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The best BBQ is the one middle of nowhere side of the road with a smoker in the backyard or side and the menu is scribbled on a cardboard. Big portions and cheap prices not so many millennial approved hyped up places charging $25-35 for ribs. BBQ should be cheap eats not fine dining like so many new places.
Absolutely agree!! About 25 years ago I happened on a dive of a place outside of West Memphis Arkansas,maybe on highway 40? There was an old billboard advertisement for their barbecue and ribs and when I saw it up ahead I just had to stop. I ordered some ribs and I’ll just say this,I have never forgotten that place to this day. And I’ve eaten barbecue all over the place and all types of it. Now,if I could just remember the name of that joint!
Absolutely agree!! About 25 years ago I happened on a dive of a place outside of West Memphis Arkansas,maybe on highway 40? There was an old billboard advertisement for their barbecue and ribs and when I saw it up ahead I just had to stop. I ordered some ribs and I’ll just say this,I have never forgotten that place to this day. And I’ve eaten barbecue all over the place and all types of it. Now,if I could just remember the name of that joint!
The best BBQ is the one middle of nowhere side of the road with a smoker in the backyard or side and the menu is scribbled on a cardboard. Big portions and cheap prices not so many millennial approved hyped up places charging $25-35 for ribs. BBQ should be cheap eats not fine dining like so many new places.
I don't know! I lived in Austin for a number of years with great BBQ. But what disappointed me the most was that the cooks would brag about how they spent 18 hours carefully slow smoking the brisket. Then you plop down your money and they put the meat on a flimsy paper plate and give you tasteless, formless white bread to eat with your meal. Show some respect for the meat dude!!! Next up you get to pick some flimsy plastic utensils from the bins. I'd usually break a couple tines off the fork by the end of my meal. I remember sitting in Franklin BBQ and cutting through my meat and the plastic knife is creating little white paper balls from the plate rolling in the sauce and sticking to the meat. It doesn't have to be fine dining but for god's sake, use a ceramic plate and silverware so I can eat BBQ like a human being and not like a gorilla at the zoo. This was why I liked Lambert's BBQ so much. Civilized BBQ, even if it wasn't necessarily the best.
Franklin's in Austin is rated by some authorities as the best in the US. I've been and it is pretty incredible, but I don't think its better than the places in Lockhart or Luling. Luling City Market is the best I've ever had.
Expatriate Texan here and you’re right- mr. franklin had either the good luck or sense to sell classic central Texas bbq (i.e. Lockhart or Luling) in central Austin. All those places take the cheapest, toughest cut of beef and sloooooow cook it over the local wood (mostly mesquite with some live oak thrown in) for a ridiculous amount of time. It was the bbq I’d stop and buy for my grandparents in Nixon when I was coming over from Austin. The route ran through Lockhart as well and we all like it a lot, but City Market started in the classic way- a grocery store that butchered its own meat, and found that if they cooked the tough cuts low and slow, it made for some fantastic eating.
Everyone’s gonna be partial to what they know and grew up with and I’m no different. Now I live two hours from Kansas City and there’s some pretty fine places there. I’m partial to Jack Stack, though it’s not cheap and too crowded often as not. Actually, we have a minor treasure in mid-Missouri, specifically in Jefferson City— Lutz’s bbq, taking up the niche in a gas station big enough for 8-10 tables and a ginormous smoker in back. Burl Lutz has several championships from American Royal’s bbq World Series and is the most knowledgeable pit man I’ve ever known.
I’ll never give up on America so long as I can get real fish tacos in San Diego, super-fresh Maine lobster, world-class bbq or Tex-Mex from a place in a gas station (or in El Paso, a car wash), or a slice of heavenly simple mozzarella and basil pizza from a hole in the wall in Brooklyn, thin enough to fold down the middle so I can walk and eat it at the same time. The real tastes of America are still out there.
Salt Lick is pretty good but amazingly, it's not even the best in the Austin area.
Agreed! Blacks in Luling gets our #1 pick, with Franklin BBQ of Austin #2.
We actually stopped at Blacks on the way back from judging the Memphis in May BBQ Competition last year....was CRAVING BEEF!!! (Memphis in may is PORK only except for the wildcard division, which can get CRAZY!!!!!!!!!)
I'd say Pappy's in St. Louis or Central BBQ in Memphis. Roadkill Grill in Las Vegas has a claim too.
What do y'all think?
One place I can say for sure it is NOT is Phil's BBQ in San Diego. Went there quite a few times (lived in SD and lots of friends thought it was amazing) and never had a good ITEM there. Not one thing tasted even remotely good. Couldn't ever understand the hype that place has.
Phils BBQ is f'n dope AF.
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