Review Of
White Swan Bar-B-Q & Fried Chicken
3198 US Highway 301 South (Brightleaf Blvd)
Smithfield, NC 27577
Phone: 919-934-8913
by
H. Kent Craig ©2004
When I visit the original White Swan Bar-B-Q on Highway 301 South, the so-called "Brightleaf Boulevard", it reminds me of home, at least one of them in my past.
My mother, Mildred Craig, was originally born into the King family from nearby Four Oaks. She was raised not five miles from White Swan and as a child nearly drowned in nearby Holt’s Lake pond just a few hundred yards from the restaurant.
White Swan’s barbecue is traditional Eastern-NC-style fare, made mostly with pork shoulders but occasionally other parts of the pig added for texture and flavor, mostly fine-chopped with enough medium-sized pieces in the mix to satisfy a high “chew factor”. The consistency of perfection of cooking, preparation, chopping and service is what gives White Swan a true four-pig rating. I’ve eaten there as many times as I have any other single Eastern-NC-style and more than most and never, ever have I been disappointed in the least, the meat always being as consistently great from one meal to the next, from one year or one decade to the next.
But what I go to White Swan for as much as their ‘cue is their hush puppies, which are as simply good as can be made and cooked by human hands. Light, airy but slightly chewy and not greasy at all, made from finely ground cornmeal that enhances but does not overwhelm the taste buds, they almost taste like they have sugar added but they don’t. The "secret" to their flavor besides being made from the (unknown brand to me) best cornmeal or hushpuppy mix there is, is the water that is added to the cornmeal which brings forth this perfection of flavor, the restaurant’s water being supplied by a deep-rock well, said water also being the base ingredient for their perfect ice tea as well.
When Melton’s BBQ in Rocky Mount was still in business, their hushpuppies while different (Melton’s used to add bits of onion, which White Swan doesn’t do, White Swan using a plain cornmeal without anything added) from White Swan’s were equal to them, but now that Melton’s went the way of all things eventually and shut their doors for good a couple of year ago, White Swan’s hushpuppies reign supreme within the State Of North Carolina.
The totality of the owner’s, Linwood Parker’s, attention to the smallest details puts White Swan shoulder-to-shoulder with the finest Eastern-NC barbeque restaurants, whichever you think those might happen to be.
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Map of
White Swan Barbecue Inc
3198 US Highway 301 S
Smithfield NC 27577
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