Here's a sentence you don't read every day: one of the ten best barbecue dishes in the country is being served out of a small spot in North Charleston.
That's not a local booster talking. That's Food Network.
King BBQ — Shuai and Corrie Wang's North Charleston joint — recently landed at No. 7 on the network's new show Top 10, where a panel of name-brand chefs argue over the best version of a single dish in the entire country. The barbecue episode aired June 8. King BBQ made the cut alongside legends most people would drive across state lines for.
The dish that got them there is the one that explains the whole restaurant: the Chinatown Delight. Spare ribs, smoked duck, steamed buns, three big sides, all on one platter. It's exactly what you'd get at a Chinatown barbecue house, except it's coming out of a Southern smokehouse.
That's the trick King BBQ pulls off. Shuai Wang was born in Beijing, grew up in Queens, and cooks the Chinese barbecue he missed as a kid using Lowcountry technique. Two traditions most people never think to put in the same sentence, married on one plate.
The chefs got it immediately. “When most of us think of barbecue, we think of Southern American style barbecue, but there's a unique other style of barbecue that I personally love, and it's Chinese barbecue,” chef and cookbook author Nini Nguyen said on the show.
Kardea Brown-Smith, the Emmy-winning Food Network host who opened her own North Charleston restaurant last year, was less technical about it. “That crispy pork belly,” she said. “Lord have mercy.”
If the name Shuai Wang rings a bell, it should. He was a Top Chef finalist. He's been featured on NPR. He's a South Carolina Chef Ambassador. King BBQ isn't a lucky break, it's a guy at the top of his game finally cooking the food he grew up on, and the rest of the country catching up.
Here's the part worth sitting with: the best barbecue story in Charleston right now isn't happening downtown, and it isn't the thing everyone assumes when they hear “Lowcountry barbecue.” It's in North Charleston, it's Chinese, and it just went national.
Missed the episode? It's streaming on HBO Max. But you live here. Skip the screen and go get the platter.
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