– Zagat calls these thirty-four barbecue joints the most important in Texas. Maybe describing the list as “definitive” and “unequivocal” was a reach.– The Dallas Observer has started a new column called Shigging. This week they look at the secrets behind the barbecue at Lockhart Smokehouse.–
Owner/Pitmaster: Killen’s Barbecue; Opened 2014Age: 47Smoker: Indirect Heat Wood-Fired Pit, Wood-Fired Rotisserie SmokerWood: Oak, Pecan, Hickory, and MesquiteLast week, we reviewed Killen’s Barbecue in Pearland. It received one of the highest ratings on TMBBQ, which likely wasn’t enough for
The formation of Operation BBQ Relief, the only nationwide barbecue charity, began with a phone call. On Monday, May 23, 2011, the day after the massive tornados in Joplin, Missouri, Stan Hays called his barbecue buddy Jeff Stith. Hays, who was walking to his office at the Farmers Insurance building near Kansas City,
When Jack Perkins opened the Slow Bone in Dallas last year, it was with a standard barbecue menu. Since then he’s been tinkering with ways to use up leftover meat. Perkins doesn’t want to serve you yesterday’s ribs, but throwing them out would be bad business sense, not
“The Best Barbecue, Period.” That’s the motto Ronnie Killen has printed on the shirts that he and his staff wear, putting a daily target on every one of their backs. Making that declaration even after a good run of success toes the line between confidence and arrogance, but Killen had them
– Texas BBQ Week is still going strong for a few more days.– Looking for golf and barbecue together?.@bbqsnob RT @supremegolf: 75 BBQ spots+70 rounds+90k mi = Ult. BBQ Golf Trail via @FatGuyGolf http://t.co/Ch5ZScZ8C9 pic.twitter.com/9O4CIyLL6I — Sean F Hosley (@sketchwerk)
Owner/Pitmaster: Hutchins BBQ; Opened 1978 (current location 1991)Age: Roy 65, Tim 33Smoker: Indirect Heat Wood-Fired PitWood: Pecan and OakRoy Hutchins started his family in the barbecue business in 1978 with a tiny smokehouse in Princeton, Texas. Since then his sons have been involved
Texas smoked brisket—especially the good stuff—can be addictive. That’s what President Obama learned last week. After eating John Mueller’s beef ribs for dinner during his stop in Dallas on Wednesday, the President took a whole brisket with him for the ride on Air Force One to Austin. I just can just imagine Obama
As one third of the Texas barbecue trinity, smoked sausage has important stature in Texas. Central Texas has its beef sausages, East Texas has got hot links, and you’ll find plenty of smoked boudin along the Louisiana border. In Houston, they have it all as J.C. Reid and Michael Fulmer
In 1974 Warren Clark opened a little barbecue shack in Tioga, Texas, and it didn’t take long before it became the darling of food critics, chefs and celebrities. In 1989, Alan Richman, then writing for People, claimed “Clark produces the best barbecue in Texas, which is something to brag about.” Dallas
– Thrillist has ranked every state based on their food and drink options. Texas scored a #2 ranking based mainly on our great barbecue.– Texas Barbecue Week starts this Sunday, and there’s some good eating to do around Texas barbecue joints.– John Raven, the
The Dark Prince of Texas barbecue smoked beef ribs for the POTUS. John Mueller is in Dallas today along with President Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi for a barbecue fundraiser at the home of Marc Stanley just southwest of Forest and 75. John Mueller commented on the president’s
Photo by Nicholas McWhirterOwner/Pitmaster: Gatlin’s BBQ; Opened 2010Age: 34Smoker: Indirect Heat Wood-Fired PitWood: HickoryGreg Gatlin went from breaking up pass plays as a member of the Rice Owls to the world of corporate real estate, but he always knew he wanted to
When you ask people to name the five “tastes,” the average person typically has an easy enough time naming four: sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. It’s the fifth–umami–that’s a bit more elusive. The concept of umami has been around for more than a century, but it was largely unheard of until the Wall Street
Next Sunday marks the beginning of the second annual Texas Monthly Barbecue Week. During this week-long celebration of our culinary heritage, everyone’s invited to visit the participating joints featured in our 2013 Top 50 BBQ issue who are offering a barbecue special. Fifty-four in total are included this year, and
– Camp Brisket, presented by Foodways Texas, is coming January 9-10, 2015. Tickets go on sale August 14th.– Here’s a recap of the Foodways Texas Barbecue Camp that was held last month.– Texas BBQ Week is starting July 13th. Here’s a list of great
Pitmaster: Corkscrew BBQ; Opened 2011Age: 35Smoker: Indirect Heat Wood-Fired PitWood: Red Oak“If I’m not here, we’re closed.” That’s why Will Buckman doesn’t take many vacation days away from Corkscrew BBQ. The hours are long, which leaves just a little time each
Kerlin BBQ isn’t yet a year old, making it one of the youngest barbecue joints in Austin to be mentioned with the big names. Owner and pitmaster Bill Kerlin is also pretty new to the craft of smoking meat. “I never cooked a brisket until I moved to
Every month we bring you a profile of a photographer who has captured the people, the food and the spaces that make up the world of barbecue.R.J. Hinkle – Addison, TexasA native son of the Lone Star State as well as a
As I’ve talked about before, smoked brisket wasn’t always the cornerstone of Texas barbecue. Before the beef purveyor IBP started shipping individual cuts to meat markets, these establishments (if they smoked meats at all) were cooking the entire beef forequarter. This meant they were smoking both the cuts familiar to us
– John Lewis of Austin’s la Barbecue will travel to South Carolina to show them what Texas BBQ is all about in this cross-cultural barbecue event.– Alice Laussade lists ten ways you know your relationship is over in Dallas. #2 is “He takes you to Dickey’s.”–
Pitmaster: Lockhart Smokehouse, Plano; Opened 2014Age: 42Smoker: Indirect Heat Wood-Fired PitWood: OakWill Fleischman has tattoos and steel hoops in his ears, but his most distinguishing feature is the beard. He’s hard to miss when behind the counter slicing, but it might be a
Nothing about Hinze’s BBQ in Sealy says trendy. It’s situated a half block from I-10, and right next to a Whataburger. Just like that Whataburger, Hinze’s has a drive-thru stacked with vehicles. There were so many cars that I went inside to find their massive menu displayed on
I eat a lot of barbecue, but rarely do I fear taking a bite of what I’m served. This weekend was one of those rare experiences. It was some of the most soulless, thoughtless barbecue I’ve encountered. There were so many questionable decisions made in the course of assembling a
Austin County has served as the cradle for German Texans since 1831 when Friedrich Ernst founded the town of Industry. It was the first permanent German settlement in Texas, and Ernst became a huge promoter of Texas through his letters back to his home country. His home also became
– Zagat Austin lists their favorite barbecue events around the state this summer.– Gayot comes out with their list of the top ten barbecue joints in the country.– CheapTickets.com has a list of their top BBQ destinations. In Austin they highlight a humorous paring of events
Pitmaster: Stiles Switch BBQ & Brew; Opened 2011Age: 44Smoker: Indirect Heat Wood-Fired PitWood: Post OakLance Kirkpatrick didn’t grow up cooking barbecue. He didn’t come from a long line of barbecue cooks, but at the age of thirty-one he answered the most important newspaper ad
Brown’s Bar-B-Que has one of the best briskets in Austin, and one of the best side items in Texas. When I visited a year ago (at their previous location) I found the brisket to be the weak link, but no longer. Pitmaster Daniel Brown has found the sweet spot in his
Smoke has become a popular new ingredient in all kinds of cuisine outside of the barbecue realm. Chef Richard Gras of Oak in Dallas is pushing those limits. He is smoking pasta. Well, technically he is smoking flour over mesquite chunks, then using that flour for his house
During the nineteenth century public barbecues in Texas, you were likely to find a whole calf, goat, or lamb roasting for the crowd. But it was more likely that you’d find a whole hog. Hogs were prevalent in the eastern part of the state, which made them easier to come by,
– Alison Cook of the Houston Chronicle doesn’t hand out the four star reviews often, but Killen’s BBQ in Pearland just got that high praise this week. She calls it “Houston’s first destination barbecue.”– Fed Man Walking has released a number of Austin BBQ lists over the past
Owner/Pitmaster: Martin’s Place; Opened 1925 (current location 1939)Age: 57Smoker: Indirect Heat Wood-Fired PitWood: OakA Kapchinskie has been cooking barbecue at Martin’s Place in Bryan, Texas since 1925. That makes it older than Black’s BBQ in Lockhart and just as
During an interview with Steve Kapchinskie of Martin’s Place in Bryan (since 1925), he mentioned a copy of an old menu that he had in his records. The menu is from the forties,and he was kind enough to scan it and send it for us to post it here.
Johnny Doyle cooks on a gas rotisserie, but he’d do it differently if he could. He takes pride in the barbecue he puts out in his nearly forty-year-old Denison restaurant, so when a pit fire destroyed his Oylers, he wanted to replace them. “[J&R Manufacturing] told me it would be
Zagat produced a couple great videos on Texas barbecue comparing the historic and the hip joints in Texas. The first highlights the historic joints like Black’s BBQ, Opie’s, Snow’s BBQ, and Louie Mueller Barbecue: The second video looks at the new and hip barbecue joints in Austin. It features Franklin Barbecue, Kerlin BBQ, la
A barbecue sauce specific to North Texas.
– If you’ve never been to Memphis in May and want to get a taste, check out Republic of Swine from Bitter Southerner. A taste: “First timers British Bulldog BBQ of Surrey, England are…the “best of the best” from the British Barbecue Society — which sounds about as
Owner/Pitmaster: Kirby’s Barbeque; opened 1991 (2007 in current location)Age: 59Smoker: Offset steel smokersWood: OakUntil Anna Nicole Smith came along, the most famous area resident of Limestone County was Cynthia Ann Parker. She was abducted from Fort Parker at a young age, and her
Melissa Perkins grew up in Colbert, Oklahoma just across the Red River from Texas around the same time that the legendary PO Sam had his barbecue joint along Franklin Street in Colbert. A friend of hers worked at the barbecue joint, so when she took her friend to PO
Title: River Cottage Handbook No. 13; Curing & SmokingAuthor: Steven LambPublished: Bloomsbury Publishing; 2014River Cottage is a Cooking school in rural southwest England that focuses on the use of local and ethically raised meat. In England, River Cottage’s chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has been the host of
In the middle of this Wednesday’s lunch hour nearly 16,000 people were watching a brisket smoke in real time on YouTube. Arby’s was re-airing their record-breaking thirteen-hour commercial that was first shown on a single television station in Duluth, Minnesota, over the Memorial Day weekend. They were promoting their
– This month is National BBQ Month, and yesterday was National Brisket Day. Why so limiting?– Matthew Odam from the Austin American Statesman steps into the barbecue list fray with his Top 10 BBQ Joints in Austin.– You can also listen to Matthew Odam talk barbecue
Owner/Pitmaster: Oklahoma Joe’s Bar-B-Cue; Opened 2011Age: 52Smoker: Gas-Fired Rotisserie SmokerWood: PecanJoe Davidson has been involved in all aspects of the barbecue world. He became a successful entrepreneur when his smoker company got off the ground in the eighties. He hit his
Chances are you won’t just happen upon Bubba Moses Pit BBQ in Dawson. The tiny town is along State Highway 31 between Corsicana and Waco. Even if you’ve driven that route, a well-timed sneeze might cause you to miss Dawson entirely. If you’re alert, look for the steady mesquite smoke that rises
Last week I went searching for good barbecue in Oklahoma. I wasn’t looking just for barbecue joints in the state, but was instead trying to find a defining factor of how barbecue in Oklahoma is unique to that state. With my wife’s family still living in Oklahoma City, I’d canvassed the
This is a note from pitmaster Carey Bringle. It is copied in its entirety, with his permission, from the Facebook page of Peg Leg Porker. And to those who will surely point it out, I do realize he is talking to me too, but it’s an important message. Enjoy.To
– The summer barbecue list onslaught is in full effect this week. The first one comes from Travel + Leisure which ranks the twenty best cities in the country for barbecue. Nevermind that Nashville is laughably in the top spot, but they left off towns like Lockhart, Texas
Steven Raichlen, the man who wrote the Barbecue! Bible, will be in Texas this week for three events with Kent Rathbun’s restaurants. He’s promoting his new book Man Made Meals in Austin tonight, Plano tomorrow, and in the Woodlands on Friday. Each event ticket
Photo by Nicolas McWhirterOwner/Pitmaster: Virgie’s Bar-B-Que; Opened 2005Age: 49Smoker: Wood-Fired Offset SmokerWood: Post OakOn Virgie’s website they have a brief description of their restaurant, but what has stuck with me was their promise of a “barbecure.” It’s a
In Wyatt McSpadden’s book Texas BBQ from 2009 there are two evocative early-morning photos of the tall smokestack at Mack’s Split Rail Bar-B-Que in Mineola. Other than these photos, I hadn’t seen or heard much about the place and wondered if maybe it had closed. On a trip to Tyler
