkled liberally along Wilmington's Oleander Drive, Flip's Bar-B-Que House, Inc. looks promising enough from the outside. A brick box with some better than average wood and neon "signage" (a word you will not find in the American Heritage Dictionary, by the way; but, heck, I figure that if I can get away with "mobile home sales center," then I might as well shoot the lexicographic moon with "signage"), this joint seems ready to please.
The interior goes even further in stirring one's expectations, because it's crammed to its reinforced concrete rafters with every variety of taxidermically preserved wild animal you might hope to find. Flip gots raging bears, flying mountain cats, a dear named "Flip"--shoot, they even have a stuffed dear's ass on the wall. Talk about class!
One more good thing about Flip's: it's the only barbecue shack in
Wilmington that's open on Sundays. Thank God for the godless! Now if they
only served beer . . .
OK, OK, the food. Well, I've been trying to put this off, see, because I was so grateful to Flip's for defying Leviticus 37:57, wherein it is written: "And then Bubba, son of Earl, auto mechanic of Zeke, paperboy of Jeb, slewethed and atethed the white meat which is not chicken whilst Moses was in the big tent making God a nice plate of Sabbath gefilte fish. The Lord, smelling the slow roasting of the pork, said 'Dammit! This is the Old Testament, we're all still kosher, and besides Bubba should be genuflecting at the ark, not having a pig pickin!' Whereupon the Lord gave Bubba a most painful noogie and made him for eternity to watch re-runs of the 700 Club."
Flip's is brave enough to go against this Scriptural warning. If only its barbecue were as bold. Truth is, though, that Flip's will do in a pinch (like a Sunday), but that's about it. Aside from their sauce, which is a delightful blend of vinegar and pepper, Flip's food just isn't much to shout about. The hushpuppies tasted like dough, not corn meal; they were bland and heavy and no one at our table finished their allotted portion (compare this to Hopgood's or Bullock's, where we go through several baskets in one visit). The cole slaw was b-o-o-o-o-ring. No matter how much pepper I dumped on that poor, abused cabbage, it still tasted distinctly like--well--nothing.
And the pork itself? Well, it ain't cooked over wood (I snuck into the "pit" out back: two electric coffins that could not possibly nurture a pig), and I'll betcha it's chopped up with a machine, not by hand. Flip's barbecue, to put it succinctly, was bland and dry. This is not the sort of barbecue you'd go to bat for. You wouldn't vote the Flip ticket for President of the N. C. Barbecue Association, and you would not suggest to either Dole or Clinton that they make Flip Secretary of Barbecue. Drive down the street for Flip's barbecue, but don't drive out of the county.
Oh, and I sure do wish the Lime Pie Supreme actually tasted like it had
been anywhere near a lime. --The Mayor
