Champaign Day 3: Lil Porgy’s

Originally, I didn’t have Lil Porgy’s on my list of places I wanted to visit while here in Champaign (in my defense, I made the list very quickly and didn’t mention a lot of great spots in Champaign). Last night I remembered the barbecue joint because I was driving by my high school and realized I used to go there all the time for their pork sandwiches and steak fries. I told Audrey that we were no longer going for another day of pizza and we were going to try the barbecue route instead, which made her pretty excited – she loves barbecue and I don’t think she could’ve taken another bite of pizza. We drove to the University location in Urbana because it’s closer to campus and I was on a tight schedule:

The “restaurant” in Champaign is on Mattis and close to my high school, so I used to go there on Thursdays for their pork sandwich (it was the special of the day). The pork isn’t the most tender or juicy stuff I’ve ever tried, but it’s drenched in lil porgy’s awesome hot sauce AND it has a great flavor because it’s cooked on wood. Their slogan says so – incredibly good ’cause we cook on wood.’ The Urbana location looks very similar to the Champaign location – exposed brick, park benches, and a nice view of their oven:

Audrey and I both ordered the pork sandwich (which already COMES with steak fries):

Remember how I said I’d wash with cold fudge from Jarling’s if I could? Well, I would bathe in Lil Porgy’s hot sauce (well, it’s actually medium-hot sauce), too. It has a LOT of cinnamon and just the right amount of tang and spiciness. Their hot-hot sauce makes me cry so I tend to avoid it, but thinking about it now is making my mouth water. In high school, some people would take an order of steak fries to go, pour the hot sauce over the steak fries and wrap the fries up in aluminum foil for the entire afternoon, and eat the soggy steak fries at the end of the day. That’s how good the sauce is. Seriously. Everything is super cheap and fast and it’s yet another reason why I am starting to miss Champaign more and more.

My eating tour of Champaign is basically over, HOWEVER, being the food fanatic that I am, I bought a frozen Papa Del’s pizza to bring back to New York with me. Crazy, right? Well, I promise that I’m going to start eating better after I eat the entire Papa Del’s Pizza. And go to Dogmatic because it just opened. And have a burger at Goodburger. And eat pizza next week when I’m volunteering. AND THAT’S IT!…unless someone recommends a good burger joint for me to try 😉