NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 27 Aug 2002 15:46:45 +0000 (UTC) X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.79 [en] (Windows NT 5.0; U) X-Accept-Language: en Xref: usenet.INS.cwru.edu pgh.food:14558 Hi all, I don't know if this is already known to some or all on pgh.food, but if so I must have missed the post or simply forgotten having seen it. Anyway, this past weekend, on my way back from a cook-in in CT, I was driving west on I80 and decided to swing down through Altoona and hit The Meadows frozen custard place in Duncansville/ Holidaysburg. So I exited I80 onto US220 south just past Bellefonte. I'm driving along on 220 for some distance and as I am approaching Port Matilda, I see a sign for BBQ ribs and chicken ahead. I briefly consider stopping but have more or less decided against it when I flash by the spot and see the name "Clem's" so a little way down the road I decide to turn around and go back and check it out. I get back there and the place really reminds me of Clem's when I first discovered it about 4 years ago - a screened-in smoke shack, with a serving area and an eating area next to it with an open tent/tarp thing over that area. So I go up to the counter and ask if they're related to the Clem's in Blairsville. The guy tells me the one in Blairsville is no longer owned by Clem (he sold it 2 years ago) and that this one is Clem's new location! So, I order a pulled pork sandwich with sauce on the side and sit down to enjoy! You may recall that I complained a while back about my last excursion to Clem's in Blairsville. The pulled pork sandwich was very skimpy on the meat. Well, this place piled it on for about the same price. Here are some differences. The sauce at the new Clem's in Port Matilda is not very prepossessing. Fairly bland and uninteresting - nothing like the sauce I remember from Blairsville (when the original Clem was there). The sauce I had a while back at the place in Blairsville was much the same as I remembered from earlier times. So I'm wondering - did Clem sell his sauce recipe as well as his store to the new owner? Did he have to come up with a new sauce? Why is this sauce so much less good than the sauce at the old place? Also, the new place in Port Matilda serves a similar French bread hoagie-type roll (about 8 inches long) with all their meals, as well as using it for the sandwiches but it was very poorly prepared. Looked like it was severely underbaked - had the same pasty white color as unbaked dough and was just barely crusty on the outside. I always liked the bread at the Blairsville location which was nicely golden brown and crusty and chewy and freshly baked, even though I suspected they didn't make it them- selves but bought partially baked frozen loaves which they finished off on the premises. But the good news is the meat is as wonderful as ever and in generous supply. The flyers I picked up say they are open year round. Their normal summer days are Wed.-Sun. but in Aug. they're only open Fri.-Sun. as they are preparing to enter several rib/bbq fests. There was nothing to say what their winter days are. The hours are 11am to, I think, 7pm or whenever they run out! Too bad Port Matilda is such a hike! It's about 1/2 hours north of Altoona. But it's a nice drive and you can also stop at The Meadows in Duncansville for old-fashionded frozen custard which is to *die* for. The Meadows family were the originator's of the soft-serve frozen custard in this country and are one of the few authentic frozen custard places left! This stuff is absolutely *nothing* like Dairy Queen, Tastee Freeze, or any of the other soft-serve *ice milk* purveyors! Kate
Barbecue