Linkdown: 12/18/13

 – This month’s featured barbecue photographer on TMBBQ is Denny Culbert from Lafayette, Louisiana, who has some great photos from his Barbecue Bus project featuring Stamey’s, Scott’s, Skylight Inn, and more NC joints

Here’s what TMBBQ had to say about the new Texas/Carolina barbecue joint Curly’s Carolina, TX 

A big vertical smoker uses pecan for the pork shoulders and ribs. It’s all cooked with wood, but there are no coals. We love our smokers here in Texas, but in the Carolinas the pork shoulders and whole hogs are cooked directly over hickory coals. It creates a flavor similar to the Texas Hill Country style of cooking, but doesn’t taste much like slow smoked pork. I questioned Jay and John about this and Jay hoped to have a direct-heat cooker operational soon and even hinted that whole hogs could be on the horizon. Until then, the meat won’t have much Carolina flavor until you squeeze on the vinegar sauce.

– Although this article has a somewhat unfortunate title – “Private school students start barbecue business” – it’s a cool story about high school kids in Thomasville (just outside the Barbecue Bros hometown of High Point) starting their own barbecue business; check out more on Butch Cassidy Barbecue here (via)

– Fervent Foodie has a review on Elwood’s Barbecue & Burger Bar in Ballantyne

– Ever wonder what it’s like to cook a whole hog with Rodney Scott? Well this gives you a better idea:

It’s nine p.m. at Charles Towne Landing, a six-hundred-acre park just outside of Charleston, South Carolina, and Steven Green is holding a blowtorch to an opening in a repurposed oil drum that is filled to the top with damp pieces of oak. Flecks of rain fall across two cleaned, beheaded, and butterflied pigs sitting on a sheet-metal barbecue pit nearby. Tomorrow, the pigs will feed hundreds of Garden & Gun readers who are in town for the first Jubileefestival. Right now, Green and his boss, pit master Rodney Scott, are just trying to get the fire going.

Linkdown: 11/13/13

A very happy birthday to Mrs. Monk!

– Clyde Cooper’s celebrates 75 years

“Yes, Even Texas Barbecue Needs Sauce” (via)

– BBQ Snob’s impressive BBQ Google Map

– A new Carolina and Texas style barbecue joint called Curly’s Carolina, TX is opening up in Round Rock, TX (via)

– A story about Tuffy Stone’s recent win at the Jack Daniel’s World Championship Invitational Barbecue contest; in related news, Speedy stopped by a Q Barbeque in Richmond last weekend and was a big fan (review forthcoming) (via)

More details on True ‘Cue, aiming for a 2014 launch

Linkdown: 10/23/13

– The 84th Annual Mallard Creek Barbecue is tomorrow

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– However, Kathleen Purvis warns everyone to be careful at church barbecues (and similar events) in light of the recent salmonella outbreak in Shelby last month

– NC (specifically Lexington-style) and TX barbecue: maybe not so completely different? Daniel Vaughn of TMBBQ thinks so when it comes to outside brown and fatty brisket.

– Diva Q stopped by Charleston last week and helped with a fundraiser for a local charity (thanks to the reader Robert who submitted this story!)

– For August – National Sandwich Month – Zagat listed a sandwich for each state that best embodies “the spirit of each community and its local cuisine.” The good: they picked a chopped pork sandwich for NC. The bad: they photographed one at Bar-B-Q King in Charlotte. It’s as if they flew into Charlotte and found the first barbecue joint they could find (4 or so miles out Wilkinson Blvd from the airport) and just went with that.

– The winners of last week’s Q-City Championship, with Ranucci’s Big Butt BBQ winning the grand championship

Lamberts Downtown Barbecue – Austin, TX

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Name: Lamberts Downtown Barbecue
Date: 7/5/13
Location: 401 West 2nd Street, Austin TX 78701
Order: Beef Brisket with Fried Okra (link to menu)
Bill: $30

Before we started this blog and started reviewing barbecue, I had eaten at Lamberts Downtown Barbecue and thought it was the best brisket I had ever had, so I was excited to go back and try it again.This time it was on the record.

Lamberts describes themselves as ‘fancy barbecue’ which causes some people to question if they should be really be considered as a barbecue “joint”. Texas Monthly Barbecue recently ranked Lambert’s in their Top 50 and two years ago it was ranked as one of the top 100 most important restaurants in the US (I can’t find the link to this anymore, but Darren Rovell had this year’s rankings, and I looked at the past ones at the time). So needless to say, while the barbecue may be called fancy, it also is called good.

Lamberts uses a coffee and brown sugar rub which gives the meat, and especially the bark, a tremendous amount of flavor. The only problem with this is that pieces of the brisket that don’t include the bark seem like they are missing flavor, when it is only because it is being compared against other bites. Some of this is also a result of the fact that Lamberts uses a gas smoker instead of wood, so the meat doesn’t have that full smoky taste. That being said, it was still tender and wonderful, however it was not as good as I had remembered it to be.

For a side I had the fried okra, which was hand-breaded and came with a spicy remoulade dip. It was fantastic and a welcome alternative to the weak sides that often plague barbecue joints around here.

Lamberts is located in an old historic warehouse in downtown and has a great feel to it. There is dining indoors and on a patio, plus live music upstairs. While it is a great atmosphere, it doesn’t scream barbecue, but it’s a great place to enjoy a meal. The barbecue was great, the side was great, and the atmosphere was fun, but my only complaint was the price. The menu says fancy barbecue, and I think the only thing that made it seem fancy was the high price. $18 for less than half a pound is more than twice the price of brisket almost anywhere else. Fried Okra and a small amount of brisket costing $30 is pretty ridiculous. So far it seems like you pay a price for great brisket in Austin. It’s either a 3 hour wait at Franklin’s or a $30 tab at Lamberts, but at least it’s great when you are eating it.

-Rudy

Ratings:
Atmosphere/Ambiance – 3.5 Hogs
Brisket – 4 Hogs
Sides – 4 Hogs
Overall – 4 Hogs

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Lambert's Downtown Barbeque on Urbanspoon