Large Big Green Egg, Weber Performer Deluxe, Weber Smokey Joe Silver, Fireboard Drive, 3 DigiQs, lots of Thermapens, and too much other stuff to mention.
I wouldn’t doubt it. Texas style bbq is everywhere now. Here in NEPA, Luzerne County, where Wilkes-Barre has a population of 44,000, I count ten bbq restaurants, PLUS a Smokey Bones and a Mission BBQ right next to each other; TWELVE total! Hell, I can walk to Butcher Bob’s! And Mountain Top is suburban/rural, and unincorporated!
California being the most populous state, it only stands to reason it would have the most and best Texas bbq outside of Texas.
None of the bbq restaurants here (that I’ve tried) are worth a damn, by the way. Butcher Bob’s is okay on some things and mediocre on others. I threw away the brisket from B3Q. 15 years ago the local Smokey Bones had a GM who was a real smokehead, and they were excellent; when he left they went downhill. I tried Mission once. We had a Dickey’s, where the franchisee invested his life savings into the restaurant; the location was awful, and he was obsessed with portion control, everything getting weighed. The food was actually decent, but they closed after a couple years. I do want to try South BBQ El Rincon Ecuatoriano, though. It looks interesting, if not Texas.
I think the food is perhaps the smaller part of the Texas BBQ experience. With a quality cooker and enough skill and experience anyone can produce/replicate TX BBQ food. There's a 'thang' about going to a BBQ joint in TX, especially the long-established ones. THAT is difficult to replicate. We can make Texas BBQ, but we have to go to Texas for Texas BBQ. I might be splitting hairs, though
You might have a point there. Thinking about it, every bbq place here is more like a restaurant that serves bbq, rather than a bbq restaurant. I’ve only had the one experience in Texas, but the concept of hospitality in the BBQ joints we went to was completely different. It was much more cooperative (dare I say communal?), and much less transactional. But that could also be a difference between East Coast and Southwest.
Yeah, they have these?
In my mind, nothing beats the idea that a BBQ joint has decades of smoke and flavor built up in those old brick pits. That’s the stuff of legendary BBQ. IMO Everything else is a knock-off from those old grocery and butcher shops selling smoked meats. That said, all BBQ is good BBQ. 😎
We don’t have an old BBQ brick pit in FL that I know of. If anyone knows where, let me know.
“I think the food is perhaps the smaller part of the Texas BBQ experience. With a quality cooker and enough skill and experience anyone can produce/replicate TX BBQ food. There's a 'thang' about going to a BBQ joint in TX, especially the long-established ones. THAT is difficult to replicate. We can make Texas BBQ, but we have to go to Texas for Texas BBQ. I might be splitting hairs, though.”
CaptainMike makes a good point. It’s been my experience that it’s hard to duplicate the “Texas” thang outside of the state or for someone who never lived here. Going to a great BBQ place here is more of an “event” kind of thang. There’s the camaraderie of waiting in line with like minded folks, the slow buildup of anticipation as you get close to the meat counter and that satisfaction of chowing down on great Q. This isn’t unique to Texas of course, but to me it’s just “normal”.
Even more important to me is the atmosphere and decor of the place. It just has that “BBQ feel” to me. Here’s a couple of examples…The place Mosca mentions above, South BBQ El Ricon, looks more like a sandwich shop to me 🙄
As great as the food is at Barb’s BQ in Lockhart, their atmosphere was more reminiscent of a coffee shop…
This is what a Texas BBQ place should look like…Terry Blacks in Lockhart.
Last edited by Panhead John; September 16, 2024, 10:36 AM.
Panhead John We actually just got back from South BBQ El Rincon Equatoriano. It is definitely BBQ, but also definitely not Texas. It's asado, South American style. Everything is cooked over charcoal: "Todo lo que es en asados al carbon." I had caldo de bolo; estuvo muy rico!
Yep, even Denver is getting into the BBQ scene. It is probably the new food trend, very casual dining and leaving the high end expensive restaurants to almost extinction.
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