Lunch, Anyone? Sweet Cheeks Q

Sweet Cheeks Q is in the Fenway, conveniently located for anyone living on campus. Photos by Esther Ro (COM’15)

No one does comfort food quite like Southerners. So when Chef Tiffani Faison (famous for season one of Top Chef), who spent much of her life living on the other side of the Mason-Dixon Line, decided to open a restaurant featuring Southern barbecue, expectations among Boston foodies were high. Since its opening three years ago, Sweet Cheeks Q has proved a hit with diners. Happily, a recent visit there during lunch confirmed that the restaurant is still delivering what made it a hit initially: a well-stocked bar, quality ingredients (all the meats are responsibly sourced and all natural), and some of the best barbecue to be found anywhere in the city. It’s easy to see why the Boston Globe recently named Sweet Cheeks one of Boston’s 10 best BBQ joints.

The first step to ordering lunch at Sweet Cheeks is simple. You choose whether you’d like your meat served on a tray or as a sandwich. Both options come with your choice of one protein, one cold or hot side dish, bread, pickles, and onions. Prices range between $10 and $15, depending on which meat you select.

That settled, there’s a lot to choose from. With six different main dishes (pork: pulled, a 1/2 slab of ribs, and belly; brisket; and chicken: fried and pulled), four cold sides (potato salad, coleslaw, farm salad, carrot and raisin salad), and five hot sides (broccoli casserole, heirloom BBQ beans, collard greens, mac n’ cheese, and black-eyed peas) available, even a vegetarian will find plenty to feast on. (There is also a Cobb salad for the person in your party who may want to forego barbecue).

We began our lunch with Sweet Cheeks’ deservedly famous biscuits ($3 each or $10 for a bucket of four). They were everything a good biscuit ought to be: flaky, buttery, warm. Although delicious on their own, a generous slather of mildly salty and sweet honey butter made them even better. They are reason enough for a visit.

Opting to begin with a sandwich, we ordered the Berkshire pulled pork ($10). What we wound up with (courtesy of a server’s error) was the fried chicken sandwich ($13). We alerted the waiter to his mistake, and were quickly brought the correct dish.

Served on crisp slices of hot, griddled Texas toast, the mound of pork was warm, tender, and juicy. The toast, soft from soaking up the meat’s flavorful juices, made the sandwich somewhat sloppy to handle, and had us quickly reaching for a fork and knife. But we couldn’t resist adding to the mouthwatering mess by topping it all with coleslaw (an additional $1.50). Large, vivid purple chunks of lightly dressed cabbage brought a much-needed crunch and cool creaminess to the dish, a perfect contrast to the soft, sweet pork. For our side, we chose another Southern staple: collard greens. Served up in a robin’s egg blue enamel mug, the greens were perfectly cooked, soft but not mushy, with a hint of vinegar.

We also ordered the pork belly tray ($13) accompanied by a scoop of broccoli casserole. Succulent and tender, the marbled meat broke apart with each bite. After much speculation and debate, we mustered the courage to try the three mysterious bottles of sauce on our table. We were glad we did. They turned out to be the best condiments we’ve ever tasted: a sweet and smoky barbecue sauce, spicy vinegar, and a tangy mustard sauce, all of which we used to douse the pork.

Until this meal, we never could have imagined thinking of broccoli as a guilty pleasure, but Sweet Cheeks’ version of a broccoli casserole, with oozy cheese and topped with golden breadcrumbs, had us thinking just that as we devoured this dish. It’s easy to make a meal just out of the sides, which also include black-eyed peas, mac n’ cheese, a carrot and raisin salad, and a farm salad. The lunch lady tray ($12) offers diners their choice of any four scoops. Add to that a side of biscuits and you have yourself a hearty fill of Southern comfort.

You won’t want to leave the table before ordering dessert (“more sweet, less cheek,” as the menu puts it). When it came time for us to choose, the giant nutter butter ($8) narrowly beat out the butterscotch pudding ($6) and strawberry shortcake ($6). Composed of two peanut butter cookies, each the size of a dinner plate, this dessert definitely lived up to its name. A light, whipped peanut butter cream glued the thin, soft cookies together. We only managed to conquer half of the sweet behemoth. We had the rest wrapped up to go, and headed back to campus walking significantly more slowly, but feeling oh so satisfied.

Sweet Cheeks Q, located at 1381 Boylston St., Boston, is open for lunch Monday through Friday, 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Dinner is served Monday through Wednesday from 5 to 10 p.m., Thursday and Friday from 5 to 11 p.m., Saturday from 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m., and Sunday from 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Reservations and all major credit cards are accepted. Phone: 617-266-1300. The restaurant can be reached via public transportation by taking an MBTA Green Line C trolley to the Fenway stop.

This is part of a regular series featuring Boston lunch spots of interest to the BU community. If you have any suggestions for places we should feature, leave them in the Comment section below. Check out our list of lunchtime tips on Foursquare.

Paula Sokolska can be reached at ps5642@bu.edu.

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