Whole Hog Cafe - Little Rock, Arkansas

This is the third of my four posts on bbq in the north Texas and Arkansas area. See my post on Naaman's in Texarkana for some background. 

The University of Arkansas mascot is the razorback and the call "sooey pig" is something I associate with their fans. So the name "Whole Hog Cafe" seemed like a natural for bbq in Arkansas and it was highly rated on Yelp. 

We went for lunch and it was going to be our primary meal of the day, so we decided to share the "Ultimate Platter" which was not on the menu, but on a chalk board in the restaurant. It included pulled pork, beef brisket, pulled chicken, pork ribs and three sides - we got baked beans, potato salad and cheesy corn. We also ordered a side of sausage as we were comparing sausage at each of the four restaurants. 

The Ultimate Platter

Each table at Whole Hog came with a set of six kinds of bbq sauce. It was fun to try the various sauces on the meat, particularly the meat I was less fond of, like the pulled chicken and pulled pork. Judy's favorite sauce was no. 5, "sweet, dark, & bold molasses flavor." My favorite was no. 3, which was no. 2, "tangy, tomato, smooth, sweet and slightly spicy," but "spicier." No. 6, "rich mustard & vinegar" was good on the sausage. 

I've never had pulled chicken before and it was okay, more moist than I expected, but bland compared to some of the other offerings. So it was a good base to try the bbq sauces on. 

The pulled pork was dry and my least favorite of the restaurants. 

The brisket was dry and had less flavor than the brisket at other joints, so it was my least favorite. 

The sausage was plump, juicy and full of flavor, my favorite of all the sausage we had.

The ribs were pretty moist, but were only third out of four of those we tried. 

The potato salad was virtually identical to the smoky potato salad we had in Hot Springs, with sour cream added to it. Perhaps it is a regional thing? I liked it. 

The beans were also similar to those in Hot Springs, like canned beans. 

The cheesy corn was quite good. 

Whole Hog ended up being my least favorite of the four bbq restaurants we visited, although it did have the best sausage by far, which was my favorite bbq item.