A few random snacks from South Carolina

Here is a "Little Joe" sandwich from Maurice's Gourmet Barbeque Pit-Stop, a chain around this area. It's just pulled pork sitting in a bun with some sort of mustard-based sauce. It was pretty straightforward with no major surprises. If it had a BBQ sauce with a little more kick though, I would probably show a little more interest. Is mustard more of a Carolinan thing (versus Texan)?



At the supermarket, I found some Mexican pork rinds, which of course are always good (you gotta love the description on the label: "fried out pork fat with attached skin"). I think the last time I ate such sinful rinds were in Chiang Mai, of all places, where they also deep fry pork rinds just like this.

Finally, here are some frozen Whitecastle burgers that I also found at the supermarket. These are not really hamburgers, but rather thin slices of meat with diced onions steamed in a little bun. They are so small that they sell them in bulk packs since you'll usually down tons of them (and hence, they are called "sliders" since they go right down your throat). I remember on my first trip to Chicago, I asked some locals about Whitecastle and they told me that no one really eats it as an actual meal, but that they are great as post-drinking snacks.

OK, so these last two items aren't really from South Carolina, but I was happy to find Whitecastle here since my turnaround time in Chicago yesterday was too short to be able to run out to get the real thing. Besides, the frozen version done in the microwave is pretty darned close, given that I think the shops just steam theirs (at least, from what I can remember). Interestingly, Tanglin Marketplace in Singapore had frozen Whitecastles four years ago, which I got so happy about considering that I couldn't even get them at my local supermarket in California. But to my dismay, the Tanglin guys long since stopped carrying them, probably since there aren't enough slider lovers out in Asia. What a shame.