Laura's chicken was so good that we threw out the bread and ate with our fingers -- picking big pieces of smoked and mopped white meat off the plate and dipping them into a side of Jim 'N Nick's distinctly Southern sweet-hot sauce. The mashed potatoes were too salty, but the bakers were massive and exactly as tasty as you'd imagine huge potatoes heaped with pig products would be. The cheesy corn muffins were addictive, and I ate them all before Laura could get one. The baked apples (cubed and suspended in syrup like the guts of a perfect apple pie with no crust) made me want to find whoever's mama was responsible for the recipe and kiss her on the cheek.
Normally, Jim 'N Nick's pulled pork is excellent. On this night, it was awful -- poorly cut, fatty, taken too quickly from out of the smokers -- but at least it reassured me that human beings were doing the cooking rather than sealed, zero-emission smokers with their temperature and air flow controlled by computers, the cooking times charted on a line graph by weight. The danger of working from scratch is that sometimes, someone is going to make a mistake. But I don't want consistent robot barbecue. I want the real thing. I've been to Jim 'N Nick's about a half-dozen times since it opened, have eaten in and taken out. This was the first time the pork wasn't great -- wasn't deeply redolent of smoke, soft but studded with crisp little burnt edges. And I can forgive that. Once.
Mark Manger
Whether you eat in or take out, Jim 'N Nick's makes some good barbecue.
Location Info
Details
24153 East Prospect Avenue, Aurora
720-274-5300
Hours: 10:30 a.m.-9:30 p.m. Sunday-Thursday, 10:30 a.m.-10:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday.
Baked potato: $4
Baked potato with pulled pork: $8
Two-meat combo: $14
Half-rack: $9
BBQ chicken sandwich: $6
Pulled pork: $19
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When we'd eaten enough, we packed up the leftovers and stuck them in the fridge. Hours later, I woke to darkness in a quiet house still exhaling spring's first heat. As softly as I could, I slid out of bed, padded down the stairs and retrieved the last of the apples, the untouched box of ribs (done perfectly, with a deep, purplish-pink smoke line running just a quarter-inch above the bone), and crumbled cold brisket over barely warmed mashed potatoes. I took my second feast out to the living room where I could watch The Osterman Weekendand eat alone -- a private celebration of seasons and sleeplessness, the comfort of cold ribs from the icebox on a hot night.
If Laura knew, she'd be pissed. Who eats a second dinner at four in the morning?she'd say. And what is it with you and Rutger Hauer movies?But we've been together a while now, like I said, and I kept the volume turned low. I'm finally starting to learn some things.
