Hog Wild BBQ, Best BBQ In Hillsborough County Florida

A write up in the Tampa Weekly Planet - June 15 - June 21, 2005

Bob Raunchmiller

Hog Wild Bar-B-Q
10715 U.S. 301 S., Riverview, FL
Through the grasping tendrils of manic growth that is Brandon, U.S. 301 cuts straight through strip malls over the black beauty of the Alfia River past feed stores interlaced with the broken ground of new development, where the road narrows and eases between trailer parks.
Here in Riverview I look for the smiling pink pig cutout with "Open" on it's porcine belly.
BOB KNOWS BBQ: Barbecue scholar
Bob Rauchmiller displays some of his achievements

"BBQ Bob Rauchmiller," owner of Hog Wild Bar-B-Q, is not only one of the most lively purveyors of slow-cooked pig and foul, he's also a scholar of barbecue history. He picked up his stand from a man who had practiced the vinegar and mustard Carolina method. Raunchmiller calls his contribution to the craft Riverview BBQ.
His method: a dry marinade, followed by three and half hours of persistent 225 degree heat from a mix of charcoal and oak. After cutting up the meats, he adds his sauce.
"It's ketchup based with some brown sugar'" he says, in the fashion I've begun not to trust. The oral tradition surrounding barbecue seems to be oversimplification.

When you order at his trailer, you order from an unused shuffleboard court with a pig totem to your right. I couldn't resist the Sloppy Pig, a memphis-influenced mis of chopped pork and coleslaw. You can't drive down the road eating this sauce-soused behemoth. Raunchmiller tried a barbecue pork burrito to help out drivers who pig and drive, but it simply didn't work.
Perhaps the larger part of barbecue craving is the unrepentant mess of it all.

FOLLOW THE SIGN:
The pink pig points the way to Riveview's Hog Wild