(03/04/06) (12/27/06)

KC's Rib Shack oddly shares a driveway with a Chinese restaurant on one of the few busy streets in Manchester, with several fast food joints as neighbors. It's a shack with low ceilings inside and lots of exposed wood beams and ceiling supports. There's a small bar with a few TV sets and some bikers quietly enjoying beer and barbecue.

The humorously written menu at KC’s Rib Shack offers most of the BBQ staples. There’s one kind of rib (large pork spare ribs they call “porch ribs”), pulled pork, sausage and chicken (breast only). They don’t offer brisket. Appetizers include hush puppies, deep fried pickles, chili, fries, rings and wings. They also have burgers, deep fried hot dogs and sandwiches (pulled chicken, pulled pork and the “Cardiac Sam” that includes both of those as well as bacon and cheese).

On my first visit, I tried what they call the Pork & Pork combo, with spare ribs and pulled pork. I chose beans and cole slaw as my sides. The ribs were huge, meaty, pink and juicy, with a thick spicy bark and perfect doneness allowing the meat to pull easily off the bone. These tasted as good as they looked, with lots of natural pork flavor and noticeable smokiness. Maybe just a tad fatty in a few spots, but easily discarded. Buried underneath, the moist pulled pork was just as good, with lots of bark and good flavor.

My wife and I returned almost 10 months later. This time, we started with a couple of appetizers. The chili, though just a basic straightforward chili with no bells or whistles, was nicely done. Fried pickles were extra crunchy, thickly coated, lightly seasoned spears, served with a ranch dressing. This time, I tried the “Mondo City Hog Troff” combo that included ribs, pulled pork, a sliced sausage link and a chicken breast. The huge ribs were even better than last time, with a beautiful pink color, plenty of juices running from them, and a deliciously bacony flavor. The pork consisted of much larger chunks, with the meat pulling apart with just a poke of the fork. The links were pretty good, but I’ve had better elsewhere. The chicken breast had a nice crispy skin and some of the juiciest meat I’ve ever encountered on a piece of chicken that wasn’t a thigh.

The meats at KC’s Rib Shack don’t even need sauce, but they have four to choose from at the table: mild (typical BBQ sauce), spicy (pretty good), Carolina red (a nice vinegar sauce, perfect on the pulled pork) and appletree  “slatha” (an interesting concoction that tastes like the inside of a Hostess apple pie).

Sides were decent but unremarkable. Creamy cole slaw had a bit of a kick; the beans were pretty ordinary. Cornbread was slightly greasy on the first visit and really good on the next (try some with that appletree slatha). There aren’t that many sides available, but they do have some interesting choices (chili, applesauce).

KC’s doesn’t have desserts on the menu, but if you’re a Dairy Queen fan, there’s one right down the street.

The bottom line: KC's Rib Shack is one of my two favorite joints in New Hampshire (the other is Goody Cole’s Smokehouse) and one of the better barbecue joints in the entire Northeast region. Sure, the “menu may be limited,” admits pitmaster Kevin Cornish on the restaurant’s website. But they “want every item on it to taste great and not just OK.” I applaud that approach, and I think they come awfully close to achieving their goal.