Bains BBQ

At Bains BBQ, the smoker is lit hours before the doors open for service. A fruit-wood fire works through brisket, ribs, pulled pork, sausage, wings, and chicken across the day, which is why the kitchen's own line — not fast food, but worth the wait — reads as a description of method more than a slogan. The restaurant bills itself as Sarnia's only true smokehouse, and the claim is less boast than category: this is a London Road kitchen that treats slow-smoked meat as the entire premise, not one heading on a longer menu.

The menu stays close to the fire. Bain's Smoked Ribs come dry-rubbed and slow-smoked by the quarter, half, or full rack, and the beer-can chicken arrives slow-roasted and finished with a chipotle barbecue sauce. Beef brisket, pulled pork, smoked sausage, and a smoked half chicken fill out the plated dinners, while the smoked wings come in multiples of four, fresh and never frozen or deep-fried. Between the mains and the starters runs a line of bacon-wrapped cooking that has become the kitchen's signature: bacon-wrapped meatballs, bacon-wrapped BBQ shrimp, and a meatloaf wrapped in smoked bacon under smoked cheddar and an onion ring. The handhelds carry the same logic — the Dirty Brisket Philly piles brisket on a sausage bun with mac-and-cheese sauce and sautéed peppers and onions — and the sides hold their end with warm potato salad, cornbread muffins, baked beans, and mac and cheese.