Honey Bee BBQ

With something like 25 days to go before Memorial Day — when it will become the time when it’s OK to not only wear white pants but also to barbecue at will, on the deck, in the parking lot, behind the office, you name it — it’s high time you got your summer BBQ m.o. in order. Why not try a test run this evening at the Honey Bee BBQ in East Tacoma?

At Honey Bee BBQ, the ribs, chicken and brisket are slow-cooked over an alder wood fire until the meat is tender but not soft, and infused with smoke all the way down to the bone. When other alleged BBQ pros brag that their meat is so tender it falls right off the bone, what they’re really saying is that they overcooked their ribs and think you’re too dim to know the difference. The St. Louis ribs ($14.99 half slab, $22.99 whole) are cooked perfectly — not mushy, but just tough enough that you could really tear into the ribs — and complemented this time by a mild barbecue sauce, which bounced wildly from sweet to hot to stinging to sour and back again with the kind of complexity and mellow confidence you’d expect from a recipe that’s been worked over for years. — Jake de Paul
[Honey Bee BBQ, 1314 72nd St. E., Tacoma, 253.535.0588]