BBQ Chronicles

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NT_18BBQmeullers4

The Barbecue Chronicles: Best of Texas BBQ Tour

Brisket, ribs and sausage at Louie Mueller Barbecue in Taylor. (Photo by Tom Fox/DMN) By Gary Jacobson/Texas BBQ Posse For a while now, members of the Texas BBQ Posse have strongly suspected that Dallas finally has a joint that can hang with the elite barbecue restaurants in the state. Our recent Posse Favorites Tour confirmed that suspicion. We drove nearly 700 miles and ate at 10 top places over 48 hours. We scored brisket, pork ribs and sausage, the holy trinity of Texas barbecue, on a 10-point scale. In the end, we compiled a list of the six top-scoring spots.…
 - 03/12/2013
snowpitmaster

The Barbecue Chronicles: Tales from the Speedtrap BBQ Tour

Here's Posse member Bruce Tomaso's take on our recent Speedtrap BBQ Tour. Bruce joined Marshall Cooper, Jim Rossman and me on a 500-plus mile trek that began at Snow's BBQ, our favorite place to start every tour in central Texas. Here are some stories from one of our best BBQ journeys yet..... Last Friday night, a friend and I went to see Tool. My friend, a student at Texas Christian University, doesn’t have a car, so I picked him up. I got off work and headed west on Interstate 30 from downtown Dallas to the TCU campus in Fort Worth.…
 - 01/26/2012
impromWEB015

Dallas is raising its BBQ game

We've commented in the past about the lack of great Texas style -- real wood-fired -- barbecue in Dallas. But during the Posse's "Impromptu Best of Dallas BBQ Mini-Tour" Saturday, one conclusion was clear: Big D is raising its game. Over a period of about four hours, we ate at three joints. Each smokes with a different kind of wood. The Pecan Lodge at the Dallas Farmers' Market uses mesquite. Meshack's Bar-B-Que (OK, it's in Garland but we're counting it as Dallas) uses pecan. And Lockhart Smokehouse in Oak Cliff uses post oak. Admittedly, these three places were already our…
 - 06/13/2011
etxLede

The Barbecue Chronicles: Back to East Texas where we find proof that wood rules

It had been a few months since the Posse’s last barbecue tour. So, we reminded ourselves to be conservative and not overeat at the first stop. “I’m just going to have one rib,” said tour veteran Marshall Cooper as he drove east from Dallas on I-20. His passengers laughed. “Well, if they’re good I might have four or five,” he conceded. In the end, somehow, Texas barbecue always manages to bring out the truth. For this chapter of our barbecue chronicles, we traveled 290 miles over 10 hours on a beautiful spring Saturday that was chilly when we started and…
 - 05/01/2011
centex2tour_poster

The Barbecue Chronicles: Central Texas 5-Star BBQ Tour, 8 joints in 26 hours

Some of us didn’t know what good smoked brisket was until we ate at Snow’s during our first Barbecue Posse tour a year ago. Since then, the Lexington place has been our unanimous standard. Nothing compared. But after a recent two-day, 555-mile “anniversary” tour to Central Texas, there’s a new favorite for several of us: Franklin Barbecue, a trailer joint at 34th street and I-35 in Austin. Over a 26-hour period, we ate at eight places, including lunch at Franklin and breakfast at Snow’s BBQ the next morning. Tour organizer Chris Wilkins, a photo editor at The Dallas Morning News,…
 - 01/13/2011
locotable

The Barbecue Chronicles: BBQ tour to the Brazos and beyond

Consensus is probably a mission impossible on a barbecue tour. Too many people. Too many sensibilities. And let’s face it, rib people are different than brisket people. The Barbecue Posse, though, almost reached consensus when we visited the Loco Coyote Grill near Glen Rose on a summer Saturday. It was part of a 9-hour, 210-mile barbecue tour that took us southwest of Dallas, to the Brazos and beyond. “Those ribs were the bomb,” R.J. Hinkle, a free-lance photographer making his first trip with the Posse, said of Loco Coyote. Another tour newcomer, Michael Gluckman, general manager at Fearing’s at The…
 - 10/22/2010
ledeoc

The Barbecue Chronicles: Blues, Bandits & BBQ festival, the Posse's first cookoff

As the Texas BBQ Posse, a small group of us from the The Dallas Morning News, and friends, have traveled much of the state in search of the best smoked meats we can find. Then we tell readers what we think of the joints we visit. Anyone can talk a good game, some readers have gently reminded us since we began our Barbecue Chronicles in late 2009. So we decided to see if we could also walk the barbecue walk. Last September, we entered our first competition, the Blues, Bandits & BBQ festival in Oak Cliff. It was an exhausting,…
 - 09/14/2010
clarks1

The Barbecue Chronicles: Sampling the best barbecue between Dallas and Texoma

Too hot for barbecue? Hardly. With the Texas heat pushing triple digits, we headed north toward Lake Texoma on a recent Saturday for the latest chapter in our Barbecue Chronicles. Over about 11 hours, we traveled 200 miles and ate at five joints. Our tour included planned stops and some chance finds, one of which turned out to be the highlight of the day. Learning from our earlier expedition to Tarrant County, when we overstuffed ourselves, we took a midday break at Cedar Mills Marina. We found some nice shade where we relaxed, watched sailboats, played horseshoes and rejuvenated our…
 - 08/14/2010
longorias3web

The Barbecue Chronicles: Fort Worth area has good barbecue, but it's wise to space the tastings

On barbecue tours, it's better to plan a break for the middle rather than the end. We learned that valuable lesson on a recent Saturday during a 100-mile, nine-hour excursion to four places in and around Fort Worth. Since the stops were close, all the eating was stuffed into five hours. Even our biggest eater, Gary Barber, couldn't keep pace. Barber (a multimedia editor at The Dallas Morning News) ate a half-pound of sausage, a quarter-pound of brisket and two ribs at the first stop, Off the Bone in Forest Hill, at 11 a.m. By our last stop, Smokey's Barbeque…
 - 05/08/2010
PATGEES

The Barbecue Chronicles: One day, four pit stops in East Texas

The wheelman on a barbecue tour needs thick skin and quick reflexes. During a 240-mile trip from Dallas through East Texas on a recent Saturday, our driver had both. Moments after getting needled for poking along at 50 in a 70 mph zone, David Woo quickly had his car at the speed limit. Then we spotted smoke coming from a portable smoker in front of a low building. We were headed east on State Highway 31, between Tyler and Kilgore, about 115 miles from Dallas. "That looks interesting," one posse member said. "Let's go back." Woo, a photographer at The…
 - 03/13/2010
snows0ne

The Barbecue Chronicles: Our first journey to Central Texas

In thick fog on a Saturday morning, we missed the turn for Lexington. We quickly doubled back and arrived at Snow's BBQ a little after 8 a.m., relieved to see only a short line. A half-hour earlier, when we left our motel, none of us felt hungry. But the smell of wood smoke changed our minds. We ordered thick slices of tender brisket on white bread. "That's the best breakfast I've ever eaten," said Chris Wilkins. "I could have gone home at that point and the trip would have been worth it," said Gary Barber. Our lightning tour of the…
 - 03/07/2010

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