You’d be forgiven for thinking “Australian cuisine” is an oxymoron, especially considering the country was settled by the English, and not only that but English miscreants, meaning the food should by all reason resemble the cafeteria fare at the Tower dungeon. Thankfully, as in America, indigenous cooking largely replaced and improved upon English dishes in Australia (for which aborigines were repaid with forced marches, mass extermination, and worse, cricket). Asian and Italian migration helped further, and today it’s not uncommon to find rotisserie kangaroo, dingo al forno, and koala chowder at your average outback gaseteria.

Strangely, not one of these dishes has made it onto the menu at Sheep Station. Instead, there’s a rather confusing hamburger topped with beets, pineapple and a fried egg (the French have apparently had more global influence than previously feared), a scrumptious minced-meat pie, very satisfying fish and chips, and an unlikely concoction called “poutine,” which is a kind of Australian chili-cheese fries and, I’m glad to report, shockingly delicious. There’s also an admirable selection of beers served in real 20-oz pints (a rarity these days) and lots of well-varnished wood. It’s all quite tasty (except of course for the wood), but this being New York it’s all quite overpriced as well.

I learned this last part the hard way when I went to Sheep Station with my friends Chris, Andrew and Clara. Earlier in the day Andrew and I had nobly helped Chris negotiate a 400-pound block of marble (which Chris planned to use in one of his magic tricks) down a perilous staircase, an operation that nearly resulted in disfigurement for all three of us. As payment for risking our lives, Chris promised to treat Andrew and I to dinner. Of course when the check came it was a totally different story. You see, Chris will happily throw down $1,000 for a big square rock and engage his friends in an appallingly dangerous project, but parting with a few dollars for a meal sends him into a paroxysm of anxiety. Holding the check in his withered, claw-like hand, Chris turned the color of porcelain and began stuttering and gasping until he nearly fell out of his chair. Andrew, Clara and I all had to pitch in. I had just $8 in cash and a $6 Metrocard on me, which covered about half of my portion, while Andrew was able to scrape together $1.14 in German deutschemarks. Clara made up the rest. It was, to say the least, a sour ending to an otherwise fine evening.

Sheep Station
149 4th Avenue
Brooklyn, NY

Sweetwater’s Donut Mill
3333 Stadium Drive
Kalamazoo, MI   

Brisket, you may be shocked to learn, is meat cut from the lower forequarter of a quadruped, in most instances a cow. The word comes from the Middle English “brusket,” which among Hobbits is a kind of cheese shaped like a cow.

People of the Jewish persuasion typically prepare brisket during the holidays, when it is slow-cooked in delicate gravy made from the blood of Palestinian babies. Among gentiles, brisket is usually barbecued, served on hearty rolls, and eaten as quickly and as abundantly as possible, particularly in Texas, which is a state formerly known as “Mexico.”

My friend Boone, an elitist misanthrope who dresses like an upper-class hobo and is emotionally dependant on large iced-coffees from Dunkin Donuts, eats brisket with almost no thought to etiquette. In fact, his whole approach to eating is best described as “shock and awe.” It was on display recently at Bub’s Barbecue in Sunderland, near his verdant hillside estate where he lives with his wife, child and dogs.

In all fairness, Bub’s warrants an unbridled approach, and Boone, who was going on several hours without an iced-coffee, didn’t cause too much of a stir. The brisket is a happy miracle and the pulled pork nearly flawless. But what draws most folks to Bub’s are the free sides. Two immense buffets are stocked with baked beans, collards, freedom fries, beets, potato salad, coleslaw, cottage cheese, and so on. You are meant to treat these as appetizers and are given a separate plate for it. I made two trips. Boone acted like it would be his last meal for months and made countless return trips.

Bub’s is sophisticated barbecue, no doubt. But there’s one problem. The outdoor seating area seems to be situated on top of a septic pit, and every so often you are assaulted with a robust bouquet of feces and refuse. As you might imagine, this presents somewhat of a dining challenge. Boone, when he came up for air, pointed to a pipe sticking out of the ground about 20 yards away that was spewing brown liquid. It was tastefully camouflaged by a stand of bushes, but this did little to cloak the smell. My friend Elana thinks the aroma actually originates at a cattle farm over the hill, a dubious hypothesis indeed. At the time, I thought it entirely possible that it was coming from Boone, who is famous for his ecstasies of flatulence. But upon reflection, my feeling is that this putrescence was beyond even his capabilities. At any rate, all of this is just to say that should you find yourself at Bub’s you might consider the indoor seating.

Bub’s Bar-B-Q
Route 116, Sunderland, MA

This is going to be controversial, but as you know, loyal reader, I have never shrunk from controversy in these pages. Quite the opposite, controversy finds me more easily these days than hemorrhoids, if you’ll forgive the comparison. I love the Truth, you see, more than brandy or a good cup of coffee or even the two together (they really are better in the same glass). I only wish more people felt as I do. It would make my job much simpler.

Where was I? Oh yes, the controversy. To wit: Curtis’ Bar-B-Q is not very good. There, I said it. Whew. What a load off. To get the full impact of that statement you must understand how revered Curtis’ is in the state of Vermont. Everyone I know there holds it in unfathomably high esteem (the place has been recommended to me no fewer than 20 times) and to diverge from the orthodoxy puts me – a lowly flatlander – on tenuous ground indeed, which I’m loath to do because I find almost everything else about Vermont, a.k.a. the Sunshine State, to be noble and enlightened.

But as someone famous may or may not have said, my only master is the Truth. And so I hereby reaffirm my previous statement that Curtis’ is not very good. I ate there recently for perhaps the fifteenth time and the experience felt depressingly familiar. The ribs, generously garnished with baked beans and slaw, looked absolutely mind-blowing on the plate. But as someone famous surely said, the encounter changed inexorably once the meat entered my mouth. The ribs were, it pains me to say, tough and stringy and oddly flaccid. What’s more, the beans were lifeless, the slaw overly green, and the lemonade just blah. I’ve never tried Curtis’ chicken (to be honest, I have no patience for those weaklings who insist on eating barbecue chicken - if ever there was a more oxymoronic coupling I don’t know what it is), so perhaps I’m missing something. But I doubt it.

My dining companions had an altogether different impression. My friend Isaac, who is generously built around the midsection, to say the least, and his wife Pat, who routinely succumbs to the lusts of the flesh, both said, “Not bad,” or something to that effect. But the two of them are not to be trusted in such matters. For instance, they think “dry rub” is the same thing as “dry docking.” Their only complaint about Curtis’ was that it was heinously expensive, and I could see their point. Our bill might have bankrupted a South American country, say, Portugal for instance, let alone a freshman academic and his “self-employed” wife.

In all fairness, I should add that Curtis’ is far preferable to the fast-food hellholes along I-91 (except of course for Wendy’s – need I remind you of the Steakhouse Double Melt), which explains its enduring popularity. It’s probably safe to say that it’s the only barbecue joint in the state, just like it’s probably safe to say that Curtis himself is the only African American for 100 square miles. So if you find yourself in the area, Curtis’ might be worth the risk, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Curtis’ All American Bar-B-Q
40 Old Depot Rd. (Exit 4 off I-91)
Putney, VT

I know what you’re thinking. Chili is the holocaust of food. Well, at the risk of being labeled a holocaust denier, I’m going to go out on a limb here and assert that Chili can actually be edible. I made this startling discovery during a recent visit to southern Ohio, where you cannot drive two miles without passing a Skyline Chili or any number of other low-rent chili purveyors.

Chili is ubiquitous in Ohio, you see, because it was more-or-less invented there, which is fitting when you consider its flatulence-inducing character and generally horrifying appearance. Still, at Skyline, chili has made great strides in distancing itself from its dubious heritage. I had the aptly named “chili cheese bowl,” which despite its name was quite good - not a smidgen of gristle or bone marrow anywhere. Further down the menu is the “3-way chili,” a name that suggests certain onanistic proclivities but in fact has more to do with spaghetti, though what exactly could not be established.

The chili cheese dogs are elfin-sized, and judging by my friend Isaac you can finish two of them in about four bites (he used the “chipmunking” approach popularized by Joey Chesnutt of Nathan’s hotdog eating fame). They were apparently quite delicious, which Isaac communicated through a series of grunts and hand signals. Skyline has done away with burdensome side orders such as fries and slaw and instead has chosen to augment each dish with shredded cheddar cheese and sour cream, a controversial move that nonetheless seems to have gained acceptance with the locals.

A common misconception about Ohio is that it is populated entirely by the kinds of people you see having shirtless brawls in a Hardee’s parking lot on Saturday night. This is not far off of the mark, but there are a few enlightened souls sprinkled about. For instance, the aforementioned Isaac and his wife Pat, who live in Cincinnati, if you can believe that. Pat is much, much younger and better looking than Isaac and therefore seems insanely out-of-place there. She is, however, somewhat mollified by the knowledge that she is without question the skinniest person in the entire state.

One of the things I like about the Midwest is that you’re not expected to be smart or clever or thin or wealthy. People judge you only by how many vodka gimlets it takes before you start removing items of clothing and waddling around like a penguin. In New York City, you are constantly reminded of your shortcomings. But in a place like Cincinnati, you are instead constantly reminded of other people’s shortcomings, which is refreshing, to say the least. Plus, you almost never find yourself at a cocktail party listening to people talk really fast about real estate. It’s a shame you can’t have the Midwest without actually having to live there.

Skyline Chili
5444 North Bend Road
Cincinnati, OH

Borges said there is no greater consolation in this crushingly boring and miserable existence than the idea that we’ve chosen our own misfortunes. “Thus,” he wrote, “every negligence is deliberate…every humiliation a penitence…every death a suicide.”

So it was fitting that I traveled all the way to Louisville last weekend only to become biblically constipated, find Churchill Downs closed, and be sexually harassed by an insufferable and shamefully drunk mental patient. My only solace was that I didn’t succumb to the girl’s lascivious advances, exercising my oft-idle yet extraordinary robust willpower, and sparing myself another humiliating visit to the free-clinic.

A bit of Kentucky Derby trivia: My friend Isaac, who is of Spanish origin, actually coined the phrase “The Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sports,” a rather inelegant reference to the version of intercourse he has with his wife (He is still seeking redress from the Derby wardens). I myself once rode – for lack of a better word – a Mangalargas stallion that was descended from a Derby champ, or claimed to be anyway. The Mangalargas are tall, powerful saddle horses of Brazilian origin with rounded croups and elegant gaits that make them ideally suited for bullfighting, which is why they’re favored by the Spanish, who are a slovenly, heathen race. The beast rode me straight into the trunk of a balsam fir, and after I’d plummeted to the ground and bashed my skull against a jagged boulder, the idiot horse turned and laughed in my face, then clomped off. True story.

At any rate, the rest of my Louisville weekend was a grand success. My friend Mania chauffeured us around in an air-conditioned luxury car, accompanied by the dulcet sounds of adult contemporary music. He showed us all of the local sights: KFC headquarters, Cox’s Smoker’s tobacco outlet, and, finally, Mark’s Feed Store, a barbeque chain that soundly trounces most of the boutique barbequerias in New York City. We started with the fried pickles, and then Mania and I decimated a couple of pulled-pork sandwiches, slaw and sweet fried corn-on-the-cob in record time. Our friend Dan briefly pondered the “Picnic-for-5,” but finally settled on the grilled chicken and spicy fries, a curious order that he nonetheless made quick work of. For dessert, our comely waitress brought us something called “Buttermilk Crunch,” a kitchen-sink concoction of apple pie, ice cream, caramel and nuts, that had us all drooling for more as if it were the pristine caboose of an overripe schoolgirl, or boy, in Mania’s case.

The highlight of the afternoon - no, the entire weekend – came on the drive back to Mania’s vicarage, when a lowly member of our party made a grievous and near-mortal blunder, mistaking The Carpenters for Barbara Streisand. Mania, it should be noted, has what the DSM-IV refers to as an “Intermittent Explosive Disorder,” and so his riposte was predictably quick and conclusive, like a well-timed epée lunge. “IT’S THE CARPENTERS YOU ILLITERATE TURD!” Touché.

Mark’s Feed Store
1514 Bardstown Rd.
Louisville, KY

Everything good in New York is dead or dying. The evidence is everywhere if you care to see it. Just stroll down Fifth Avenue in Park Slope, that cesspool of liberal aristocracy, and behold the horrors. I’ll mention just one: Lulu’s Cuts and Toys (no four words have struck more fear into the heart of man), which, I shit you not, is a kid’s hair salon and toy store. A quip of Tennyson’s comes to mind: “This madness has come on us for our sins.”

(Now the effortless segue). A few years ago, Biscuit was a largely ignored hovel in the shadow of Key Food on Flatbush. Eating there was a bit of a crapshoot. On any given night you might encounter the most delicately rendered fried chicken of your life, biscuits of profound stature and flakiness, and worthy if unremarkable sides. The next night the same fare would scarcely be edible. I can’t count the number of times I had chicken that was preposterously undercooked, ribs of appalling rigidity, and biscuits that seemed to have spent the better part of a week stuffed down the cook’s trousers. The kitchen folks there simply never had a clue. But on the nights they got it right you felt divinely chosen, and you gladly drank the warm beer while marveling at your good luck. The old Biscuit’s saving grace was that it was cheap, damned cheap, as poor people’s food is supposed to be. Sadly, this was not enough to save it. They closed in 2005.

The new Biscuit, appropriately removed to Fifth Ave., is far more consistent. They’ve eliminated the bloody chicken and warm beer from the menu and added brisket that, I’m told by a reliable source, is intensely satisfying. Unfortunately, everything is fantastically overpriced. I’m not opposed to peddling ghetto food to yuppies at exorbitant rates. On the contrary, it’s only right and just that yuppies pay more. But if that’s going to be the case, the food should be astoundingly good, and this does not describe Biscuit redux.

Most depressingly, the once towering biscuits have been felled as if by a hijacked DC-10. Like much else on the menu, they are a pale imitation of the older version (that is, when the kitchen staff was off the pipe). On a recent visit, I labored over a platter of fried chicken and mac & cheese while nursing a $4 High Life (an outrage!). My dining companion, after chewing lethargically on a dry, treacly sliver of chicken meat for several minutes, declared, “I’d rather go to Mitchell’s.” She makes a strong argument.

If you have any sense at all, dear reader, you’ll heed her advice and forsake Biscuit for Mitchell’s Soul Food on Vanderbilt Ave., where the fried chicken, catfish, and chopped BBQ sandwiches are top shelf and the atmosphere uncommonly inviting, especially by New York standards. Not surprisingly, that stretch of Vanderbilt is rapidly gentrifying, so you’re advised to try Mitchell’s before it’s replaced by a children’s yoga studio and juice bar.

Biscuit BBQ
230 Fifth Avenue, Brooklyn, NY

The way you prepare clams is as follows: batter them, unshelled of course, in Graham Cracker crumbs, butter, cayenne, garlic, and a pinch of salt, and then fry them in a large skillet for about 30 seconds. They should turn the color of Adriana Lima’s navel. Promptly remove and garnish with mayonnaise (the clams I mean). You can also cook them in oil over low heat with seeded plum tomatoes and parsley, stirring constantly, and served with at least ten slices of thick country-style bread, need I say lavishly buttered. Then you have your various chowder approaches (eschewed by most sensible people), and of course the improbably named “clam balls” of the distant northeast, notably Maine, which are baked in a strange concoction of onions and peppers and slathered in something called “Worcestershire sauce.” Sounds unlikely, I know, but if done right, clam balls make lovely adjuncts to a cold pint of bitters, as the English say.

Which brings me to Pete’s Clam Stop in Coney Island (I know what you’re thinking, Coney Island is like a Hogarth print come violently to life. But on a weekday, when you have the run of the shooting galleries and boardwalk, it’s a tolerable distraction from the terrors of Manhattan). The folks at Pete’s go in for a bizarre style of cookery known as “raw,” flouting both shellfish toxins and all sense of decency. Upon arrival, I appealed to the beggar-woman languishing behind the counter for a “bucket of clams,” as is the custom, while rubbing my hands together like a lawyer at a divorce proceeding. You can imagine the shock of horror on my face when I found myself tete-a-tete with a plate of half-dead bivalves, the treacly lumps staring back at me like something out of “The Brood.” My aide-de-camp, Chris, who is usually as stout as a Guernsey cow, blanched. I myself nearly fainted. But I loath to see food (for lack of a better word) wasted, and so I forged ahead, sucking the clams down my suffering gullet, with my nose clamped between thumb and forefinger, wincing and gasping, taking gulps beer to drown out the taste. Chris looked on, mouth agape. I dare say I saw a tear gather in the corner of his good eye (the other having been plucked out during a bar brawl, leaving a hideous cavern that is now concealed by a dusty black patch – Chris is truly at home in Coney Island). I was greeted at the finish line with a profound sense of accomplishment, though I felt as if I’d lived through the Ten Plagues of Egypt (I’ll spare you the gastrointestinal data).

Be additionally leery of the corn-on-the-cob at Pete’s. I’ve had it once and it was spongy almost to the point of being malleable, a consequence, no doubt, of having spent the better part of an afternoon soaking in a tub of tepid water (I say again, the folks at Pete’s have peculiar culinary methods). The sausage-and-peppers hero was very good, however, the onion rings suitable for the occasion, and the hotdogs far preferable to the nitrate-bombs next-door at Nathan’s. There will, I fear, be a Nathan’s in Hell.

Pete’s Clam Stop
West 15th Street and Surf Avenue
Coney Island

DiFara’s has been incessantly lauded by the culinary gatekeepers of New York for years, as it turns out, for good reason. Perhaps owing to the fact that their pizza is made by genuine Italians instead of underpaid and poorly shod Mexicans, it is spectacularly good. Which is nothing short of miraculous when you consider the indigestible swill that so often passes for pizza in this city, a phenomena well-documented in these pages.

At DiFara’s, owner and pizza-artisan Domenico DeMarco and his progeny make every pie themselves, slathering them with hot oil and fresh spices as if the pies were nubile runaways auditioning for the latest “Virgin Pink” film. Signor DeMarco shuffles around behind the counter like Quasimodo, seemingly oblivious of the legions of customers clamoring for a slice. My sidekick Chris and I waited an agonizing 15 minutes just to place our order. DeMarco must be nearing 100, so this is excusable. As I’ve said, the pizza is first-rate. We were, however, justly appalled by the price tag. Three regular slices, a mini-Coke and a cup of fruit punch set us back a ghastly $12, or roughly a quarter of our combined weekend budget. But I suppose it was worth it.

Afterwards we adjourned on our bikes to Brighton Beach, taking the greenway along Ocean Avenue at breakneck speeds, Chris several fathoms behind me, toiling away on his oddly made “fixed-gear” (or “gay”) bicycle. You might have felt sorry for him if you’d seen us, because on my 10-speed Peugeot I was simply a blur. Men and animals fled from my path. It was like being in the Amazing Race, I imagine, except it was hardly a contest. Along the way I flattened at least one wayward pigeon and an entire family of Hasids out for a stroll (you must be merciless with the pedestrians who swerve recklessly onto the bikepath, humans and avians alike).

Soon enough, Chris and I were ensconced at a cozy boardwalk establishment called “Moscow: Russia on the Beach,” which was populated by Cro-Magnon men with large sloping foreheads and unexplainable facial hair, and also several women who seemed to have strolled right out of the gloomiest parts of Dostoevsky. We sat on the veranda guzzling Russian beer served in chilled mugs, gazing out at the murky, rolling ocean and marveling at our good fortune. It was as fine an afternoon as New York has to offer.

DiFara’s Pizza
1424 Avenue J, Brooklyn, NY

Last week the Missus and I hit up the Arcade Fire show at Radio City. Highlights included a girl coming into the men’s room to avoid the women’s line and being oogled by two rows of nervous, peeing men; and a tie-wearing guy behind me who said stuff like, “This is a crazy venue to see a show. I’m used to seeing the Hold Steady in bars and doing coke in the bathroom.”

But the real highlight actually came before the show. In the form of an all-natural Kobe Beef hot dog from chef David Burke’s Bloomingdale’s outpost, Burke In a Box. The dog itself was enormous, more like a fat German brat than a Sabrett. But the deep red innards and the crisp and chewy encasing were all hot dog, highlighted by a lingering beefy after taste absent at the ball park. Somewhere inside the ketchup and mustard storm I created was mustard oil and “angry onion jam,” and on top a mound of deliciously soggy, thinly sliced onion rings. The bun was perfeclty charred and the whole thing came in a bowl filled with lettuce, tomato and surprisingly generic fries, whose sogginess and lack of flavor didn’t belong in the same bowl as the Kobe wiener.

Now with condiments.