Have you tried the beets at Lil’ Barbecue? You really should. Smoked, fried, then tossed in jammy barbecue sauce, each little piece has the baggy looseness of baked apples, with a vanishing crispness that dissolves into earthbound sweetness on the tongue.
These “beet ends” — the name hinting at Kansas City’s famed caramelized brisket tips — might seem like an odd place to start a barbecue review. But the beets are among the best things to eat at Lil’ Barbecue, a fine addition to Portland’s plant-based barbecue canon and a good gateway for a restaurant that could end up lifting the local barbecue scene to new heights.
Strong praise? Well, before we get carried away, let’s spray a little cold water on Portland’s expectations for Lil’ Barbecue, which opened inside Northeast Portland’s Tough Luck bar last October as a sister to Austin’s Michelin-starred La Barbecue. Given the Lone-Star lineage, diners were probably right to expect the kind of revelatory meats found at Austin’s trailblazing Franklin Barbecue or newcomers such as Fort Worth’s Goldee’s or Lockhart’s Barbs B Q…