Before (my mouth still waters)
Picking a BBQ winner is not an easy task as each has their own individualities. However, for overall flavour Smitty’s Market in Lockhart TX is a clear winner. It is also very traditional – smoke stained rooms, meat carved in front of you on an old fashioned butcher’s block and straight from the smoker, meat sold by the pound, long trestle tables, lemonade, no-forks no-plates no-sauce, plain white sliced bread, and all served on brown butcher paper. This is BBQ.
Well, I don’t know which place is the real home of BBQ but Memphis, Kansas City, The Carolinas, and Texas are the crowd favourites. Each has their own characteristics (a lot to do with the rub, when to apply the rub, and the sauce – if needed at all). Texas was the first place I tasted real BBQ when a local took us to one of the real BBQ places on our first visit to Austin several years back – that’s when I fell in love with BBQ ribs and sauce and pulled pork and have been trying to replicate or come up with my own flavours ever since (some are successes, others maybe not so good but no-one has died yet).
So on this trip to Texas going to BBQ was a priority – but which one was more of a problem. There is an excellent iPhone app put out by Texas Monthly who rate the top 50 BBQ places in Texas. The other problem is man can not live on pork ribs alone so obviously we couldn’t go everywhere everyday so we limited to one on the first day and one on the second (we were at the football on the third but more on that later – hook ’em horns).
Well, we went to the crossroads – or one of the supposed crossroads as there are about four or five different possibilities. But the junction of highways 49 and 61 is recognised as the crossroads where legendary blues singer Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil for his musical ability (maybe I should have checked in for some musical ability of my own).
But the only thing we did at this corner was take a quick photo – still miserable weather – gave a beggar some money for lunch rather than my camera to take a photo (and I don’t think he was going to buy anything edible either) and guess what, we had some more BBQ. I love the flesh of the swine.
Well, there isn’t actually too much more to Nashville than music. However, if you don’t like all types of music – country and western – then maybe this is not your place. But if you have the slightest liking, then again, another highly recommended location.
And not only is there music everywhere, even at the traffic lights where music is piped, we found another great BBQ place – Jack’s BBQ. The ribs are getting better. Jacks is on honky-tonk row and is one of those more traditional BBQ joints where you line up, order what you want, pay, grab your sauces then grab a seat. And cheap.
We were looking for some more BBQ (or ‘Cue as the locals call it) and had a few places in mind when we ran into a chap on the street who thought I looked depressed – I was just hot and thinking of how we’ve only had one “proper” breakfast (let me digress here for a moment and tell you a better story about how people look which was when we were going into the civil rights museum and the girl collecting tickets thought Caroline was Sally Field 😮 )
Back to the local and he had little chat about he served alongside Australian Forces overseas and spent time at Darwin, then we mentioned part of our trip was to taste the BBQ. We told him we’d been to Rendezvous and he said that was for the tourists and although it was number two, the place where the locals went and his number one was A & R BBQ.
Rum Boogie Cafe is a Beale Street stalwart since 1985. The house bands are generally of a high standard (although most bands along this strip are pretty good) and the food is okay. It is also renowned for having over 360 guitars signed by different bands, singers, etc. hanging from the roof. We came here on our first visit to Memphis back in 1997 and thought we better check back in – still good. I had the ribs and as I have been doing a rib score – these were a different cut to those from the Rendezvous so were maybe a little sweeter but the dry-rub was not as good and the sauce was a bit too ketchupy so I give them a 3 out of 5. Also the coleslaw and red beans were not a match on those from Rendezvous.
First night in Memphis – the home of the dry-rub BBQ ribs – and we headed to one of the classic BBQ places Rendezvous. This place is down an alley not unlike many of our Melbourne establishments but easy to find. And very popular; we were there relatively early and managed to get in the window as when we left they were queued up outside.
Food was quick, glass tabletops to save on cleaning, linen napkins and no need for cutlery (or silver as I should be calling it now). Went for a Ghost River beer which was quite nice pulled from the tap accompanied with some ribs and chicken (or should that be the other way around?). Both meats were coated with a generous rub that was sweet but spicy at the same time. There were some sauces to try in case you like wet ribs but the dry was probably the best (although the chicken went well dipped in the sauce that came with it.)
Before
After
If anything, the ribs were maybe not as moist as others I have had but I don’t think this deterred from the flavour, just maybe made them a little too chewy at times (someone sitting near us actually sent theirs back to the kitchen because of this). I have to be tough on the first rib rating but I will give them a 3.5 out of 5. And I would recommend the restaurant to anyone who visits Memphis because of the history and uniqueness.
This is my first BBQ post – and I am no expert at the BBQ but just like my philosophy on training dogs I continue to practice, have patience, persist and most importantly have fun.
I am one of the few who does not own a kettle BBQ but I do have a pretty good hooded grill and the big green egg, which someone saw a picture of and wondered why I had a small space-ship in the back yard. It’s taken me about a year to master the egg (if master is the correct word) and my slow BBQ is coming on with I would say some pretty edible results.
I had a rolled shoulder on Grand Final Day, which I rubbed with oil and some sweet Texas rub and kept in the fridge overnight. And then I received the latest newsletter from amazingribs.com.