h1ag said:
Can confirm, all BBQ within at least 150 miles of Boston is garbage. There might be some rednecks in far northern NH or ME that have figured it out, but I've been disappointed way too many times in and around the city by people saying "yeah all those other ones are bad, but this one is different! This one is run by a Texan!"
I rarely go looking for decent BBQ around Boston, for the same reason I would rarely go looking for decent seafood in Texas when I lived there. However, I have discovered that there seem to be more options in the Carver / Raynham / Taunton area than there are up north and west. I only tried one place down there (Little Red Smokehouse in Carver) and it was just okay. Atmosphere was good, brisket was okay, but BBQ sauce was terrible.
There used to be a place on on Martha's Vineyard that we liked (Smoke n Bones), but the owner died and his family sold to someone who decided that the Vineyard needed "Brooklyn Style Barbecue" (Yes, it is as awful as it sounds). When you go there, a clean cut Russian college student carefully weighs each portion on a scale to ensure that they don't accidentally give you an ounce or two too much, and then you sit in a sterile and austere black and white room to eat it.
They do seafood, diner food and hamburgers pretty well up here. If you like Italian (I don't), people tell me that they do that well, also. You can find good Mexican food up here, but you have to look for it (Tacos Lupita in Lynn was a discovery I made years ago, But it's been quite a while since I've been back because....well. you know....Lynn.)