Reviews

Wild about barbecue? Warthog's for you
Thursday, June 7, 2001
By JON HAHN
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST
FIFE -- If you're thinking of making a pit stop midway between Seattle and Olympia, best place to pull out of the I-5 madness is the Warthog Barbecue Pit here. It's a full-bore, down-home barbecue joint that will make barbecue lovers oink for more.
   Gary Kurashima, with 25 years of Pacific Northwest restaurant experience under his belt, has come up with an eatery and fare that is well worth squeezing behind your own belt. But you'll have to let it out a few notches after waddling out of this log cabin eatery in the middle of the 20th Street East industrial area.
   With a menu ranging from barbecued chopped pork sandwich ($4.95) to the farmyard sampler called "Moo & Cluck & Oink" ($9.95) and a widening (that's the right word) range of homemade pies and cobbler, this niche restaurant (and catering service) has pretty well established its reputation in the just over two years it's been open.
   "My husband frequents the largest national chain of barbecued rib restaurants, and they can't touch the Warthog's barbecued pork ribs!" said Federal Way food consultant Amy Muzyka-McGuire.
   "My daughter is nuts about the ribs!" she added. "They're meaty and smoked a long time and when you get them, the meat just falls off the bone. They're cut from the ends of the rib, so you get more meat and less bone. Whenever my husband, daughter and son go there, we usually have one meal and three sandwiches and we all walk away feeling stuffed!"
   This kind of enthusiasm for barbecued ribs from a Chicago transplant who grew up on the famous Russell's barbecued ribs back home was worth checking out. We in journalism try to live by the maxim coined by my mentor, the late Ed Eulenberg, who said: "If your mother says she loves you, check it out!"
   So I drove down I-5 one early afternoon last week and turned left once I'd gotten off the freeway at Exit 137 -- you know, the one that takes you to that other Fife restaurant. Only, to find Warthog, you turn left at the top of the exit ramp and go back over the freeway and then turn right at the 20th Street traffic light and go about a half-mile or so till you see the log cabin structure just past the United Parcel Service and Volvo dealership on your right.
   If there are sunbreaks, you can eat outside or in the Little Red Barn adjacent to the main log cabin restaurant building. If you're just making a pit stop, you can place your order and dash back onto the freeway.
   "I usually have eaten my sandwich within 2 miles of I-5, so get an extra if you plan to drive any distance," Amy advised. She noted that "truckers and suits alike frequent the place," which is in keeping with the atmosphere that Gary wanted to create.
I must needs qualify this sauce-stained endorsement by conceding that my Regular Dining Companion, who is not fond of food with a spicy edge, picked her way around the carryout meal that followed my drive-by luncheon stop here and judged the grits a tad too heavy on BTUs.
   But she admittedly didn't have the opportunity then to get outside the delicious brisket sandwich I polished off for lunch. And I would've done better bringing home the pork sandwich for her and kept the souped-up baked beans and coleslaw (methinks there was a touch of horseradish therein) to myself.
   Gary was an armed services brat whose family managed to settle down in Tacoma, where he graduated from high school and did a little community college work before going back into the restaurant work where he'd started years before as a part-time pot washer and line cook.
   In the past couple of decades, he's worked some top-line shops in Puget Sound and in Alaska (the Alaska Salmon Bake in Fairbanks), but he and his family wanted to come home to the City of Destiny (he and his wife and their two children live in Tacoma's University Place neighborhood).
   "I researched the type of restaurant I wanted and the location," Gary said, "and people thought I was nuts picking this place. But it's a niche market and there aren't that many good barbecue restaurants around. This is a place where the suits and the jeans can enjoy good food."
   He puts in a 60-hour work week here, overseeing most of the cooking and operations and the small, close-knit crew that includes his sister, Pam Hill. Once Gary's barbecued ribs and meat sandwiches became established on the menu, it broadened to include special items such as the Mr. Warthog 22-ounce Porterhouse steak with seasoned baked potato, sauteed veggies and steak bread ($23.95).
   The pies, cobblers and cornbreads are baked daily -- the kitchen fires up about five each morning except on Sundays ("closed for our day of rest," says Gary, who also squeezes in a couple half days of R&R to spend with the family).
   Eventually he hopes to phase up and out to making and marketing his own meat jerkies, jams, jellies and sauces and pastries. The catering service, begun just over a year ago, offers all his barbecue items plus extras such as seasoned corn-on-the-cob, barbecued meatballs, chipolte pepper chicken ribs and smoked salmon.
   I'll be making another pit stop there soon, if only to sample the Warthog chili and Warthog gumbo and maybe a side of a menu item called Nasty Rice.
   If you make your own pit stop here, you'd be well advised to ask for more than one of those little pre-moistened cleanup tissues. And check the rearview mirror for sauce hanging in your beard. It's a dead giveaway that you've been off your diet again.
   More information: Warthog Barbecue Pit is at 4921 20th St. E., Fife. Phone in orders to 253-896-5091, or fax to 253-896-5092 or check the Web site at www.warthogbbq.com for more information.
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HOLY SMOKES!
Warthog Barbeque Pit does food right.
By Jacquie Maupin (March 18-24, 1999 Tacoma City Paper)
    If opening his own restaurant is a dream come true for chef Gary Kurashima, then his Warthog Barbeque Pit is a dream come true for Tacomans needing a break from Tony Roma's
   Kurashima, who started serving up barbecue from his Fife eatery six weeks ago, has a bare bones game plan: simple menu, simple decor and simply good.
   A Tacoma native, Kurashima's been cooking for 20 years and tinkering with barbecue recipes just as long. Until now, he cut his teeth as head chef at H.D. Hotspurs in Kent, the former Barbecue Pete's on Mildred, and most recently at the Ruston Way Ram. And yup, the photos on the wall of the restaurant are of Kurashima at the Puyallup Fair, where he manhandled the smoke pits for 11 years.
   The idea of the Warthog Barbeque Pit has been simmering on the back burner for at least six years, when Kurashima first thought up the name and registered it. Now a reality, the restaurant is housed in a converted log demonstration home cleverly decorated with miniature stuffed warthogs tacked to overhead beams.
   Patrons, who swarmed in during a recent lunch rush from the neighboring business part and the Tideflats, squeeze together on benches at a scant eight tables. Kurashima's already thinking expansion though. A front deck for picnic tables is almost complete, and a barn-like building next door, soon to be painted red, will host banquets.
   As the owner and sole chef at the Warthog, Kurashima loves his niche food. The recipes are all his own, and he prides himself on using meat rubs and smoking chicken four to six hours and brisket 14 to 16 hours.
   His methods have gained the approval of visiting palates from Texas, Memphis and New Orleans.
   "It's a good feeling when you get people from the South saying you're doing it right,he said.
   Kurashima calls barbecue fun food. Relaxed food. Food that doesn't intimidate. But he couldn't have been talking portion size.
   A lunchtime visit by the TCP staff found the sandwiches served on French buns more than filling. The chopped barbecue pork sandwich ($4.95) was tangy , and the sliced barbecue brisket sandwich ($5.25) had a deep smoky flavor that was not overpowering. As one staffer put it, the brisket melted in his mouth like butter.
   The pulled barbecue chicken sandwich ($4.95) evoked mixed feelings–good flavor, but the meet was stringy and dry.
   A other item that Kurashima has super-sized is the Warthog chili ($4.95). This chili is all about chucks. Chunks of hamburger, chunks of tomatoes, green pepper, onion and two types of beans. This is the kind of chili, with its mingling of sweetness and bite, to warm the belly on a rainy night if it doesn't burst your buttons first.
   The barbecue ribs entree ($7.50) also delivers a deep-smoked flavor, and the meat slides right off the bone. The meal is served with a choice of side dishes. The potato salad is respectable, but more satisfaction comes from the slice of solid corn bread and delicious honey butter.
   However, true barbecue fanatics will know the Warthog is the real deal once they try the barbecue baked beans ($1.25 small, $2.25 large). Swimming in a stew with fresh green pepper and chunks of beef, these beans are no joke. They are mildly spicy and sweet, and the flavor grows pleasantly more prominent even as two-day-old leftovers.
   If there's room left, diners can try the single dessert item, blackberry cobbler ($1.95). A small, flaky pastry sits atop a sea of berries. The berries are warm and on the sweet side, but that could be tempered if there were enough pastry to finish off the berries.
   Kurashima chats easily with customers from his work at the grill, often asking how the meal was. If you stop in to see him, let him know Tacoma thinks he's doing it right too.
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SNORTIN’ AT THE WARTHOG BARBECUE PIT
By Steven Fasano
For The Olympian

FIFE--Driving back and forth to Seattle on a regular basis, I kept seeing this sign in Fife: “Warthog BBQ Pit.” Being a lifelong fan of barbecue, I eventually gave in and paid a visit.
I must admit, though, I’m up to my third visit now, because I’ve got a good excuse to pay this much money for barbecue.

That’s right, Warthog BBQ Pit is not inexpensive, but if you go ready to spread some cash around, you will be stuffed by the time you leave, covered in barbecue sauce and wearing a satisfied grin.

On my most recent visit, I enjoyed a half-order of baby back ribs, and even though I was full by the time I left, it wasn’t the ribs that filled me up, it was the trimmings: barbecue beans baked on site, honey cornbread and potato salad.

To me, that is disappointing. I prefer to be filled up on the main course, especially when it tastes as wonderful as head chef/owner Gary Kurashima’s Memphis- and Kansas City-style barbecue. But then again, if I had any more meat, I would never have been able to finish off a piece of the Warthog’s homemade Key-Lime pie. Oh, my! The meringue was so creamy I didn’t even want to make my way to the key lime!

Gary’s barbecue experience ranges from H.D. Hotspurs to the Ruston Way Ram, with quite a bit of time spent at the Puyallup Fair’s smoke pits. This all smokes down to some awesome tasting meat.

My favorite meal, hands down, would have to be the Moo, Cluck & Oink, which encompasses my three favorite food groups: beef, chicken and pork. This meal costs $9.95, the same as my most recent repast of a half-rack of baby back ribs, but comes with a larger main course.

The Warthog has a very relaxed atmosphere, with stuffed warthogs and various barbecue memorabilia liberally arranged on the walls and rafters of a converted log demo home. And even more relaxed is the open air “barn” next door, which serves as additional seating for banquets and overflow.

Now don’t fret if you just have to have a beer with your barbecue. Gary is patiently waiting for his liquor license. And although it does take the city a ridiculously long time to approve one, the Warthog will have one soon enough.

The somewhat sassy staff informed me that no only do they serve lunch and dinner, they cater, provide sumptuous banquets, box lunches and produce full holiday season dinners, complete with smoked meat to be picked up by customers during the holiday season.

But don’t wait for the holidays to come around. There is nothing quite like slow-cooked barbecue and a glass of ice-cold lemonade on a warm, late summer evening.

And if you’re anything like me, you will feel like snortin’ all the way home with such a full belly!

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