Two Brothers BBQ Market, San Antonio

[Voodoo]

Accolades: Texas Monthly top 50 BBQ joints, cover photo of Prophets of Smoked Meat published by Anthony Bourdain.
Setting: old school Texas type building with great Oaks hanging low and a wonderful outdoor seating area with a kids playground.
Converstation with pit master (about 20ish year old, very attractive young lady, obviously excited to be talking about her job, and exceptionally nice):
Me: wow, you get to learn all about smoking meats and get paid too! Man, I may quit my job and come learn from you. You must be making a lot of friends! (standing in the outdoor pit area where she was kind enough to give me the grand tour)
Her: oh yeah! Everybody asks me what I do, cause I always smell like smoke. I've only been working the pits for about 8 months. I shadowed the pitmaster for 2 months, then he quit. So now I'm still learning.
Me: That's impressive! You have a lot of responsibility here. So are you also the lucky one who gets to stick around all night and tend to the smokers (two beautiful special made long brick pits with a steel firebox on one end. Tremendous cooking capacity).
Her: oh no. These briskets we put on around noon today. I'll just build a big fire and then before we leave tonight, I'll close off the vents and basically stop the oxygen flow so the fire just burns low and slow all night. Then I'll come back in the morning and check on them.
In steps Dr. Blonder's voice to the back of my mind...
So if you don't know why I'm not completing this review, please go and watch the archived presentation with Doc Blonder and Meathead on Smoke.
Understand, this is about restaurant management, not a young apprentice pitmaster.
My dog got plenty of leftovers.

[Jerod Broussard]

Holy cow. "soot city"

I saw a video of a place in Texas that does something pretty neat. They cook the briskets to about 185 internal. One guy uses a thermometer, the owner and others use a min-pitch fork to see how well it turns in the meat. The briskets then get wrapped in butcher paper and PACKED into a cooler, and it is sealed tight. Those are next days briskets.

[mtford72]

Plenty of people rave about it, I've never been impressed. I've been maybe 5 or 6 times. That would go along way to explain the issue.

[Voodoo]

Yep. In a way, I hate to write things like that, but I know the audience here and its best to give the simple facts.
It's kind of comforting to know a fellow AR member has some of the same feelings I do about a bbq shack many others are so impressed with.

[mtford72]

I can't shake the feeling of 'disrespect' with 2 Bros. BBQ mastery takes many years of dedication, and I kind of feel with 2 Bros that a 'celebrity chef' just wandered in a gave it a go. For non-San Antonians, the owner has several other very well respected restaurants. I'd probably think much the same if he opened a Sushi house.

Fast forward a year or two and you've got the 20 something running the pits because she was the closest warm body to hand when the previous warm body quit. (No disrespect to her intended, just commenting on pressures of small business - all hands on deck kind of thing).

Compare and contrast with T Muellers in Austin. Scion of BBQ family. You take a bite and just stop. The world turns slowly. All peripheral vision blurs, and the beef ribs comes into acute focus. He only cooks a couple of things, but they are sublime.

[Voodoo]

Mtford you're a mind reader. I've been thinking those exact same sentiments about the place, it's origins and probable downfalls.
I did laugh about the sushi bit. I tale you didn't know he owns an Asian restaurant too?

[The Burn]

Now, I loved my decade or so in Austin and Dallas, feel more Texan than anything else, and obviously love my Texas 'Cue, but there are going to be Texans who have crappy tastebuds and/or ill-conceived opinions.

And I come across people everyday - people who know or at least claim to know about cooking, etc. - who not only buy into a lot of cooking myths, but refuse to even consider the science like we get to learn from Dr. B

But I tell you what, if there's a beautiful 20-something female pitmaster who's willing to hang out and talk to me about Cue, she can believe whatever she wants

[THoey1963]

Hmmm.... That place is just around the corner from Jeff's Backyard where I bought my WSM. Only place I found the 22.5 at here in San Antonio. (That may have changed since I got it almost a year ago.)

[Coop505]

The brisket I got there 2 times that I've been was dry and over cooked...won't go back..