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Houston BBQ Guide
Houston is enormous. It’s easy to say it’s the largest metropolitan area in Texas, but the size is hard to comprehend until you’ve spent the day driving from one corner to another, like I did last week...
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Weighing Options for the Barbecue Bill
UPDATE: The veto effort failed. Governor Abbott signed HB 2029, the Barbecue Bill, on June 1st. I also received the information requested from TDA about consumer complaints against barbecue joints....
View ArticleBBQ News: 05/26 – 06/01
– House Bill 2029, aka The Barbecue Bill, was signed by Governor Abbott today. Barbecue joints with pending scale-related citations from the Texas Dept. of Agriculture should contact them to see how to...
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Dallas/Fort Worth Area BBQ Guide
Dallas and Fort Worth have a burgeoning barbecue scene that has come to prominence in just the past five years. The opening of Meshack’s in Garland was closely succeeded by Pecan Lodge and Lockhart...
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San Antonio BBQ Guide
Austin, Dallas–Fort Worth, and Houston may get more attention for their barbecue, but San Antonio’s reputation is rising quickly. An individual barbecue identity is emerging in San Antonio that doesn’t...
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The Half-Yearling
Earlier this year, I smoked what I had dubbed the Yearling—a brisket that was packaged in 2015 and spent about thirteen months in a friend’s garage refrigerator. Although it didn’t end my life-long...
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The Master — Video
Every Saturday morning, before the sun has risen over Texas, a line forms in front of a small red building in Lexington. There are no guarantees about the weather conditions, or—after queuing for...
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Recipe: Bacon-Wrapped Bacon
A few months ago, the special of the day at One 90 Smoked Meats in Dallas was a smoked pork belly sandwich. I’d been drawn back to the joint by its excellent BLT with house-made bacon, but I found...
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BBQ News: 06/09 – 06/15
We went out to Snow’s BBQ in Lexington to capture why it’s so special to eat there while Tootsie works the pits. The Oregonian calls Snow’s BBQ in Lexington a smoky version of Santiago de Compostela...
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Rodney Scott Ain’t Scared
Thousands of people lined up along Manhattan’s Madison Avenue over the weekend to try Rodney Scott’s barbecue. His skills as a South Carolina whole hog pitmaster are known across the country, so the...
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BBQ Joint Number 51
June has been barbecue month at Texas Monthly. After a four-year wait (and thousands of miles and hundreds of joints), our new Top 50 BBQ joint list was finally released. It’s been a good month for...
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BBQ News: 06/16 – 06/22
A Houston-area barbecue joint owner is unhappy about being one of the Top 50 BBQ joints in Texas: It may not be Festivus, but @killensbbq has some grievances with @TexasMonthly he wants to air...
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Barbecue Fried Pies
It was 9:30 in the morning, and the “Open” sign was on at Baker’s Ribs on the Interstate-20 service road in Canton. Two exits east, the devastation from a tornado that hit the area in April was still...
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BBQ News: 06/23 – 06/29
“But for those willing to stray from their smoked-meat comfort zones, Houston is the place to be.” Ray’s BBQ Shack in Houston is moving to a larger venue. There’ll be a bigger kitchen and room for new...
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Surviving Pig Beach
Shane McBride was mad. His finger waved and his pace quickened as he marched toward me. “That was some bullshit!” he exclaimed as soon as he was able to confirm my identity. It was Big Apple Barbecue...
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BBQ News: 06/30 – 07/13
A new Top 10 list of Washington D.C. area barbecue joints was published by the Washington Post. This wouldn’t normally be big news in Texas, except for this line from critic Tim Carman: “I wrote...
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On the Road with the BBQ Snob: Corkscrew BBQ
Will and Nicole Buckman started serving barbecue as many burgeoning pitmasters do: out of their yard. But the Buckmans graduated from the lawn to a trailer, and finally to a brick-and-mortar joint in...
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Smoke Over the Water
Tatsu Aikawa was just ten years old when he left Tokyo for his new home in Elgin, the sausage capital of Texas. His mother and father had divorced, and she had taken him and his younger brother, Shion,...
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BBQ News: 07/14 – 07/27
A city construction crew destroyed a barbecue artifact at historic Martin’s Place in Bryan. See a photo of the original bricks in our interview with owner Steve Kapchinskie. Cort McMurray calls...
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Steak Night in the Hill Country
Kenneth Laird is as big a draw as his barbecue. The seventy-year old pitmaster at Laird’s Bar-B-Q in Llano has a story to share with anyone looking for a chat. It’s hard not to overhear it all, whether...
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