So it doesn't seem like I'm bashing Texas unduly, I will say that you are really good at frying "chicken fried" steak, grilling actual steak and making Shiner (but only Shiner).
BBQ Thread
- Thread starter KissimmeeNole
- Start date
First of all I didn't say I'd been to all of those this year. I didn't know Gatlin's was closed but apparently it did this year, well after I had been. And yes, I did take one trip through the middle of nowhere Texas visiting some law school buddies. I haven't been back because there's nothing to do which is why I haven't been to everyone's "best of Texas" as half are in the middle of nowhere.
Sorry, I thought when you typed I pulled up the list and I've been to Lockhart, Cousins, Dickey's, Mesquite, Gatlin's, Killen's, Stockyard, Corkscrew, Central Texas, Pappas, Franklin's and Salt Lick. that you ate at all those places. Lockhart isn't in the middle of now where. It's just south of Austin, 17 miles off I-10. Near Shiner, if you ever want to go to the Spoetzl Brewery, cool place to visit-but closed on the weekend. Gruene (pronounced: Green) is close. Gruene Hall is one of the oldest dance halls in Texas and a cool place to check out the music.
I have been to all of those places but not this year (this year I've only eaten in Amarillo on my way from Oklahoma to New Mexico) over probably a five year period and some were only the airport versions which I freely admit (cousins, Dickey's, Saltlick, Corkscrew).
As far as Shiner, I love their beer. It's tied with Victory and Abita for my favorite mid-size Brewery. There's smaller true craftbrew places I like better like Wicked Weed in Asheville, but this one Shiner is something I get on a regular basis even with choices. The Ruby Redbird in particular is quite good, although the regular Bock is one of my "standard beer" beers.
I like the Shiner Prickly Pear. A lot of people don't because of its sweet finish, but I think it's a good summer brew. St. Arnold is moving towards Florida. That's a great beer if you can find it. The Fancy Lawnmower is my go to pilsner. Karbach is another local brew that it doing really good stuff. They make a Kolsch-style beer called Love Street which I think is fantastic.
But I do stand by my opinion that California Tritip (especially from actual Santa Maria and it's surrounds), NYC/LA Pastrami, Montreal Smoked Meat and Baltimore Pit Beef blow away Texas BBQed beef. I like your chili, like your steak, like your chicken fried steak (and heck, like your prairie oysters at least in Amarillo), and like your Shiner, but I'm not a fan of the bbq. It's not literally my least favorite bbq style, that's the south Alabama, south Georgia ridiculously syrupy sweet style of pork and ribs. But it's not in there with Piedmont/Western Carolina/Lexington style red pulled shoulder, Eastern Carolina clear vinegar whole hog, South Carolina mustard pulled pork, Virginia spicy red pulled pork, Memphis dry rub ribs, North Alabama white chicken, Kentucky mutton, Rendezvous style lamb ribs, Montreal Smoked Meat, NYC/LA Pastrami, Santa Maria Tri-tip and Baltimore Pit Beef. I did purposefully leave off St Louis and Kansas City styles plus the Florida/Fatboys/"Sonny's stolen recipe" styles as while I'm perfectly willing to eat them and be quite happy, they are not mindblowing like the best of the styles I mentioned.
BTW, can you tell I still haven't had lunch. *&(*&ing being stuck in Tally today has left me hungry.
Oh and I would say since most of this was about 4Rivers before being hijacked by Texas that the FIRST time when I came away impressed with it that I liked 4Rivers better than any of the places in actual Texas I've been to even though it's in Florida and only "Texas-style". It was not overly charred and despite being Texas style was only dark chocolate on the outside not pure pitch black char and the meat inside still had quite a bit of juice despite the connective tissue being rendered down. However, those next two times were horrifically awful. They absolutely murdered that poor tritip and the brisket and beef rib the second go-round were both absolutely dreadful with the $25 beef rib being the single worst food item I can ever remember getting. Just pitch black outside about a half inch in and the rest wasn't even grey but a sickening jerky-esque brown. And btw...I totally love jerky...when it's thin and you can chew it, not when it's a two inch thick brick of granite.
BTW, can you tell I still haven't had lunch. *&(*&ing being stuck in Tally today has left me hungry.
Oh and I would say since most of this was about 4Rivers before being hijacked by Texas that the FIRST time when I came away impressed with it that I liked 4Rivers better than any of the places in actual Texas I've been to even though it's in Florida and only "Texas-style". It was not overly charred and despite being Texas style was only dark chocolate on the outside not pure pitch black char and the meat inside still had quite a bit of juice despite the connective tissue being rendered down. However, those next two times were horrifically awful. They absolutely murdered that poor tritip and the brisket and beef rib the second go-round were both absolutely dreadful with the $25 beef rib being the single worst food item I can ever remember getting. Just pitch black outside about a half inch in and the rest wasn't even grey but a sickening jerky-esque brown. And btw...I totally love jerky...when it's thin and you can chew it, not when it's a two inch thick brick of granite.
If you call Texas style brisket BBQ then you've already expanded the definition way outside of the norm. "Real" BBQ is originally from NC despite getting its name (most likely) from the Carribean and Florida tribes eating what would basically be Baltimore Pit Beef (hung meat over direct smoke and flame) but made from deer and alligator. True BBQ in NC had little in common with the namesake native dish, but it was always the same. Pork with vinegar to cut into the fattiness and then over time as it moved they started adding more and more seasonings to the vinegar (Western style is basically just ketchup added although I jazz mine up more than that) and stopping cooking the whole hog and just smoking cuts like ribs or shoulders. Texas "BBQ" has none of those antecedents other than cooking it low and slow, it's more accurate to say it's simple smoked beef than to call it "BBQ". Hams in Virginia are cooked via indirect smoke and with a ton of salt, so if Texas "BBQ" is anything it's not bbq but "smoked beef ham". So if everyone's accepting of calling Texas smoked brisket "BBQ", then Pit Beef, Montreal Smoked Meat, AND Pastrami are all "BBQ".
BBQ is a cooking method and is not defined by any singular type or cut of meat. Barbacoa is widely considered the origin word for BBQ. Guess what kind of meat that is?
THIS California Tritip? Even though we tend to RUIN it by burning the outside!!
That's not how the TriTip I've had looked like. It looked like any of these.
https://www.google.com/search?q=san...ChMIrLPIj7jvxgIVg6KACh2yQgt9&biw=1502&bih=727
IE Nicely browned even very dark brown but not black. And yes in that google list are a FEW that are Texas black, but most are not nor was what I had and there's also some that I would consider too lightly cooked as well and not dark brown. It's just like making a roux, you want it as dark as you can get it ALMOST to black...but if it's black it's going in the garbage. Besides, most of the Texas style brisket Ive had has a really thick black crust, even a quarter inch thick. A little charring like on a steak or even on a pizza is fine, but not that thick black salty crust.
Mmmm...beef cheeks. Barbacoa breakfast tacos are the second best thing for breakfast--next to jalapeno sausage and cheese kolaches..
Well to an extent they're all guessing anyways and it could even be from a NC place that had a Bar and Cue sticks, but etymologists say it most likely from the Timucuan (old Florida natives covering most of the land before dying off from white diseases and being replaced by Creeks, Miccosukees and the like) and Taino (now extinct natives in the Carribean) word barbicu which means sacred fire but referred to hanging deer, alligator and fish over the flame. As the slaves brought up to the coast of NC usually came from the Carribean first, they likely brought along barbicu as the cooking method and name and was quickly coopted by whites which added the vinegar to the commonly accessible pork.
Barbacoa likely has the similar root origin (barbicu) but is not directly related to barbecue. They're at the very best, distant cousins which grew up contemporaneously but not together.
Besides, I already said I underscore me was fine with adding lots of things under the BBQ umbrella. But you can't be some type of "BBQ purist" and mention Texas BBQ in the same breath. If you're an absolute purist it would be Eastern Carolina whole hog, that's what set America on fire and spread and was adapted nearly everywhere but especially the South, Midwest and MidAtlantic.
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No they're not. Look beyond Wikipedia.
Again, that's your opinion.
That is simply not true. East Texas bbq is similar to Carolina bbq and was likely brought by slaves migration. Central Texas bbq was brought by Czech and German settlers during mid-1800's. The Czech and Germans were smoking pork (for preservation) long before America was discovered. They transitioned their technique to beef as that what was plentiful. German/Czech butchers would smoke the offcuts and sell those for lunch at their butcher shop. And the Mexicans have been bbq in a pit--usually cabrito or the really off cuts of beef since the 1600's.
That's just making my point for me. Barbecue as the term came from North Carolina and spread out from there, that's real barbecue. German traditions and Spanish traditions (which stem from barbacoa what I already mentioned is contemporaneous but unrelated term and cooking method based on the shared root word barbicu) are separate things. And if anything the....gasp Jewish settlers from the exact same area who made smoked brisket and pastrami are closer to Texas "BBQ" than Texas is to the real deal from North Carolina.
But having said that, I accept defeat. You both have outlasted me and I actually need to do a little work. I don't work VERY hard, but I do have something I need to complete by five. So you win.
You gotta move near a latin market
D(*&!!!!! I need some of that milk carton pork fat. I could come up with a lot of interesting things with that.
Peruvians have a white sauce and an orange sauce that are amazing on rotisserie chicken. There is also a similar spicy red sauce which is better on rice and beans, but it ends up on the chicken anyway.Here's Big Bob Gibson's bbq chicken aka what it should look like not that gross Texas %^&(. Both with and without white sauce (which is amazing on chicken).
What's in the white sauce and the orange sauce? My wife and I decided for as long as we can do it that whenever I don't feel like cooking something for realz, that we'll make quick and easy fusion tacos rather than getting pizza or takeout Chinese. Last night I made a gingered and paprikad korma shrimp taco with cucumber, pickled ginger and havarti cheese. Tonight I was also feeling lazy so we made some shredded Chicken breast with Morroccan spices, a quick slaw made from red cabbage, ginger, carrot, mint and cilantro with some soft goat cheese.
So I hear Dreamland is now coming to Tallahassee at the new old Tallahassee Mall.
No one gives a shit about any of that.
Yep, just read it in the paper this morning. Thanks Cob for serving up some damn good bbq n brisket when you were at Piggy's. I enjoyed it!
I don't know what the white sauce is. The orange sauce is probably a version of aji Amarillo
LOL, not only that, but I'll blow the Texan's mind and say...I've never had brisket in Texas that comes close to the Jewish deli pastrami in NYC and LA. That's right, Yankees do "bbqed" brisket better.
Texas brisket is usually overcooked with a black outer crust tasting of char and a grey interior.
Here's some pics I pulled googling Pecan Lodge
And Franklin's
Those are NOT from me looking for the worst pics, just the first couple that come up googling it.
Now look at the deliciousness that is Langer's in LA
And Katz in NYC
TWO of these groups of pictures are making me hungry. And it's not the ones from Texas.
Meh, pastrami must be an acquired taste because I was severely disappointed when I had "real NY pastrami" when we visited NYC a few years back. Katz was gross. Jewish food ain't for me.
Before the original owner and pitmaster died and it went to (*&(), my favorite BBQ place in Florida was Champions in Homosassa and St Pete (not two locations he moved back and forth). And champions always had BBQed corned beef available. His version was absolutely amazing and one of the reasons I always went there when given an opportunity.
What's the name of the place? I have clients in Atlanta and usually stay with my cousin in Johns Creek or whatever the place is that spunoff because the richers didn't want to share tax money with the rest of the suburbs. I was just there about two weeks ago and while we did have BBQ it wasn't in Atlanta it was at the original Fresh Air BBQ location on the way down back to Tally north of Macon. I'll definitely check out your place next time as I've yet to find really good BBQ in Atlanta proper (most is way too sweet for my taste, fortunately nearby places like Fresh Air are excellent).
Quite a thread. I feel left out as I haven't bought BBQ in a long time. I stopped trying to. If I want Q, it's coming off of my smoker or one of my friends or neighbors. I honestly can't remember the last time I was impressed with a restaurant's BBQ. I can only remember disappointment.
If you are ever east of Atlanta you should try this place. It's a bit of a hike from Atlanta, but it's amazing and really reasonably priced........ enough so that I'll make the trip once a month. The pulled pork and brisket are excellent. They make a grilled cheese on texas toast with pulled pork that is outstanding. Best BBQ I've had in the State (just ahead of Smoakies in Cordele). http://www.yelp.com/biz/mad-dogs-bbq-conyers
I usually get a pork sandwich and a brisket sandwich. It comes in around $10.
