The Best Barbecue in the World? Louie Mueller's, Taylor, Texas

[Brisket at Louie Mueller's]

Well, I have beside me the Blogger's Hyperbole Handbook, The Big Book of Restaurant Review Cliches and the Spotters Guide to Superlatives, but I don't know if I'll need any of them.

Yes, it's probably the best barbecue in the world. Yes, the melt in your mouth brisket is to die for. Yes, it was astonishing, incredible, sublime and delicious. Yes, I did enjoy my lunch, thank you.

But really, I'm not a restaurant reviewer or a food critic. In fact, I was feeling a bit of a fraud on my drive to Taylor yesterday. Would I actually know good barbecue if I met it? I'm English, and barbecue for us is burnt value brand burgers and raw chicken. I've only had American barbecue a handful of times, and yes, I enjoyed it. But I'm no expert. Am I even qualified to judge?

I knew when I pulled up in Taylor I'd reached the right place. Even on the street you could smell the woodsmoke. Step inside, and it's even more intense. The whole building is stained dark brown by nearly 70 years of cooking (apparently, it used to be green inside!). The queue was short - by barbecue standards, I was late for lunch at nearly 1pm.

[Inside Louie Mueller's]

I kept things simple - a couple slices of brisket and an original beef sausage. I was given a tiny chunk to taste at the counter - oh, I'm going to need to reach for my books. It tingled my tastebuds. It melted in my mouth. That tiny lump encapsulated everything I wanted from barbecue. A crust that contained all the dark, salty flavours of the smoke, a layer of fat that dissolved in my mouth and meat that tasted intensely of beef.

So I took my seat, took my photographs (still feeling a little self conscious about that) and hoped that these slices would live up to the morsel I'd had at the counter. Oh boy they did. As for the sausage - well, it was no pork bender. Succulent, smoky and delicious.

[It's so hot in there!]

After lunch I went back to the counter to try and sneak a few atmospheric photos, but as they'd finished serving for the day I was invited back to meet the guys that created this wonderful food and take some pictures in the kitchen.

It was a great opportunity to see behind the scenes - I felt honoured - and as I chatted about barbecue I didn't feel the imposter anymore. However, I did start to feel seriously hot - how on earth can these guys work in those sorts of temperatures? I had to leave before I passed out - oh, that wouldn't be cool.

So, if you know about barbecue, you already know all about Louie Mueller. If you don't, I can't imagine a better introduction. Now my only worry is that I've had the best barbecue of the trip already!

Ps. You can see more photos from here, and my travels in general, at my Flickr account.

I'm here at last! How y'all doing, Texas?

[A margarita at H3,  Fort Worth Stockyards]

Howdy from Texas! Okay, I promise, that's the last cowboy reference I'll make. Well, we got here, and it wasn't too painful.

The journey wasn't without incident - but nothing too serious. My GPS threw a spasm when we arrived and refused to navigate us, so we got completely lost coming out of DFW. It's amazing how quickly it goes from urban sprawl to country backwater. I'm sure we could hear banjos ...

But eventually, like we have for the last 6 years, we got to Fort Worth, Stockyards. Now, it would be too easy to pick holes in the Stockyards - it's obviously designed for a certain type of American tourist that likes to dress cowboy style at the weekends - sharp blue jeans, smart tucked-in shirt, big belt and stetson. But hey, I'm a sucker for all that so I love the place.

[Beef ribs at Riscky's, Fort Worth Stockyards]

We're creatures of habit at the Stockyards - after a day travelling, recovering from jet lag, you don't want to make too many decisions. You want cold, alcoholic drinks and comfort food.

So each year, it's a frozen margarita at the H3 saloon, where you get to sit on bar stools with saddles on (yeehaw! sorry, I said I wouldn't do that anymore). Then off to Risckys for all-you-can-eat beef ribs. Problem is, I can't actually eat more than the first plate - I always order one more out of politeness rather than hunger. Note to all of you English BBQ joints - note the presentation, or lack of it. That's how it should be done!

[Joe T Garcia's]

Next night it's Joe T Garcia's - a Fort Worth institution dating backing to 1935. Now, I know I had a little rant about TexMex a while back, but it's a hard man who's not charmed by this place, with its outdoor hacienda style eating. And the fajitas are really good. But note - the portions are vast. My daughter and I shared one portion, and even then we were stuffed.

Fort Worth is also famous for its steak houses - Cattlemen's dates back to 1947, and is a quality, reliable steakhouse. Personally, I favour the johnny-come-lately H3 in the Stockyard's Hotel. We ate in Cattlemen's this year, and I'll get to eat in H3 at the end of the trip - I'll try and compare them for you later.

[Fajitas at Joe T Garcia's]

Finally, we got to try the burgers in both Riscky's and Love Shack this year, purely in the cause of research - the things I do for you, dear reader(s). I'll tell all about that later too!

We also got me my cowboy fix. Two nights at the rodeo this year, which had me a hollerin' as loud as any Texan (much to the embarrassment of my daughter). Plus the usual Stockyards rituals of the cattle drive down the main street (a few, slow moving longhorns enjoying a pampered retirement, and no risk of a stampede), and a shoot out between a few old boys in costume that keeps the kids (and me) amused.

[Rodeo at the Cowtown Coliseum]

Now it's time to leave the land of the erstatz cowboy. Time to take my daughter at camp and drive the ever so exciting 339 miles up and down the I35 between camp and Austin (with a stop for a kolache or two!). Austin, here I come!

Ps. You can see more photos from here, and my travels in general, at my Flickr account.

Making plans for BBQ (pt4) - San Antonio and Beyond

[Auntie Skinners Riverboat Club, Jefferson, TX]

Someone pointed out recently that I'd left you all in suspense, that I hadn't said what happens in San Antonio - and beyond.

Well partly, that was because I didn't have any photos to illustrate the post - so now I'm just using a few personal favourites. And also, I hate to admit, I simply wasn't as well planned for the second leg of the trip.

The excitement of the triple lunch barbecue in Lockhart is a hard act to follow.

But I can't leave you hanging, dear reader, so here's the next stage of the plan. In San Antonio, I'm staying in the Hotel Havana just off the famous River Walk. Every Texan I've spoken to goes misty eyed when I mention the walk, so I do hope it lives up to its star billing.

Now, Don't Drive to Dinner rules apply here, so I'll spend one of my two evenings at Granary Cue and Brew, at the north end of the walk. I don't think this is a compromise by any means - they're highly rated, and they're also on the bill at Meatopia (think Glastonbury for Carnivores) this year, so I hope to be able to say hi.

[Neon sign, Risckys, Fort Worth, Texas]

I've only got one day in San Antonio, and this means just one lunchtime. I'd like to do the tourist trail, visit the Alamo and explore the river area, so I'd rather not travel too far out of town in search of lunch. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know!

Next day I'm driving out to Galveston, so I'm definitely detouring to Luling for the famous City Market. Often mentioned in the same breath as Taylor or Lockhart, and personally recommended to me by food blogger Simon Majumdar (swoon, starstruck name drop moment), it's a 'must visit'.

From there it all falls apart a bit. Galveston isn't exactly known for BBQ, but perhaps (blasphemy), after seven barbecue lunches in a row, a bit of fish might be good for me. As for Houston, my inner geek wins, and I'll be eating lunch at the NASA Space Center.

But before you give up on me, you need to know what happens next. Then I'm on the train to New Orleans, meeting my wife, and we're spending two weeks exploring all the food that city has to offer. Watch this space!

Why is life never simple? Kolache confusion!

[CC Image courtesy of Nick M from Flick]

Roadfood.com - it's your fault.

Up until an hour ago, the plan was simple. I'd break my drive from Dallas to Austin, down the oh-so-dull I35, at two places - West, for a quick sweet snack, then Waco for lunch.

If you drive between Dallas and Austin, you'll almost certainly know about the small town of West, and the Czech Stop bakery.

West (named after the first postmaster, not the geographical location apparently) is known for its large Czech community, and the delicacies they make - most famous of which is the kolache. These are a sweet dough bun, usually served tart fashion with a fruit filling. They're also quite addictive. I'd planned to stop there in the morning, munch a couple with a coffee, hide a few more in the car and then drive down to Waco.

It was Waco I was interested in - I normally stop at a Panera Bread just off the I35, but given the foodie nature of this trip, I thought I could do better. So I was hoping that Roadfood.com might come up with some ideas. Alas, it couldn't, but it did suggest I stopped at one of the three Czech bakeries in West.

Hold on a second there. Three?

Oh no, this is information I can't un-know. Apparently, there's the Czech Stop, just off the I35, certainly the best known, but possibly not the best (although I've always loved it). There's the Village Bakery, where the locals buy their kolaches, and Geriks, which has a little more of a restaurant vibe, and also does great savoury kolaches.

Obviously, the first thought that jumps to mind is 'taste test'. I'm not alone - Shelly Tucker experienced a similar dilemma on her blog. She gives me some very sensible advice - "don't eat six kolaches at one sitting."

But when did I start listening to sensible advice?

So I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm glad I now have something to liven up an otherwise dull stretch of my travels. I'm worried that I'm going to absolutely stuffed just hours into my road trip. Tune in next Sunday to find out!

Making plans for BBQ (pt3) - Planes, trains and automobiles (and hotels)

The photo on the left was taken 20 years ago in Jordan, my first ever truly exotic holiday, with my dear friend Niall.

There's a lot of things that amuse me about that picture. The fact I still had hair. That I still wear exactly the same make of DMs. That we'd managed to get quite a stash of alcohol for an Islamic country. But most of all, what amuses me today is how lightly I packed. Just one small holdall.

I'm convinced things were simpler in those pre-internet days. The flight was booked through a travel agent (remember them?), plus we'd arranged accommodation for the first night as we didn't land until late. That was it - and even that we nearly got wrong, as it wasn't until we were in the taxi to the airport we realised we'd forgotten to pick up the tickets.

We had one guide book, a rough idea of itinerary (Petra looks nice, let's go there), and beyond that we'd work it out as we went along, finding accommodation and arranging transport as we went.

Nowadays, the Internet makes it possible to research, plan and book every little element of a holiday in advance. Tripadvisor (not always to be trusted) allows you to read reviews and see pictures of almost every single hotel and restaurant, regardless of how obscure the location. Google streetview allows me to check out the walk from every motel to the nearest diner. Every site and attraction is blogged about, dissected and debated.

Online booking means no more awkward international phone calls to people who don't understand a word you're saying - and it also allows you to be more ambitious in your planning. Why stay in one hotel when you book a different one for every night? Why not build a complicated network of interconnecting flights, trains and hire cars to get you to every place you read about in the travel blogs?

When this becomes a hobby, like it is for me, when you're prepared to spend a couple hours every week reading and researching, your only constraints are imagination and budget. I've never been lacking in the former, and fortunately this year, the latter is less of a problem too - a lucrative contract with a law firm has allowed the plans for this year to grow into a holiday of quite dizzying complexity.

I'm sitting in the pub looking at the master spreadsheet, checking and double checking every stage, and it occurred to me to count it up. Eight different interconnecting flights. Twenty one different hotel bookings. Three different hire cars. One train journey. One summer camp. Oh god, I hope I haven't forgotten something!

60 Years of British Burgers - We like them Wimpy!

[It all started here - Lyon's Corner House]

Hands up if you've had a pork bender.

My American readers might be looking puzzled, but UK readers of a certain age might be awash with nostalgia (or at least have a strange niggling memory). The bender (a curved and crenelated hot dog) was one of the delights on the menu of Wimpy, the UK's first burger chain.

I was inspired by a recent article on Burgernerd about the history of the burger to do a little digging on its history here in the UK.

 It all seems to point here, to a new item on the menu of a Lyon's Corner House in Coventry Street in London's Soho, in 1954. The 'burger'.

Now, let's put this in perspective.  The name 'Corner House' might imply something cosy and local, yet at their peak they were a huge business - open 24 hours, 250 branches across London, serving thousands of customers daily. The Coventry Street branch, the first to open in 1909, served 5,000 covers, had four floors and employed 400 staff.

[Original Wimpy UK logo]

Britain was changing in the 1950s - the end of rationing meant we were becoming more adventurous with our food. America's influence was becoming stronger, especially among the younger generation.

And in 1954, with the end of beef rationing, Eddie Gold came to Britain with an offer for the directors of Lyon's - the UK rights to his Chicago burger chain, Wimpy's Grills. Named after the character of J. Wellington Wimpy, from the popular Popeye cartoons, the name was already synonymous with the burger on both sides of the Atlantic.

Although there was a little initial scepticism among the more traditional members of the board, there was no doubting this new dish was a huge success. On the 18th May 1955, the first standalone Wimpy Bar opened, just a month after the first 'Ray Kroc' McDonalds in Illinois. (Pedants will point out the first ever McDonalds was opened by Dick and Mac in San Bernardino in 1940, but Illinios' was the first with the brand and business model that was to go stratospheric).

There was no doubt Wimpy was a huge success - by the 1970s there were over 1,000 restaurants in 23 countries. And it's in the late 70s that I would have experienced my first burger, in the branch in Henley-on-Thames.

Wimpy wasn't like the fast food restaurants of today - some of the tradition and conservatism of the Corner Houses remained. They had waitress table service, china plates and cutlery. When I visited with my parents, we'd have the grill (with the pork bender, snigger) - my mother would never let us eat the burger. We didn't eat with our hands - oh no, we weren't that sort of family. I only went for the desert anyway - the knickerbocker glory, the banana boat - such exotic delights for a ten year old boy. My first burger would have been had after a trip to the cinema one of my friends and their more modern parents.

[The site of the original McDs in San Bernadino]

It all changed in October, 1974, slowly at first, but an unstoppable tide. The first McDonalds opened in Woolwich and had reached my home town of Reading by the early 1980s. McDonalds didn't have waitresses, plates or cutlery - and that meant my mother would never go there. And there sounded the death-knell for Wimpy - the teenagers deserted en-masse to the new restaurant their parents didn't approve of, the cheap, shiny and unashamedly all-American McDonalds.

Wimpy UK got passed from owner to owner throughout the 80s and 90s, before being bought by its South African franchise - who are in the process of returning the remaining 200 branches (still table service!) to their original 1960s branding.

So it looks like a pilgrimage is in order. My nearest branch is in Haverhill (now there's a town that time forgot, so no surprises there), so after the summer's road trip I must go and visit them. Alas, there's no knickerbocker glory any more, but happy to see the pork bender (still can't stop sniggering) is still on the menu.

Wimpy and Lyon's links:

Peter Bird's history of Wimpy and Lyons
Review of Wimpy in the Independent
Pictures of Pork Benders on Google (snigger)
I remember those! Lyon's Corner Houses

Real American BBQ in Cambridge? Let's review Smokeworks ...

[The Dive bar of Smokeworks]

So do we blame Pitt Cue? Like the food truck, American style BBQ is a newcomer to these shores.

I remember sitting in Stubbs in Austin in 2010, feeling amazed that America had kept a whole cuisine secret. Smoked brisket, pulled pork, beef ribs - this was a smokey, intense, grown up food, unlike anything I associated with American cuisine. And I was hooked - the next day we were off to Saltlick, in the evocatively named Driftwood, to try more of this unusual, delicious food.

[Smokeworks. Not Eriana any more!]

That's not to say I couldn't have discovered barbecue in England. Bodeans, in Soho, had been serving ribs, pork and brisket, 'Kansas style', to homesick Americans and adventurous Londoners since 2003. I've since tried it, and it's great - but somehow it didn't quite replicate the authentic American BBQ experience for me. That's not to say they didn't try, but some how it was just too, well, clean. The food came on china plates with cutlery. That's not quite right.

In Texas and the South, barbecue is paper plates and a roll of kitchen towel in the center of the table, plastic forks if you're lucky. It's food, let's be honest, slopped onto plates and shoved in front of you. Bodeans aren't going to send out a plate with beans dripping off one side. Saltlick don't give a damn.

So, Pitt Cue. They arrived under Hungerford Bridge in 2011 with their shiny silver custom-made BBQ truck, a slice of Austin on the South Bank. They slopped messy food into cardboard boxes. And they were a huge hit - and perhaps, there, was Britain's love of American BBQ born.

[Smoked beef short ribs]

Now it's arrived here in Cambridge - yesterday Cambscuisine opened Smokeworks, the newest restaurant in a stable that already includes the wonderful St John's Chop House, among others. This lunch time, we just had to go!

The place has a smart industrial look - all the better to exorcise the memory of the Eriana Taverna (mmm, over 45 dishes all based on mince). The menu was Southern slanting barbecue - alongside beef, pork and lamb(!) ribs there was fried chicken and wings, plus mash, beans and pickles as well as the mandatory (in the UK) fries.

Now, the Texan inside me (y'all) would have liked to see them make a little more of their smoker - where were the brisket, links or smoked turkey? But perhaps Cambridge isn't ready for that - we don't want to scare the natives this early in the venture. Like any new restaurant, they were keen to know if we 'got it' - did we like the concept? (sure do), were we aware that slaw isn't coleslaw? (sure are).

[Southern fried 1/2 chicken]

But all that said, I couldn't fault my beef ribs - not too sweet, not too smoked, served on a paper covered tray with the sides in cardboard pots - so far, so Texas. Not too clean.

My wife had the fried half chicken - succulent meat, she says, but perhaps the coating was over-cooked? Herby fries were, well, lovely but not very herby and the slaw and pickles helped cut through the fat.

Would I go back? Definitely - I want to try the buns, the beef on toast and the bourbon cocktails. A welcome addition to Cambridge's restaurant scene. Dare I say it's smokin?

Smokeworks
2 Free School lane
Cambridge
CB2 3QA