Anyone here try Memphis King BBQ on Van Vranken yet? I've been hitting this place up once a week for the last month and they make some good BBQ. What stood out is they do something special every other week. If you go make sure you try all of their sauces, last time I went they made a white BBQ sauce that was excellent, it has a unique taste almost like a creamy Italian dressing, sounds funky but it works, there hot BBQ sauce is also excellent.
"In the beginning of a change, the Patriot is a scarce man, brave, hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a Patriot."
As for the white barbecue sauce -- apparently this is very popular in Northern Alabama. I have relatives who live in central and southern Alabama who have spoken of this. Apparently, it is very good although I have not tried it yet. There are a number of recipes for it online and here is one version:
Big Bob Gibson's Recipe for Alabama White BBQ Sauce:
Ingredients 1 quart mayonnaise 3/4 quart apple cider vinegar 1/2 cup corn syrup 1/4 tablespoon cayenne pepper Prepared horseradish Lemon juice Salt and freshly ground black pepper Directions Place all ingredients in a very large blender or food processor. (It may be necessary to do this in 2 batches; just add 1/2 of each ingredient and then repeat.) Blend for 1 minute, or until thoroughly combined and mixture is smooth. Pour sauce into a large bowl.
George Amedore & Christian Klueg for NYS Senate 2016 Pete Vroman for State Assembly 2016[/size][/color]
"For this is what America is all about. It is the uncrossed desert and the unclimbed ridge. It is the star that is not reached and the harvest that is sleeping in the unplowed ground." Lyndon Baines Johnson
Big Bob Gibson's Recipe for Alabama White BBQ Sauce:
Sounds good I might have to make a batch, I don't think the white BBQ sauces you cook on the meat like regular sauces, its more of a dipping side sauce. Either way it was a different take on what most are used to when it comes to BBQ sauce, I personally like a sweeter sauce so this was right up my alley.
"In the beginning of a change, the Patriot is a scarce man, brave, hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a Patriot."
Sounds good I might have to make a batch, I don't think the white BBQ sauces you cook on the meat like regular sauces, its more of a dipping side sauce. Either way it was a different take on what most are used to when it comes to BBQ sauce, I personally like a sweeter sauce so this was right up my alley.
My understanding is that the White BBQ Sauce is served on the side. I had never heard of it until I saw it on Food Channel. Then I asked my relatives who live in Alabama and they said it was a pretty common down there. My guess is that White BBQ Sauce may be the next big trend for foodies.
Now - the debate about whether to put any type BBQ sauce on before or after smoking (not grilling - grilling is NOT BBQ) the meat can cause a gastronomic war between the states. I have to weigh in on the side of no sauce - only a rub - during the actually barbecuing (smoking) phase and serving sauce on the side.
This is a much more interesting discussion/debate than politics.
George Amedore & Christian Klueg for NYS Senate 2016 Pete Vroman for State Assembly 2016[/size][/color]
"For this is what America is all about. It is the uncrossed desert and the unclimbed ridge. It is the star that is not reached and the harvest that is sleeping in the unplowed ground." Lyndon Baines Johnson
Yep, leave it to DV to spend his TV time watching the FOOD Channel. How much have you had to let out your belt? Or do you wear elastic now?
Optimists close their eyes and pretend problems are non existent. Better to have open eyes, see the truths, acknowledge the negatives, and speak up for the people rather than the politicos and their rich cronies.
Texans believe that they have THE best BBQ in the world. As this article from Texas Monthly suggests:
The 50 Best BBQ Joints . . . in the World! OUR DEFINITIVE, SOOT-STAINED GUIDE TO THE BEST PURVEYORS OF SMOKED MEAT IN TEXAS—WHICH IS TO SAY, THE BEST PURVEYORS OF SMOKED MEAT ON EARTH. by TEXAS MONTHLY STAFF
Texas barbecue has no peer on earth. If you’re reading this in Texas, you may wonder why we need to begin with such an obvious statement, but there are people who contend otherwise. In Kansas City they tout paltry slices of gray beef covered in sweet ketchup; the whole thing resembles cold cuts more than barbecue, which is why their arguments generally center on sauce rather than meat. In Memphis they grill ribs over charcoal and fret about whether to hide the product under a pool of sugary sauce or cover it with flavored dust. In the Carolinas they lift their noses and say through pursed, vinegary lips that they invented barbecue. They may have a claim there, but luckily we Texans came along to perfect it.
Let’s back up. The American barbecue tradition is rooted in numerous ancient practices. Caddo Indians had a method for smoking venison, and in the West Indies, natives grilled meats on a frame of green sticks. When European colonists arrived in the New World, no doubt tired of all the salt cod from the long Atlantic passage, they found a local populace given to roasting all manner of game—iguanas, fish, birds, corn, pretty much anything at hand. The Europeans’ contribution to this scenario was to introduce a tasty new animal: the hog. Not only was this beast a marked improvement over the previous fare, but its own gastronomic habits proved well suited to the slop-filled environs of the burgeoning Eastern seaboard. In rural areas and colonial burgs, pigs would roam freely, indiscriminately eating trash until someone decided to roast them, which was done in the local manner—a hole in the ground, a fire, and a split hog laid directly above it on a wood frame.
Barbecue might never have advanced beyond this crude stage but for the fact that another type of animal had come to these shores at the same time as the pig: the cow. Eventually, bovines made their way up through Mexico to the vast grazing lands of Texas, and it didn’t take long for us to figure out what to do with them. We started out by placing the beef directly over the flames but eventually adopted a more elegant approach by which the meat was smoked to tenderness in a chamber with a fire pit at one end and a chimney at the other. Over time, barbecue proliferated throughout the state, eventually leading to the opening of commercial establishments like Elgin’s Southside Market, in 1886, and Lockhart’s Kreuz Market, in 1900. We’ve been arguing about barbecue joints ever since.
Unlike our friends in the South, however, our arguments involve only the important stuff—not who has the better sauce or rub but who has the best meat. And in Texas, this means beef. Sure, we smoke hogs, in the form of spareribs, pork chops, or even (gasp) pulled pork, but we specialize in the Mount Everest of barbecue: brisket. In all of barbecuedom, there is no greater challenge and no greater reward.
This year marks the fifth time that Texas Monthly has sought to identify the state’s finest purveyors of smoked meat. In 1973—our first year of publication—we selected the top twenty joints in the state, singling out Kreuz Market and Taylor’s Louie Mueller Barbecue as the best of the best. In 1997 we expanded our list to include the fifty best joints, with Kreuz and Louie Mueller still at the top. Both were—and remain—exemplars of the German meat-market style, which has always been, in this magazine’s opinion, the primary form of Texas barbecue. It’s true that we can boast tremendous diversity in our methods—from the glazed ribs of East Texas to the cowboy style found farther west—but the Central Texas holy trinity of brisket, sausage, and ribs (beef and pork), smoked for many hours in an indirect-heat pit and served on butcher paper, remains this state’s finest contribution to the genre. Until recently, that kind of meal was synonymous with small-town joints like Kreuz and Louie Mueller. For most of the twentieth century, Texas barbecue was an indisputably rural phenomenon. Sure, there were a few iconic places in urban areas—Angelo’s in Fort Worth, Otto’s in Houston, Sonny Bryan’s in Dallas—but they were hardly citified. Our first fifty-best lists of the new century, compiled in 2003 and 2008, showed little change in that regard.
Then something happened. A tectonic shift occurred. Over a few short years, beginning around 2009, an unprecedented number of brand-new, very good joints opened up. (Sixteen of this year’s top fifty—including two of the top four—were not even in existence five years ago.) Even more unusual, most were in cities, operated by fanatical young pitmasters like Houston’s Greg Gatlin of Gatlin’s BBQ, Dallas’s Justin Fourton of Pecan Lodge, San Antonio’s Tim Rattray of the Granary, and the biggest sensation of them all, Aaron Franklin of Franklin Barbecue, in Austin. They were traditionalists, students of the canonical joints, disciples who would bring the old ways into a new age and a new place. And they found an enthusiastic reception among not just longtime barbecue hounds but also the growing ranks of the food-obsessed, the type of people who shop at farmers’ markets, stock their fridges with artisanal pickles, and tweet pictures of their meals. Suddenly, that most traditional of foods—pit-smoked meat—was reaching a much wider audience.
We are now in the golden age of Texas barbecue. A new generation has arisen to take its place beside the stalwarts, and together they are producing more truly exceptional brisket, ribs, sausage, pork loin, pork chops, pork butt, hot guts, prime rib, chopped beef, and chicken than ever before. The pitmasters featured on the following pages offer the closing argument in the long-standing case of Texas barbecue versus the world. That case may now be considered closed.
And now, we give you the fifty best barbecue joints in Texas—which is to say, the fifty best barbecue joints in the world. —Patricia Sharpe and Daniel Vaughn
Franklin Barbecue Austin Pecan Lodge Dallas Snow's BBQ Lexington Louie Mueller Barbecue Taylor The Original Willie's Bar-B-Q Alamo Tyler's Barbeque Amarillo John Mueller Meat Co. Austin La Barbecue Austin Lamberts Downtown Barbecue Austin Stiles Switch BBQ & Brew Austin Miller's Smokehouse Belton Fargo's Pit BBQ Bryan Brooks' Place Cypress Lockhart Smokehouse Dallas Austin's BBQ and Catering Eagle Lake McMillan’s Bar-B-Q Fannin Cousin's Bar-B-Q Fort Worth Longoria's BBQ Fort Worth Cranky Frank's Barbeque Company Fredericksburg Leon's World's Finest In & Out Bar-B-Que Galveston Meshack's Bar-B-Que Garland City Meat Market Giddings Bartley's Bar-B-Q Grapevine Bob's Bar-B-Que Henderson Gatlin's BBQ & Gatlin’s BBQ & Catering Houston Virgie's Bar-B-Que Houston Billy's Old Fashion BBQ Jasper Joseph's Riverport Barbecue Jefferson Buzzie's Bar-B-Q Kerrville Hitch-N-Post BBQ Livingston Cooper's Old Time Pit Bar-B-Que Llano Black's Barbecue Lockhart Kreuz Market Lockhart City Market Luling Whup's Boomerang Bar-B-Que Marlin Hutchins BBQ McKinney Kirby's Barbeque Mexia Hashknife on the Chisholm Peadenville Cowpoke's Pearsall Pody's BBQ Pecos Hatfields BBQ & Blackjacks Beer Garden Rockport The Granary 'Cue and Brew San Antonio Two Bros. BBQ Market San Antonio Hays Co. Bar-B-Que and Catering San Marcos Zimmerhanzel's BBQ Smithville Opie's Barbecue Spicewood Corkscrew BBQ Spring Big Boy's Bar-B-Que Sweetwater Stanley's Famous Pit Barbecue Tyler Mumphord's Place BBQ Victoria Tags: FOOD, LISTS, BARBECUE, BEST BARBECUE IN TEXAS
George Amedore & Christian Klueg for NYS Senate 2016 Pete Vroman for State Assembly 2016[/size][/color]
"For this is what America is all about. It is the uncrossed desert and the unclimbed ridge. It is the star that is not reached and the harvest that is sleeping in the unplowed ground." Lyndon Baines Johnson
Texas barbecue has no peer on earth. If you’re reading this in Texas, you may wonder why we need to begin with such an obvious statement, but there are people who contend otherwise.
In Kansas City they tout paltry slices of gray beef covered in sweet ketchup; the whole thing resembles cold cuts more than barbecue, which is why their arguments generally center on sauce rather than meat.
In Memphis they grill ribs over charcoal and fret about whether to hide the product under a pool of sugary sauce or cover it with flavored dust.
In the Carolinas they lift their noses and say through pursed, vinegary lips that they invented barbecue. They may have a claim there, but luckily we Texans came along to perfect it.
Where do you stand on the Great BBQ debate?
George Amedore & Christian Klueg for NYS Senate 2016 Pete Vroman for State Assembly 2016[/size][/color]
"For this is what America is all about. It is the uncrossed desert and the unclimbed ridge. It is the star that is not reached and the harvest that is sleeping in the unplowed ground." Lyndon Baines Johnson
Texas barbecue has no peer on earth. If you’re reading this in Texas, you may wonder why we need to begin with such an obvious statement, but there are people who contend otherwise.
In Kansas City they tout paltry slices of gray beef covered in sweet ketchup; the whole thing resembles cold cuts more than barbecue, which is why their arguments generally center on sauce rather than meat.
In Memphis they grill ribs over charcoal and fret about whether to hide the product under a pool of sugary sauce or cover it with flavored dust.
In the Carolinas they lift their noses and say through pursed, vinegary lips that they invented barbecue. They may have a claim there, but luckily we Texans came along to perfect it.
- eating ribs at the Rendezvous IN MEMPHIS , In the ally behind the Peabody hotel is listed just after riding camels around the pyramids. http://www.hogsfly.com/TheRestaurant.php
If anyone has been to Memphis you know that BB Kings, The rum Boogie Cafe, or the Blues City Cafe - yu get good music t go with the ribs.
- eating ribs at the Rendezvous IN MEMPHIS , In the ally behind the Peabody hotel is listed just after riding camels around the pyramids. http://www.hogsfly.com/TheRestaurant.php
If anyone has been to Memphis you know that BB Kings, The rum Boogie Cafe, or the Blues City Cafe - yu get good music t go with the ribs.
My first observation is that when it comes right down to it ALL the styles of BBQ are good. I prefer Texas BBQ but certainly rank Memphis BBQ a close second. I haven't been to the Rendevous but I have been to Memphis. Unfortunately, I was driving through at sunrise and was only able to stop for breakfast. On my next road trip to my out-of-state "shangri-la," I am planning to stay overnight in Memphis and check out their BBQ and music landmarks.
George Amedore & Christian Klueg for NYS Senate 2016 Pete Vroman for State Assembly 2016[/size][/color]
"For this is what America is all about. It is the uncrossed desert and the unclimbed ridge. It is the star that is not reached and the harvest that is sleeping in the unplowed ground." Lyndon Baines Johnson
George Amedore & Christian Klueg for NYS Senate 2016 Pete Vroman for State Assembly 2016[/size][/color]
"For this is what America is all about. It is the uncrossed desert and the unclimbed ridge. It is the star that is not reached and the harvest that is sleeping in the unplowed ground." Lyndon Baines Johnson