Well, I finally got over to Big Ed's in Libertyville. And it was absolutely at the wrong time, 4PM during the week, but I was hungry as heck. Had the Big Ed Combo Dinner to go ($16.99) of two meats--I picked burnt ends & beef brisket--cornbread & two sides, which were the 'Lawd Ham Mercy Beans' (whatthehell is this, a Levy Bros. restaurant?) & the 'red skinned sour cream mashed potatoes. Gotta talk about those first. These baked beans, on the menu as '...slow cooked with green peppers, onions, spices & chunks of smoked brisket & pork...' were incredible, I dare say better than what they served in North Chicago. They were almost gumbo-like with a kind of roux, not even a ton of beans in there, unless they disintegrated at some point--who cares, they were G-O-O-D. And the mashed potatoes were absolutely sinful, creamy soft and full of taste. In fact the two of them mixed together were phenomenal as well! Sadly, to probably cater to the Libertyville folk vs. the North Chicago 'southerners', green beans replace REAL greens, and that's a shame--I was looking forward to that bitter, vinegary goodness.
I am still not a great judge of reputable BBQ, but all I can say is that the burnt ends were shard-like, glistening with fat locules, the smoke ring, the bark were there, not overly smoky, and very good. I suppose the brisket was good too, had fine flavor, but it just looks a little too processed in slices for me to go over the top with. Helluva portion though--six long slices of brisket and about 12 golfball-sized chunks of the burnt ends. Oh, and the corn muffin was crusty & heavy, like it weighed a lot--that's gone too, a perfect counterpoint to the rest of the meal.
I do have a BBQ chicken dinner holding for my wife when she gets off work, but that looked fine as well. The default sauce--which I have ALWAYS on the side--is a chipotle maple, which is fair. Better choices for me were the other 3--the Kansas City sauce, the 'sweet heat' vinegary style, and the Alabama white, which may have been in my opinion the sauce that went the best with everything.
Have to wait a couple hours to be able to reasonably tackle the slice of pound cake that awaits. From my past memory, it is similar to the South Side staple '7-up pound cake recipe', which includes not much more than cake mix, butter, eggs, flour & sugar. Yow!
Big Ed's is not only so much better than what was in this storefront on N. Milwaukee in Libertyville previously (can't even remember the name), but on those two sides alone described above it's miles yummier than Real Urban BBQ. Not even close.