Bark City BBQ serves up some of the finest BBQ in Portland. Texas inspired smoked meats, southern inspired sides, Bark City used tradition as inspiration to move the cuisine forward. They have some of the best meats, sides, and increasingly sandwiches in town. They operate out of the Heist food cart pod in SE PDX on Woodstock. The menu is classic BBQ: Brisket, Spare Ribs, Pulled Pork, Smoked Turkey, Sausages, six different sandwiches using those meats, and sides including potato salad, coleslaw, jalapeno mac, BBQ beans and cheesy grits. They also run regular specials and on Wednesday they offer up a special pit crew sandwich menu. I highly recommend the Wednesday sandwich specials, some of the best sandwiches in a town that takes sandwiches seriously!

The plate above is from last summer when they moved back to town after briefly decamping to Arizona and set up shop at the Heist, which is certainly the premier food cart pod in town. I got the Baby Back Ribs, Brisket, Potato Salad and Jalapeno Mac. This is a good representation of a BBQ plate from them. It was absolutely delicious and everything was on point.

This is the Smoked Caesar Wrap with Brisket. This is from late June. At first they ran this as a one off special, now thankfully it runs every Wednesday as part of the pit crew specials. You can get the wrap with either brisket or smoked chicken. I haven’t tried the chicken one yet, but I can tell you that this brisket wrap is one of the best things I’ve eaten all year. Brisket, Romaine, Caesar dressing (house made), parmesan and cornbread croutons. The sauce that Michael makes is super tangy and delicious, and works perfectly with the smoked brisket. A side of potato salad and this was the perfect lunch. Seriously, go order this ASAP. The best use of $20 bucks. $15 for the wrap and $5 for the side. Very filling.

Lunch from last week. Both these items were on special so I can’t say if this will be back on the menu, but I hope it will because it was delicious! Pork Pastrami Ribs Sandwich with a side of Collard Greens with bacon added. So the meat here was pork ribs smoked and seasoned like pastrami, then chopped up and piled high with cheese and mustard on a Dos Hermanos sesame roll. So incredible. The collard greens were good, though he made this batch a tad too sweet. The bacon was incredible. Just look at it! Tasted even better than it looked.

Last up, but certainly not the least, is a Turkey and Bacon sandwich that was on special along with that jalapeno mac and cheese. This was incredible, don’t sleep on the turkey! Pitmasters take their turkey seriously, and I think a lot of people sleep on the turkey option at BBQ joints. Bark City’s is excellent, as is Matt’s BBQ. The regular turkey sandwich on the menu is Smoked turkey, BBQ mayo, red onions, shredded iceberg, Texas candied jalapenos & mustard vinegar on toasted potato bread. This version above was slightly different with the bacon but otherwise similar. I really like their jalapeno mac and cheese with the chip crisp on top. It’s the perfect BBQ side. I really like all their sides. The quality of sides at a BBQ joint is very important to me, if the sides aren’t hitting, I won’t go. The mac, potato salad and slaw are on point. The only ones I haven’t had are the bbq beans and cheesy grits. They are open Wednesday-Sunday. Full menu on Thursday-Sunday and sandwiches only on Wednesday. I like the sandwich and side option since I’m usually eating solo and don’t want to commit to a big bbq order. Happy eating!