Hey, there. I'm Guy Fieri. We're rollin' out.
Lookin' for America's greatest diners,
drive-ins and dives.
This trip...
I'm not kidding you. Is this for reals?
We're takin' a rib stickin'...
We's cookin' with gas.
-[Guy] ...meat smokin'... -Jeez.
Nobody leaves here hungry.
[Guy] ...trip to the south.
Time to get down and dirty.
We've got a local barbeque gem in Mobile, Alabama.
This is not just a place to come and get something to eat.
This is a place to come and get an experience.
...that full of all kinds of surprises.
This is without question
the craziest smoker I've seen on Triple-D.
Oh, thank you.
[Guy] And in Atlanta...
Look at the tag team we're gonna do right here.
-We're hitting my man, Chef G. Garvin steakhouse. -Watch my process.
[Guy] Where decadent mac and C...
Live Maines? That's flexing.
...topped off with a unique donut dessert.
Are you gonna eat out of the pan?
-You weren't supposed to be watching me, dog. -Yeah. It's... It's good.
That's all right here, right now,
on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.
So I'm here in Midtown Atlanta, Georgia.
Now, let me ask you a question.
You know you have friends, they have a new baby,
they get a new car,
someone's got a new house, what do they say?
You gotta come by and check it out, man.
Well, as chefs, it's the exact same thing.
We open a restaurant,
we call all of our chef friends and say,
"You gotta come check it out."
Well, I'm about two years past due on this visit.
My good buddy, famous chef,
who's been on Guy's Grocery Games,
Triple-D, you name it.
Well, he opened this joint up
and I said, "Listen, G. Garvin,
of course, I'm gonna come check out LowCountry Steak."
New Yorks, porterhouse...
How is G. Garvin doing in the steakhouse game?
-[boy] Very good. -Very good.
[Guy] Really good? You think so?
[G. Garvin] Not only the steakhouse game, the food game.
We have the trout here for ya.
As soon as I heard about Chef G. Garvin,
it was a must see, must come visit,
-must have. -[Guy] Yup.
It seems like everyone else beat me to the punch.
But I'm here now catchin' up with my good buddy
whose nursin' folks with food and food for thought.
In Triple-G,
G. Garvin started this whole thing
-with chefs asking questions to the contestants... -Yeah.
...in very obscure ways
to conjure their imagination
-of how they would answer it. -[chuckles] Yes.
So the line was...
[both] "Do you like jazz?"
-[both laughing] -That's right.
Because he would take the music of jazz
-and use it as an interpretation... -Yeah.
...to describe their dish.
That unique style of questioning the contestants
really is what, kind of, blossomed inside
of Triple-G
and other chefs started to say,
-"Oh, wait a second... -Yeah.
-...I don't have to do it as a cookie cutter." -Yeah.
[Guy] "I can do it G. Garvin style."
When you give me flavors like that,
you gotta give me more.
I can't walk out the house without my pants on.
[contestant] Fair enough, chef. Thank you.
-Let's roll. -[man] It's pretty cool to have a celebrity chef
running a restaurant in my hometown.
There's more than just steaks. There's seafood options
and great pasta as well.
[G. Garvin] Two lobster mac.
I had the lobster mac and cheese.
Super creamy. Super savory.
It was fantastic.
When you say lobster mac and cheese...
I mean, live Maines? That's flexing.
If you're gonna do lobster mac and cheese,
you absolutely have to do it right.
Salted water.
These will go for eight to nine minutes.
-[Guy] Ice bath. -[G. Garvin] Nice and easy.
[Guy] Like George and Weezy?
Like George and Weezy, baby.
Like jazz.
Both the tail and the claws,
all gonna get chopped up and go to the... to the mac and cheese.
[G. Garvin] Yeah, but it's not... I'm not gonna chop it up,
like, super fine.
-But-- Yeah. -No, you want people to see it.
Next, we'll get it into the cheese sauce.
[G. Garvin] Get some butter.
I like to start with my pan warm.
-You know-- -'Cause if it's cold it won't melt the butter?
It won't melt it fast enough.
It'll melt, but it won't be today.
Watch my process.
I'm just eatin' your cheese.
AP flour, milk and cream.
This is G. Garvin garlic salt.
G. Garvin garlic salt.
Why didn't I get any of that in my Christmas bag?
[G. Garvin] Dry mustard. Little kosher salt.
-Do it like that. -And then all the cheese I've been eatin'.
[G. Garvin] White cheddar.
Mixed cheddar.
Gouda.
Fontina.
Give me some brie.
No, you grab the brie yourself 'cause it's sticky.
And you want me to get that all over my hand.
Well, just trying to see if you was gonna go for it.
-You was gonna fall for it. -I was... I've been eatin' it.
[G. Garvin] Turn it off.
-Let's go. -Do you like jazz?
Says "yes".
[both chuckling]
[G. Garvin] So that's it. So watch this...
-Watch this stove. -What pasta... What pasta we're using with this?
Cavatappi.
-Cavatappi. One of my favorites. -Cavatappi, baby.
From the top.
And now we're gonna make the lobster mac and cheese.
So pasta in. And I'll just create a water bath.
A little bit of garlic.
Butter.
And a little G. Garvin garlic salt.
Get the lobster meat and go from there.
[G. Garvin] Cheese sauce.
Cook this to al dente.
Garlic salt.
Truffle oil.
My grandfather used to say,
"We's cookin' with gas."
Take that lobster.
Right? You see why we don't chop it up too much?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like to see it.
[G. Garvin] Parm.
-Right? -Show off.
[G. Garvin chuckles] I hit the table.
[Guy] The garlic salt is a kicker.
-It's like an herb salt... -[G. Garvin] Yeah.
[Guy] ...with more garlic in it than anything else.
Lobster's perfectly done.
It's creamy, it's silky.
It's not heavy.
-Dynamite, G. -[chef] Lobster mac workin'.
This pasta was definitely full of big chunks of lobster.
It's a really creamy dish.
Perfect amount of cheese.
The garlic salt and the truffle oil in it
is a great addition.
I don't know how I can come to this table.
We got better hair.
-[Guy] The worm... -[Reed chuckles]
-...and the mayor. -Who's done the mac and cheese here?
I've been definitely dibbling
and dabbling in the mac and cheese. It's great.
-I'm here so much, I've done the whole menu. -I feel like I need
a couch to sleep on
-after I ate the mac and cheese. -Exactly.
-[woman 1 chuckles] -Exactly. And they just put some right over there.
Oh, is that what those are for?
-[Reed] Right. -LowCountry Steak, it's nothing like it.
[Guy] How many different types of steaks are on the menu?
[G. Garvin] About 12 steaks
and then we do veal chops.
-We do bunch of different specials. -[Guy] How many sides?
-Uh, mac and cheese, -[Guy] I don't have...
-Eight. -We don't have time to listen to all of this...
Here's what we're gonna do.
One, I gotta try a steak. Two,
I wanna talk about this dessert. What'd you say
-you were gonna make? -[G. Garvin] The donut bread pudding.
Donut bread pudding.
[woman 2] Yeah, that's my favorite dessert.
-It's light. It's fluffy. -[woman 3] The mixture of the donut flavor
as well as some bacon sprinkled up on the top.
-I was loving it. -Don't go anywhere.
Hangin' out with the one and only, G. Garvin.
-We're not over seasoned. -Right.
-We're not over seasoned, right? -Right.
-Because what I wanna do is... -We're not over seasoned, right?
-We're not over seasoned. -We're not over seasoned.
-My man. -My man.
Welcome back to Triple-D.
When you show up at your buddy's steakhouse
in Atlanta, Georgia,
and he serves you lobster mac and cheese...
-[chuckles] -...and the next thing he says he gonna make for you is
a donut bread pudding,
I say, "Wait a minute, give me some steak."
-Dude, that is a dynamite porterhouse. -Thank you.
[Guy] This is done on the broiler?
[G. Garvin] Yeah, so we got double stack, man.
We do a proprietary blend on it.
Season it really well.
Hot, hot, hot, heat.
And what we do, Chef, is
we don't actually serve the steaks hot.
We let 'em rest.
I think people feel like,
"Hey, it's not hot."
But if you serve it,
like, super-hot,
you can't cut into it. It's just gonna leak all the flavor out.
[Guy] Number one thing I say to people all the time
is they don't let the meat rest enough.
-Yeah. -And they are thinkin' they're going,
"Well, it's not coming right off the grill. It's not super-hot."
It's more palatable.
Great steaks, great desserts.
[G. Garvin] All right, we gonna do donut bread.
[man 2] The bread pudding was phenomenal.
It's a glazed donut, but it's mixed
with regular sourdough bread.
The cream, the sauce work together very well.
All right, so, glazed donuts, break 'em down.
Like old school glazed donuts.
Like you get at the donut shop down the street.
This is what inspired that dish.
When I was a kid, literally, on my way to school,
the light from the... the donut place
with the two letters would come on.
The light the donut place with two letters.
-[G. Garvin] You know? -[Guy] And that was all that was left on, right.
Sourdough bread.
[Guy] I didn't see sourdough bread coming.
You don't really want this to be super sweet, Chef.
-[Guy] Oh, yeah, no kidding. -Right? So it's a good balance.
Now, makin' the custard.
-Cream. -I bet you all those eggs are goin' in that.
[G. Garvin] Pour that in. Little nutmeg.
-Cinnamon. -[Guy] When's the sugar goin' in?
I'mma let you do that.
You gotta do some work, dog. So, now...
mix that up, put this in our pan,
it'll go in the oven, 325, 350,
30, 35 minutes.
-Next up, Chef. -Homemade caramel sauce.
I do water.
Sugar in. You simply have to take your hand
and you gotta mix.
You wanna get all the crystals out.
You will feel all the sugar...
-Uh-huh. -...and by the time I'm done,
you will feel no sugar crystals.
-By-- -But if I did it with a whisk,
-I couldn't do that? -No way.
This just not gonna dissolve.
It dissolves 'cause of you hand.
Uh, 100%.
How much you got on ya? I'll take your money.
So we let this go for 25 minutes, right?
I think that sometimes
people have things in their mind
that they like to believe
because they've known it for a long time.
-[chuckles] -I'm gonna break it to him right now.
-Unicorns are not real. -[laughs]
-Okay? I know you're gonna-- -I don't know about that, man.
[both laughing]
[G. Garvin] Once that goes down, Chef, cream,
-butter, done. -Next up.
-Crème anglaise. All right? -Okay.
[G. Garvin] So milk down. And we wanna just
bring this to a... like, a simmer.
Fresh vanilla bean.
Scrape it right inside. Egg yolks.
Sugar.
-Bring that together. -Oh, I'll do the milk.
-Look at the tag team we're gonna do right here. -[G. Garvin] Ready?
Crème anglaise.
Just don't ask me to spell it.
[Guy] I think it's got a K in it.
[laughs]
Bring it out and it's done.
Time to get down and dirty.
[G. Garvin] This is what it looks like, right?
-[Guy] Thank you. -Slightly rustic.
-Thank you. -[chuckles]
Crème anglaise.
The caramel sauce. Caramelized pecans.
Crispy bacon.
[Guy] That's all gonna get hit by the...
-by the Chantilly? -[G. Garvin] Yeah!
I would've put my Chantilly
and then put my caramel and all my goodies on top. I'm, you know...
-That's 'cause you're from California. -Oh, that's it.
-[G. Garvin] You're Cali kid. -[Guy] You hear that? You hear that profiling?
You haven't had any on there, by the way.
You've hit it all over here and all over yourself.
-Cold... -Are you gonna eat out of the pan?
You're such a junkie for this, G,
that you're gonna...
-He's gonna... The... -You weren't supposed to be
-watchin' me, dog. -The cor...
The corners right here
that aren't making it into the round cut,
he's gonna eat.
I know as soon as I take a bite, you're gonna start talkin'.
[laughs]
-I got a question for you. -[Guy] See? I knew it!
You like jazz?
I don't know what's goin' on right there.
The play of the sourdough bread.
Genius.
Candied pecan.
Salty yet sweet,
with great crunch and texture to it.
A very mindful way to present
a very indulgent dessert.
Donut bread pudding for you all.
First time I tried it and I love it.
Have you had the donut bread pudding?
-Look at me. -[woman 1 chuckles]
I've had everything on this menu twice.
-[G. Garvin] Rosemary chicken. -This is the place.
[man 1] LowCountry Steak.
Make it your business to be here.
For you to finally have your own platform,
your own stage,
-I'm so proud of you. -Thank you, man. I appreciate you.
That guy.
My man!
-You like jazz? -Not me.
[Guy] Up next, a down-home barbeque joint
in Mobile, Alabama.
I don't even think that we've begun to understand
what goes on here.
Where the meat is the boss...
I'll get after this thing.
...and the boss is the best.
Oh, you're so priceless.
I'm on the west side of Mobile, Alabama
to check out a barbecue joint.
And I know what you're thinking, "Barbecue joint,
aren't there hundreds of 'em?"
Well, on Triple-D, it's all about the food, the character and the story.
And the characters' story in this are big.
Ten years ago, this guy fires up his barbecue joint.
Never been in the restaurant business before.
Just does things his way.
Unfortunately, he passes away.
Well, wife takes over the front of the house,
daughter becomes the head cook.
Hope you're hungry. This is Meat Boss.
Ribs for Nancy.
Meat Boss is the gold standard for barbecue in Mobile.
They have such a variety.
[Leah] Brisket sandwich on a sweet bun.
[woman 1] But it's not just the food here.
It's the people, they treat you like family.
[Guy] That's because they are family.
Mother and daughter duo,
Leah Lott and Dara Chinnis,
who are the meat bosses here, keepin' a legacy alive.
So my dad started it and then when he passed...
She took over from... for him.
-Um... -[Guy] If I met you on the street,
that last thing I would be saying to you
is that you're a pit boss.
I need a Boss burger.
I love the Boss burger.
You got your rib candy, cheese.
[man 2] I didn't know you could make ribs better,
-but you can if you make 'em into candy. -It's one of my favorites.
[Guy] Okay, what're we into, sister?
Our Boss burger.
We grind our own brisket.
[Guy] You know you can buy commercial ones?
Yeah, but this works.
-And that-- -Okay, I'm gonna make you a little deal.
-Okay. -Okay?
I will guarantee
-that after people get to see this place... -Yeah.
-...that thing is gonna be a hood ornament. -Okay.
We're gonna make the rub first.
Salt.
Granulated garlic, black pepper and granulated onion?
-[Leah] Yes, sir. -Fantastic.
[Leah] We're going to, uh, grind our brisket
with a hand crank.
-How many burgers do you sell a day? -Fifty.
Okay, we're almost to one burger.
Now we got the chuck, the 80/20.
[Leah] We're gonna add Worcestershire,
liquid smoke and burger seasoning.
We're gonna mix it up and then
we're gonna form up the burgers,
another homemade thing.
So we're gonna press it.
And then that's when we put on the...
Am I getting punk... Is Ashton Kutcher comin' through here?
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
What is this?
Oh, that's where we hang our bags.
So we use clips, so we hang our bags. They stack 'em
in the window here,
so everything's made to order.
So you see, they pick their meat, they pick their bun,
-fill it out. Yes. -People fill this out?
-And then we-- -This is also your dad's invention?
Yeah, that's actually original.
How many... How many orders do we do a day?
My dad always says we did more than Chick-fil-A.
So whatever Chick-fil-A did in a day,
they did a little story on 'em.
Whatever they did durin' the day,
he was like, "Oh, we did...
We did that at lunch time."
And I'm like, "All right." [chuckles]
-So, I was just-- -Are you more like your mom or more like your dad?
My... My dad, for sure.
What else comes with this crazy town burger?
-We're gonna be puttin' our rib candy on it. -Rib candy.
We'll start with seasoning salt, black pepper.
Granulated garlic, lemon pepper.
-[Guy] Season these up. -[Leah] Yes, sir.
After we season the ribs, we'll smoke 'em for six hours
at about 280.
-You're runnin' that hot. -Mmm-hmm.
-So plus or minus 20 degrees-ish. -Okay.
-We-- -That's really hot in the world of barbecue.
-Really? -Oh, yeah.
-I actually didn't know that. -Actually, a lot are runnin'
220, 230.
Well, 220 is when it's, you know,
really, really cold outside or the wood's wet.
-[Guy] What is cold in Mobile? 50? -[Leah] For me it's 73
-but... -Oh, my...
[laughing]
-But if we're normal... For normal people. [chuckles] -[Guy] It is a non...
[Guy] I'm not kidding, it's non-stop show in here.
It gets really cold.
[laughs]
Oh, you're so priceless.
So this is a stick burner back here?
-[Leah] Yes, wood only. -[Guy] Okay.
That is the most difficult way to run it.
It's been on fire before?
Three times in ten years,
I feel like that's pretty good.
-[giggling] -[speaking indistinctly]
-Look at the size of this. -Yeah.
-[Guy] Where's the firebox? -On the other side.
-Can I show you that? Yeah. -Please.
Oh, this should be even better.
What you got there?
Well, we used to use hair dryers and they all kept melting.
-So... Well... -[Guy] So now what you got?
One of our guys was like, "Hey, I got this thing
at the house, it might work better."
[Guy] Is that a fireplace insert that I see?
Um, it is.
Cast iron. It works. [chuckles]
This is without question
the craziest smoker I've seen on Triple-D.
Aw, thank you.
-We're gonna make our sauce now. So-- -Barbecue sauce.
[Leah] Right. Our sweet sauce.
Tomato sauce. Worcestershire sauce.
Liquid smoke.
Lot of brown sugar.
[Leah] Water, salt, chili powder,
-black pepper. -Onion, garlic.
[Leah] Curry powder.
And then, to the sweet sauce we add the cayenne.
Cayenne added to it
-is the sweet spicy. -Sweet and spicy.
That's gonna cook for 30-ish minutes.
And then vinegar added to sweet and spicy
is a spicy Carolina.
[Guy] Okay, ribs are done, sauce is ready.
What do we have left to make?
The rib candy.
We're gonna cut all the meat off the bones.
-[Guy] So honey brown sugar and sweet sauce. -[Leah] All right.
And then we just mix it up.
-And are we gonna cook this again? -Right.
-350 for about 20 minutes. -[Guy] Okay.
[Leah] And now we're gonna make our Boss burger.
We'll grill our burger.
Toast the bun.
This is the spicy Carolina sauce.
This go down this way.
Cheddar cheese.
Topped with rib candy, of course.
And then we always put more spicy Carolina sauce
on the bottom and on top.
And this is our Boss burger.
[Guy] The burger is really good.
The sauce is great.
I'm gettin' good smoke off the ribs.
I thought it was too much sauce,
'cause it's only sauce, burger and rib.
Little bit of cheese, but...
-There's so much flavor in it. -Oh, yeah.
And you never see rib meat by itself.
-Right. -I get after this thing.
[Leah] Boss burger in the window.
I love the rib candy.
It is so juicy and tender,
just smoky enough and not too smoky.
With a little bit of sweet twist.
Scrumptious.
Not something we hear on Triple-D a lot.
-Scrumptious meat. What's your favorite? -Her pork.
[employee] We got a couple of pork butts coming off.
[woman 2] Well, Mr. Benny just prided himself
on his smoked meats
and Leah has done a fabulous job.
It's like being at home. I mean, the people, they know you.
They ask how you're doin', and they mean it.
It just feels really good to be here.
All right, let's write another chapter.
-Okay, cool. -All right?
-All right. -We're gonna go to commercial. When we come back,
-we'll make something else? See you in a bit. -Sure.
Welcome back, Triple-D. Hangin' out in Mobile, Alabama
at the Meat Boss And I'm gonna tell you what, I don't even think
that we've begun to understand what goes on here.
[Leah] Chicken with sweet sauce.
The Meat Boss is like the most unique barbeque place.
It's just down-home Alabama stuff.
[Leah] Brisket sweet bun.
The brisket here is excellent.
I get it on the round sweet bun
with the jalapeno jelly.
And then you add the white sauce. It just sets it off.
[Guy] What're we doin'?
So we're gonna make brisket sandwich.
We're gonna season our brisket
with season salt, lemon pepper.
Brown sugar, black pepper and granulated garlic.
[Guy] Right. So we're gonna rub this.
Is this gonna dry brine or this'll go right to the smoker?
[Leah] This is gonna go right in the smoker.
-How many hours is this on the smoker? -Fourteen.
[Guy] Got it.
[Leah] We'll start our white barbeque sauce.
Mayonnaise, brown sugar, apple cider vinegar.
-Granulated garlic. -[Guy] Salt.
[Leah] And pepper.
And then we mix it.
A corded drill.
-Now what we're gonna do? -Well, that's it for that one.
[both chuckle]
-Okay, so making the jalapeno jelly now? -Right.
Jelly's big in the south.
You gotta make it just right.
Jalapenos and then white vinegar.
-Seven pounds of sugar. -You think? Just a little bit?
-[Leah] And then we're gonna put in the pectin. -[Guy] All right.
-And then-- -What do we got left to do?
[Leah] Get the brisket.
Take it off the smoker.
[Guy] Look at that.
[Leah] We leave the fat cap on to cook
so that we get all that flavor.
-[Guy] Beautiful. -[Leah] Thank you.
How many briskets you go through in a day?
[Leah] Anywhere from 12 to 40.
Good brisket. Not over seasoned.
-Thank you. -Not oversmoked. Definitely tender.
-All right, let's build a sandwich. -Okay, cool.
So potato bun, white sauce on the bottom, brisket.
-Third of a pound of meat. -[Guy] Jeez.
Nobody leaves here hungry.
White sauce again.
Jalapeno jelly.
I'm gonna start singing if there's any more silence. [chuckles]
[Guy] What're you gonna sing?
-[singing indistinctly] -[sighs]
I'm not kidding you. Is this for reals?
It's delicious.
I love the little kiss of the sweet jalapeno jelly.
-It's not spicy at all. -Right.
I can notice the jalapeno in there
but not to any spice level.
The brisket is super tender.
What I love about the way you guys do things
is you do 'em your way.
-Right. -[Guy] It's awesome.
-Thank you. -I'm very, very proud of ya.
Brisket sandwich for Donna K.
-The brisket is incredible. -[man 2] The bark is amazing.
It's really, really flavorful.
They do it right here and it's always been great.
What's your favorite thing on the menu?
[man 2] Conecuh sausage sandwich.
There's Conecuh sausage here?
Can I get a Conecuh sausage sandwich?
Ham comin' in.
[man 3] Meat Boss really is without a doubt
the best in Mobile.
I'm so sorry for your loss,
but it's so amazing to meet you...
and see how you carry this on.
You have such a great attitude.
You're such a fun person.
I think when you call yourself the Meat Boss,
this is what this is.
This is not just a place
to come and get something to eat, this is a place
to come and get an experience.
-Thank you. -Thank you for havin' me.
Thank you.
So that's it for this edition
of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,
but don't you worry,
there's funky joints all over this country.
And I'll be lookin' for you next time on...
[all] Triple D!
[all cheering]
Are you a good dancer?
Um, relatively. [chuckles]
Just with relatives?
Um... [laughs]
At weddings and such, if I have to.
Um, anyway, so, ribs.
[both laughing]