Where to Find Exceptional Texas Barbecue (With a Difference)

There are thousands of barbecue places in Texas, and there are probably even more outside of Texas. The cuisine of smoked brisket, ribs, and sausage (but mainly brisket) has made fans of people all over the world, but outside of Texas the quality can be extremely variable. Many places in Europe try to hide middling quality beef in ramen or tacos, but in the vast majority of Texas you’ll see a puritan commitment to beef served by itself, with the mantra that, if the meat is good enough, you don’t need sauce.

Nevertheless, a few places in Texas that already put out high quality meat are doing things inspired by other cuisines in a way that elevates both. Here are four worth trying when you’re tired of straight beef.

Molotov pork ribs at Barbs-B-Q, Lockhart TX

Like many renowned barbecue places, you’ll have to play by Barbs’ rules to get these pork ribs – the restaurant is only open from 11am until sold out (usually around 2pm) on Saturdays and Sundays, in the barbecue pilgrimage site of Lockhart. 

Pitmaster Chuck Charinchart’s Mexican heritage informs these pork ribs, which are outlandishly based on the flavour profile of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. As gimmicky as that sounds the dish works wonders — it takes a perfectly smoked pork rib, with tender meat still adhering to the bone (a common mistake in amateur barbecue restaurants is meat that falls straight off the bone), adds a sweet, spicy sauce, and then every rack gets fresh lime zest grated onto it as the dish is served. 

The result, like most of the menu items at Barbs-B-Q, is exceptional — fresh Mexican flavours paired with familiar Texas barbecue that sing and push a hefty pork rib into something almost refreshing and easy to eat. Truly special.

Brisket boudin at Zavala’s, Grand Prairie

Jose Ralat, tacos editor at Texas Monthly, called the brisket taco at Zavala’s Barbecue “peak Texan”. While I visited between services and the resulting taco was nothing to shout about, the link of brisket boudin sausage I got was unique. 

Boudin and andouille are two Cajun sausages it’s very difficult to get outside of the southern US, the former being a chicken liver and rice sausage that sings with Louisianan flavours and Cajun spices. Zavala’s version had full chunks of smoked brisket inside, barely held together by a bulging casing. The resulting collision of the deep liver and Cajun spice flavours with properly smoked full chunks of brisket in the mix is intoxicating.

Sai oua at Goldee’s, Fort Worth

This is potentially one of the best things I’ve ever eaten, but first thing first — to obtain this sausage you should ideally be at Goldee’s by 9am on a Saturday, ahead of its 11am opening. Any later and the queue is going to be long. 

A lot of Texas barbecue is mythos and the thrill of something difficult to obtain, and often it doesn’t pay off, but this special from pitmaster Nupohn Inthanousay delivers and then some. A standard smoked barbecue sausage made with lime leaves, shallots, lemongrass, coriander, mint, and basil, the sai oua somehow transcends the other aspects of Goldee’s state-leading barbecue wizardry, especially when combined with the sticky rice and jeow som it’s served with. 

The fresh tingle of the herbs reminded me of the most life-affirming South East Asian food I’ve eaten, but add that to the smoke coming off Goldee’s pits and construct a jeow som/sticky rice bite and you’ve got yourself something truly special. I would queue up at 5am for this sausage if I had to.

Smoked bread pudding (and everything else) at KG BBQ, Austin

A food truck by an intersection in an unpopulated part of East Austin might sound like a bad idea to a lot of people, but auspicious surroundings like this are how Austin food greatness is generally born. 

KG BBQ, fronted by pitmaster Kareem El-Ghayesh, is doling out a full menu of Egyptian-Texan barbecue including things like pomegranate and za’atar glazed pork ribs, smoked kofta, and lamb bacon ribs. The lamb ribs and chops are excellent, the smoking process keeping them tender, toothy, and just the right side of rare, but the thing that caught my eye the most wasn’t even meat at all — it was the smoked bread pudding. 

Kareem takes a whole bread pudding with full roasted macadamia nuts on top and smokes it, as mad as that sounds. The result is so unbearably good I burned my mouth three times trying to eat it. The smoke lingers in a centre with a pure pastel de nata custard texture that honestly this dessert has no right to have and produces something so thoroughly bonkers in ideation and execution I have no idea where to start. What other things can we smoke that we haven’t smoked before? Whatever they are, they’re unlikely to be better than this.

Gavin Cleaver is a food and drinks writer based in London. For many years, somewhat implausibly, he lived in Texas, where he wrote professionally about barbecue. Read more from Gavin on Something Curated here.

Header photograph: Molotov pork ribs at Barbs-B-Q by Gavin Cleaver.