What I've Been Eating: Carter's BBQ in Mulberry, FL

Today, I went on an epic soul food quest with my fellow food-obsessed pal, Jeff Houck of the Tampa Tribune.  He'd noticed that a few of his old Southern standbys had gone under recently (effing recession) and was researching a column on soul food standouts that survived. (I'll link to it as soon as it's live and won't scoop all of the great things we ate today.)

My favorite experience of the day was Carter's Bar-b-que in Mulberry, FL. If you like quirky road food, you'll agree this joint is worth the drive from Tampa.  First of all, you either walk up and place your order or drive thru. After that, you stand or sit in your car, because there are no tables at Carter's.

Luckily, Jeff's truck had a tailgate that held the substantial heft of our order. My favorites were the Rib Dogg and the corn fritters.

What is a Rib Dogg, you ask?  (And why does it have two "g"s...)  It's a rib, slathered in Carter's tangy mustard BBQ sauce and then wrapped with a piece of white bread.  The meat just fell off the bone making the seemingly daunting task of eating it appear easy... as you can tell by this series of photos, I enjoyed it.

Corn fritter porn after the jump...

Carter's is located at 709 East Canal Street in Mulberry. Fire up the GPS and make it happen.

PS. Follow Jeff Houck's blog, Twitter or Facebook. You won't regret it... especially during Top Chef.