Over a year ago a friend of mine, Steve Dean, sent me a photo of this joint. The ramshackle look of the building had an outdated “Bush/Cheney 2004” sign in the front window and a sign on the door read “SHUT”. Steve and I both assumed it was
I sat down with a panel of beer drinkers to sample a smoked beer made in Texas. Ranger Creek in San Antonio makes a Mesquite Smoked Porter. According to their description it is “brewed with a Texas twist, using malt smoked in-house over Texas mesquite.” This is made
How to "hold your meat" and make a brisket taste fresh for hours.
There are plenty of ways to screw up a brisket, but when you get it right it’s a beautiful thing. If you’re smoking it at home, it’s not a terribly difficult process. Start by purchasing the right grade, then trim it properly, season it with your favorite rub, and
– A look back at the life of Calvin “Boots” Payne, the founder of Cousin’s Bar-B-Q, who passed away last week.– Guns and Roses played a show in Dallas and took the opportunity to stop by Pecan Lodge and help make some sausage.Guns+Roses stopped
Justin Fourton Owner/Pitmaster: Pecan Lodge; opened in 2010 Age: 37 Smoker: Steel smoker with an offset firebox Wood: Mesquite and OakI called Justin Fourton on his day off to set up this interview. His voice mail was full. He is a man in demand, but is always generous with
Jason Hall may be the owner of 3 Stacks, but Trace Arnold is the personality. You may have seen Trace manning the Ultimate Smoker & Grill during one of their cross-country road trips. The rig is essentially a traveling billboard for hire that also happens to be able to
Yesterday, we received an impassioned letter to the Barbecue Editor concerning The 50 Best BBQ Joints list. Here it is in full:I’ve just reviewed your Top 50 Best Barbecue Joints issue and it’s a total joke! How can you include _______ but not __________? And what
The phone rang. “Mr. Vaughn, this is the Parker County Sheriff’s office.” There wasn’t actually an officer at the other end of the line. It was Big Jim McLennan calling, the pitmaster at Hashknife on the Chisholm in Peadenville, Texas. He has always been good at making jokes, but
IF YOU’RE EATING BRISKET in Texas, chances are that your favorite pitmaster is ordering Item No. 120: a beef brisket, deckle-off, boneless. The number corresponds to the cut of meat defined by the Institutional Meat Purchase Specifications, or IMPS. No. 120 is “boneless,” meaning that ribs one through four have been
From packer cuts to Certified Angus Beef, all you wanted to know about that succulent, juicy, tender, and tasty brisket you tear through at your favorite barbecue joint.
–A deal was announced yesterday that “would be the biggest takeover of an American company by a Chinese concern.” That deal was for the Shuanghui Group to purchase Virginia based Smithfield Foods which is the largest pork processor in the world.-Tune in to Austin’s
Aaron FranklinOwner/Pitmaster: Franklin Barbecue in Austin; opened in 2009Age: 35Smoker: Five steel offset smokers made from 1000 gallon propane tanks that are 5/16” thick.Wood: Post oak. Some seasoned, some green.Last week, I sat down with Aaron Franklin over a tray of ribs and brisket at the Blue Ox
Robert Irvine is the host of Restaurant Impossible on the Food Network. He travels around the country to help bring failing restaurants out of the doldrums. In March he brought his crew and $10,000 to Lufkin. Lynn Bryan, the owner of Bryan’s Smokehouse was in desperate need of
Fire is hypnotic. Staring into it can be mesmerizing and may even alter your state of mind. Take the fire at Smitty’s Market for example. Just inside the back door, which is really the primary entrance, an open fire is the first thing you encounter. The flames lick their
A month ago I wrote a friendly rebuttal to Robert Sietsema, the (former) Village Voice food critic who wrote an inflammatory piece back in March arguing that New York City was the country’s newest barbecue capital. I pointed out that Sietsema was simply a misguided
John Mueller is on fire. His barbecue is better than it’s ever been, he just made it into our list of the fifty best barbecue joints in the state, and now Zagat has featured him in a slick video about the Austin barbecue scene. Where does Mueller fit
Traditional barbecue is having a moment, not just in Texas but around the country. So it’s natural to wonder when the backlash might come. Though it may be overdoing it to call Josh Ozersky’s story in the Wall Street Journal, “The New Barbecue,” a call to arms, he does
We have tweeted and you have spoken. Since Texas Monthly released the new 2013 Top 50 BBQ list two days ago via Twitter, we have gotten a mountain of feedback. A dedicated group of passionate barbecue eaters was assembled to create this list, so we’re happy to see that
Answers to your questions about our Top 50 Barbecue Joints list, including why Smitty's didn't make the list.
The following is a correspondence between Daniel Vaughn and John Shelton Reed. Reed lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and is the co-author, with his wife, Dale Volberg Reed, of Holy Smoke: The Big Book of North Carolina Barbecue. Vaughn is the barbecue editor of Texas Monthly and the author of Prophets of Smoked Meat: A Journey Through
THE TERM “PIT” ORIGINATED back in the days when that’s just what it was—a pit in the ground, with wood coals inside and a grill made of wood or metal. Most people cooking with direct heat nowadays use an above-ground fire, but the method is essentially unchanged. It works well for
2011: When we arrived at about 2:00 in the afternoon, the place was empty. We grabbed a couple cans of High Life at $1.75 a piece, then settled down for a snack. The sausage link was well seasoned with plenty of smoke, but it was obvious that it had been
Mark your calendar, and start your fasting now. The Texas Monthly BBQ Festival is on . . .
Robert Sietsema, the Village Voice‘s food critic, is a cheerleader. Back in January he, along with nearly every other New York food writer, wrote a piece rah-rah’ing the New York barbecue scene. Maybe penning a promotional article about local barbecue is required for admission to the New York BBQ
Robert Sietsema, the Village Voice's food critic, thinks New York can now be considered a "'cue capital." Isn't that cute?
Two grease fires destroyed Louie Mueller Barbecue's 1959 brick pit in Taylor this past weekend—just as John Mueller's new trailer opened in Austin.
You may remember last October when John Mueller was shut out of his well-regarded JMueller BBQ trailer on South First Street in Austin. He wasn’t happy about it, to say the least, but stayed quiet, plotting his return. That
Daniel Vaughn's top picks for where to get good BBQ in NYC. (And a few places one should avoid.)
The fourth installment from Daniel Vaughn, whose tastebuds took him to Brisketlab in New York City.
The third installment from Daniel Vaughn, who visited Fatty 'Cue, the restaurant that serves up a style of barbecue unique to the Big Apple.
The second installment of BBQ Snob's trip to New York City, where he braved no fewer than six restaurants to find some of the city's best pastrami.
Daniel Vaughn, a.k.a. the BBQ Snob, finds out if the acclaimed New York City barbecue joint lives up to the hype.
If it’s been a long day of poor-quality smoked meat, then I start ordering dessert. If the meat is bad, then the sweet stuff is usually pretty good. I watched the knife man cut the brisket and it looked tough and springy, so I added a slice
The smoke was thick coming out of the Oyler smoker in the back of this joint, and the neon was bright over the door as we entered. Toward the back of the room was a long cafeteria style counter with the meats on display, but the bright
Van’s sits all alone along a long stretch of interstate between Corpus Christi and San Antonio. I had high hopes for this joint given the praise received from Texas Monthly in their 2008 Top 50 BBQ list, but little that they served on this day was worth
I guess if you have mesquite grilled steaks on the menu in addition to the mesquite smoked barbecue, you feel the need to serve an amuse bouche. A steaming mug of their “world famous” pinto bean soup came to the table along with our drinks. The beans
They’ve got lots of meat options at Willie’s, and the longer we stood in the cafeteria line, the easier it was to convince myself to order them all. Well, I didn’t quite get them all, but I do admire that Willie’s will sell you any amount of
The sign outside reads “World Famous” and Louis McMillan won’t hesitate to tell you how good his barbecue is. He was about done for the day, so we admittedly got the tail end of the days offering, but this wasn’t praiseworthy.Sausage was barely warmed through, and
There are many folks around the country that may have just been introduced to the existence of City Market, in Luling, earlier this year when Newsweek published their list of the “101 Best Places to Eat” around the world. I myself
You may have been familiar with the Baker’s Ribs location in Deep Ellum. It stood for decades in a brick building on Commerce Street with a large pig painted on the side. They leased that building but were looking for a permanent home, so they bought
FORT WORTH: Woodshed Smokehouse 3201 Riverfront Dr. Fort Worth, TX 76107 817-877-4545 Open Daily 11-’til www.woodshedsmokehouse.comWhere’s the beef, or more specifically brisket? Just a few days ago chef and owner Tim Love bragged via Twitter that a record number of animals were cooking at his popular Woodshed
Robert Wilhite is both mayor and resident pitmaster in Creedmoor. He runs one of the few restaurants in town, and I’d guess this is the best one. Don’t let the adjoining Valero station fool you into thinking this is some fly-by-night barbecue stand. Robert’s dad started this place back in
This joint is a family affair run by the tight-lipped Bob Allen, his wife, and son. A steel wood-fired pit was hidden by a fence, and they weren’t willing to give us a tour. Bob assured us that “there’s no gas up on this hill.” It’s all hickory
You may have heard that this joint is getting a bit popular. While I may lament not being able to visit my go-to barbecue joint without braving a long line, I’m happy for the proprietors. Justin and Diane Fourton are friends in the barbecue world, and I’ve sought some bit
Update: This joint is CLOSED. Pitmaster John Mueller was unceremoniously relieved of his duties by his sister LeAnn Mueller who owns the place. She has reopened with the new name La Barbecue. I’ll
In the words of owner Wayne Mueller, black pepper is a food group at Louie Mueller Barbecue, in Taylor. There isn’t a whole lot that it doesn’t go into, and its pervasiveness around the restaurant means it will find its way into unexpected places like your cup of
I have a GUEST REVIEWER from the Lubbock area. I met Marshall Scott over a plate of brisket at Pecan Lodge. He’s been searching all over the Panhandle and West Texas for decent smoked meats with little success until landing on Tyler’s in Amarillo. I asked if he’d write a
The original Buzzie’s burned down, so a newer building clad in stone and sitting off the main drag houses it now. The classic ordering process at the counter went smoothly and I was able to point directly to the crusty slices of beef that I preferred. As I
This was my third, and best visit to the newest Cooper’s near the Fort Worth Stockyards. This is the newest in the Wootan empire, and it pays to get here early as well. Even at 11:00 the ‘Big Chop’ was starting to lose some of those juices. Fatty brisket edges
