Dining Out Southeast: Puckett's, Cullman, AL

We took about an hour drive yesterday afternoon up to Cullman to scout out a new to us BBQ restaurant Puckett's Cullman..  I'd heard rave reviews about the location in Chattanooga from a trusted foodie friend, so off we went to check out the Cullman location.

Before we exited the car, I had already remarked on how neat and clean the parking area was.  No trash in the parking lot!  It's those things that tell me a great deal about a restaurant before I even set foot through the door.

We were warmly greeted by the hostess, who immediately went to check on an available spot and escorted us to a nice table by the window.  We also were able to chat briefly to one of the managers before being seated.

The dining area was attractively decorated with vintage murals and tables and chairs instead of booths.  This added to the spacious feeling of the dining room.

I would have liked to have taken pictures of the dining room, but (thankfully) there was a nice crowd enjoying their meals.  It would be really rude to take pictures of people dining, so y'all will have to trust me on that one.

We were impressed to see that not only was there a large variety of BBQ options on the menu, breakfast is also served!  I can see us taking another drive to Cullman to sample their breakfast offerings.

Suffice to say, we wanted to try everything!  So, don't panic when you see our order for this meal.  Yes, we brought food home for two additional meals!

For our appetizer (Who am I kidding?  We didn't NEED an appetizer, we WANTED an appetizer!), we chose the fried green beans.  They were very lightly breaded and served with a ranch dipping sauce.

If you've never experienced a fried green bean, make a note to do so when you find them on a menu.  These were excellent in flavor, temperature upon serving, and crunch factor.

Now we know we could have ordered a BBQ plate, or a rack of ribs, etc. and shared a bite or two with each other.  But we agreed we were IN this now.  We were ordering big time.

Thankfully, Puckett's had us covered.  We chose The Whole Farm option to share.  This menu item offers one-half smoked chicken, baby back ribs, beef brisket, and cherry wood smoked pulled pork.  We opted to add smoked sausage for a small additional charge.  And......because I really wanted to try their catfish, we added one catfish fillet to our meal.

I'll start with the catfish.  It had a very light cornbread coating and was fried perfectly.  Their tartar sauce was delicious as well.  The seasoning on the fish was excellent.

Now on to The Whole Farm!  Menu lists the sides as smoked baked beans and collards.  We requested coleslaw in place of the collards and that request was granted with no hesitation.

We picked up on the delicate smokiness in the beans.  It wasn't overpowering at all.  The slaw was a nice mayo/vinegar based slaw just like I make without that sweet taste that so many BBQ restaurants slaws have.  Both sides received thumbs up from us.

Now on the individual meat selections:

Beef Brisket:  Using my Kansas City BBQ Judging Criteria, I would have scored this brisket high.  A nice proportion of meat to fat cap, great smoke flavor, and perfectly smoked.  I've learned through my years of judging that the BBQ pitmasters who can hit all three of these criteria have earned the "master" in pitmaster.  Kudos.

Baby Back Ribs:  Another winner.  The dry rub was delicious, the smoke flavor was there, and wow they were tender!  Everyone likes to say their ribs "fall off the bone."  Well, if they say that and they do, they're overcooked.  A perfectly cooked rib should allow you to take a bite out of the middle of the rib and you only get that bite.  The bone should immediately dry.  Guess what?  Their pitmaster has mastered this technique as well.  

Smoked Sausage:  I'm glad we added the smoked sausage to try.  Although the menu only stated "smoked sausage," I don't believe this was my beloved Conecuh.  Andouille perhaps?  If you're there to enjoy some BBQ, trust me and add this on your meal.  You'll be happy you did.

Pulled Pork:  One thing about pulled pork is that if you don't get it sauced quickly after pulling it off the bone, it will dry out and become tough.  We could tell this hadn't been sitting around for hours.  A nice smoke ring as you can tell and good mixture of both "inside" and "outside" meat.  The bark was amazing.  This option would also have received high marks on my KCBS score card.

Smoked Half Chicken:  We saved this beautiful bird for last.  Even so, this chicken was HOT.  Not flavor hot, but temperature hot.  The dry rub was excellent on this option as well.  The meat was moist and tender.  It hadn't even thought about being overcooked.  Again, kudos!

All the meat options on this platter were served as is with the dry rub.  But never fear sauce lovers!  You've got two options to choose from on the table.  I liked both of them.  If I HAD to choose, I'd probably favor the Texas style just because of the touch of heat it contained.

Yes, we would have loved to have tried any of their delicious desserts, but we were stuffed.  

Our server, Travis, kept our drinks filled, came by several times to check on us, and was a delightful young man.  

The manager came by the table to make sure we had everything we needed.  

The link to the menu can be found HERE.

Even the restrooms have unique vintage items on display!

So here's my recap:  Super clean (even the parking lot!), friendly and helpful staff and management, delicious and ample food, great atmosphere, and a menu that covers about everything you could want at a BBQ restaurant.  

Now, how do we get them to locate in Gadsden??