Every once in a while I have some leftover steak, tri-tip or brisket.  Often times it just gets eaten, sometimes on a sandwich or just eaten as a snack.  This time around I needed something quick for lunch and some Frito Pie came to mind.  Not sure why, but I did.

Frito Pie is a simple dish.  Take a bag of Fritos and top them with chili and some toppings.  A great easy dish for camping or tailgating.  Nothing to wash, just eat and toss the bag in the trash can.  I like to top mine with avocado, sour cream, cheese and a little cilantro.  But the skies the limit for toppings.  Maybe some chopped tomatoes, onions or jalapenos.

Let me know what you top your Frito Pie with.

And let me know why it’s called a “pie” if you know.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2012 Larry Gaian

I am in so much trouble!  I have always feared what would happen if I found a really good BBQ restaurant either near where I live or close to where I work.  I mean just how hard would it be to have great brisket or pulled pork so close that I could eat it anytime I wanted to.  It would sure throw off my dining out budget, or at least there would be the risk that it would.  So far I’ve not been very successful in finding decent, yet alone good BBQ in the Sacramento area.  Imagine my surprise to find some tasty smoked meats right down the road from my new office.  And the place is located in a gas station to boot.

Eagle Bar-B-Que is going to be hard to stay away from.  I’m not sure about the ribs, pulled pork or sausages…yet, but the brisket is first-rate.  Darn near perfect if you ask me.  There are a variety of features that make this a great BBQ establishment.  First, the atmosphere.  There really isn’t any.  I know this might sound a bit of a contradiction but for those that know BBQ restaurants they know that no atmosphere is the perfect atmosphere.  There are no tables inside, just a couple of tables outside.  There isn’t any really parking to speak of, I had to park at the Home Depot next door and walk over.  You’ve got squeeze past all the counters, chewing gum and candy bars to get to the back where the BBQ is.  If you know classic BBQ then you know this is a perfect BBQ restaurant atmosphere.

The other sign of good BBQ potential is actually smelling smoke AND finding a wood pile.  Eagle Bar-B-Que is owned and operated by Bob Akbari and it didn’t take very long to recognize some real BBQ pitmaster skills.  Bob is a living example of the saying, “It’s not the pit, it’s the cook.”   Bob cranks out some great BBQ on a couple of Char-Broil off-sets.  No fancy expensive pits, just a normal backyard pit in the hands of a master.  Bob has turned out BBQ since the 1970′s.  He was owner of Eagle Bar-B-Que in Dallas, Texas and has brought great Texas BBQ to Sacramento.

When I first walked into the gas station I asked if the meat was pre-sauced.  Bob just looked at me and his eyes said, “of course not.”  I ordered the brisket plate with beans and cole slaw.  The brisket was fantastic.  Didn’t need much of the sauce.  Instead I got to enjoy great smoked meat flavor.  Bob seasons his brisket with salt, pepper and garlic.  That’s it, no fancy rubs.  The brisket is smoked to perfection with a great bark.  The brisket comes “pulled” and I’d prefer it sliced, but I’d rather have great shredded brisket than the over sauced sliced mush I’m normally get in local BBQ restaurants.  For those that enjoy sauce with their brisket it comes one the side, where it should be.  The sauce is flavorful and tangy.  A real Texas sauce.

The sides were outstanding too.  No doctored up canned beans.  Nope, these are scratch Texas style chili beans.  I’d have been happy with a hunk of cornbread and bowl of these beans.  I also ordered the cole slaw.  And this may have been the best cole slaw I’ve ever eaten.  It was perfect.  Just the right amount of dressing.  A hint of mustard and pepper makes this an awesome slaw.  I can’t wait to go back get me a pulled pork sandwich topped with the cole slaw.

Eagle Bar-B-Que is located in the Shell Station at 8090 Folsom Blvd in Sacramento.  They are open from 10:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. everyday.  I don’t get to say this very often, but you’ve got to give them a try.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2012 Larry Gaian

What do you do when some competition BBQ fanatics come to visit and want to go out to eat?  Do you take the safe route and suggest a good non BBQ establishment or do you go for broke and try a BBQ restaurant.  Well that was my dilemma today.  John and Rhana McGee, from Wine Country Q in Duvall, Washington were on their yearly trip to the Napa wine country and I always try to make it over and have a meal with them when they visit.  John and Rhana were the 2011 Pacific Northwest BBQ Association Team of the Year.  They are two of the finest people I know and they know BBQ.  Along for the ride was my buddy @Sirporkalot who knows a thing or two about BBQ himself.  There was a lot pressure on this restaurant choice.

But…

I knew BarBersQ in Napa was a good choice.  I’d eaten there once before and was very impressed.  I mean how stupid would it have been to suggest an unknown BBQ restaurant.  It was a chance I just couldn’t take.  BarBersQ is probably the most unusual BBQ restaurant I’ve ever eaten at.  It’s also one of the best.  It’s unusual because it’s what can only be described as an upscale restaurant.  It’s not upscale in the white table-cloth sort of way, even though they save some really nice white paper napkins, it’s just got that Napa upscale kind of look and feel.  The restaurant has a fantastic atmosphere and the service is first-rate.

BarBersQ website describes their cuisine this way:

American Heritage Cooking featuring authentic Memphis style barbeque. The BarBersQ menu follows seasonal direction, embracing and fostering our close relationships with Napa and Sonoma Valley purveyors, farms, gardens, dairies and wineries; ‘the people and places of the Napa Valley’. Our menu offers the casual diner organic and sustainable local products; grass-fed beef, free range poultry raised on vegetarian diets, food free of antibiotics and hormones. We use local vegetables, fruit and herbs which are fresh from the garden to your table at BarBersQ, often the same day from our own Napa gardens. –BarbersQ

We started our meal with a couple of appetizers. We had some wonderful deep-fried Boudin Sausage balls with a Creole Mustard remoulade (left).  Boudin is not a spicy sausage, but it had enough flavor to not be overpowered by the creole mustard.  These were some tasty appetizers and were a great way to start a good meal with good friends.

We also had some spicy chicken wings.  What I liked most about the wings was the “smoke fried” wing method I like to use is also used by BarBersQ.  The wings are smoked on their Old Hickory pit using cherry wood for a couple of hours.  After a good smoke they are flash fried and then glazed with a Tabasco and honey mixture that was perfect.  The heat was nice, not overpowering and the honey added just the right amount of sweetness.

The sides were fantastic.  One of my favorite BBQ side dishes are greens.  The collard greens with ham hocks at BarBersQ are flavorful.  They’re cooked to perfection, not soggy or mushy, with just the right about of texture.  All they needed was a little vinegar pepper hot sauce to splash on them.  The cornbread is made from a course ground cornmeal from a local Northern California gristmill.  It’s about as good as cornbread gets.

Because @Sirporkalot and I have hearty appetites we split the “Taste of Q for Two” combo meal.  This is one big plate of meat.  Brisket, pulled pork, sausage, chicken and baby back ribs all cooked  about as good as you can get. It was almost cooked to perfect…almost.  Normally, when BBQ comes to the table already sauced I expect to get bad Q.  Not the case here.  Even though the brisket and pulled pork comes with sauce it’s not ladled on, resulting in soaked meat.  My thought was that the sauce was added more as a garnish than anything else.  It’s actually done in a way that compliments the meat and doesn’t take over the flavor profile.

Look…let me cut right to the chase.  This is some fantastic BBQ.  The pulled pork had flavor and wasn’t mushy at all.  The brisket was tender, moist and tasted like beef instead of all seasonings.  The chicken was, simply, amazing.  I can’t believe how good this chicken was.  Normally chicken that has spent a couple of hours on a smoker ends up with a gummy texture to the skin.  Not at BarBersQ, they achieved the long sought after and rarely achieved “bite through” skin.  The sausage may have been the best meat on the plate.   The sausage comes from Caggiano Sausage Company in Petaluma, California and has a serious buttery flavor that just melts in your mouth.  I’ve got to find a local source for this sausage.

The ribs were the “almost” to perfection part of the meal.  The ribs are prepared in the traditional Memphis style.  BarBersQ has not fallen prey to the “fall off the bone tender” cooking methods that many restaurants have.  These baby backs are tender, come off the bone with just a little tug of the teeth, just as they should.  They are seasoned well and just lightly glazed.  The only problem was the membrane wasn’t removed.  Not sure why our ribs had the membrane since our server said they normally remove them.  Fortunately the membranes were bite through and didn’t take away from the overall enjoyment of the meal.

John ordered the roasted vinegar chicken with brussels sprouts and white rice.  His meal was also just as good as everything else.  Yes, @SirPorkalot and I ate our food and some of John’s.  The sauce on the vinegar chicken was a beautiful reduction full of flavor and actually very little flavor or tang of vinegar.

(Rhana ate a salad…I didn’t take a picture of it…)

If you want some great BBQ when you’re in the Napa Valley this is the place to go.  It’s a little pricy for a BBQ restaurant, but not for a good Napa restaurant.  I don’t get the chance, very often, to recommend a BBQ restaurant but in the case of BarBersQ I get to do just that.  Eat at this restaurant…

BarBersQ is located at 3900 D Bel Aire Plaza. Napa California 94558.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2012 Larry Gaian

If you’ve read this blog for very long you know that good reviews of BBQ restaurants are few and far between.  As an official “BBQ Snob” I just don’t come across restaurants that warrant praise very often.  This weekend I’m in Des Moines, Iowa for the 14th Annual Niman Ranch Hog Farmer Appreciation Dinner and tonight I had the good fortune to eat at a wonderful BBQ restaurant.  Smokey D’s…

Smokey D’s has everything a good BBQ restaurant should have.  You can smell the wonderful sweet aroma of good BBQ from a block away and you can smell the wood smoke in the parking lot AND the restaurant smells like BBQ.  Everyone that knows good BBQ knows you can tell you’re going to have at least a decent dining experience before you’ve left the parking lot.

Smokey D’s has everything a good BBQ establishment should have.  Great food, a good vibe and fantastic  customer service.  It’s Thursday night and the restaurant was very, very busy.  Darren Warth, one of the owners, said it was a little slow.  This is a good sign…a packed restaurant and it’s a slow night.

I ordered the two meat dinner combo with brisket, chopped pork, mac & cheese and beans.  By the time I filled my drink cup and sat down our food was making its way to the table.  Super fast service is not always a plus in my book.  This often times means the food is sitting under heat lamps or drowning in sauce in warming pans.  It was obvious when the food arrived this was not the case.  Sauce on the side and everything freshly cut and plated.  BBQ perfection so far…

 The Food…

First and most importantly the meat was served with sauce on the side.  This is always a good sign.  When a restaurant serves it’s meats without sauce I’m always happier.  In my mind this means they aren’t trying to hide something.

The chopped pork was flavorful with little pieces of bark mixed in.  It wasn’t soggy or over cooked.  It was very good.  The brisket was good.  Nice beautiful smoke ring with just a hint of smoke (more on that later).  I prefer my brisket a little “juicier” than it’s served at Smokey D’s.  I don’t mean the brisket was dry, it wasn’t, I just like to get some of the fat cap on my brisket.  Smokey D’s serves it with almost all the fat trimmed off.  It’s not bad this way, in fact, most people probably prefer it without the fat, I just like the fat.

You can tell a lot about a BBQ restaurant by the sides they serve.  I ordered the beans and mac & cheese.  Both were excellent.  The beans weren’t cooked to mush and had great flavor.  The mac & cheese was awesome.  I loved it.  There was a little spice to it.  Not really a “heat” spice, but it did tickle the tongue on the way down.  Darren shared with me the pepper that’s in it and I can’t wait to give it a try at home.  (Since I didn’t ask if it was a “secret” I won’t share it just in case it is)

Now for some BBQ Restaurant Review hyperbole!

The cornbread is like crack.  I could sit down at Smokey D’s and eat just this stuff.  It is without a doubt the best cornbread I have ever eaten.  It’s just cornbread.  No peppers, no pieces of corn…just cornbread.   The cornbread does have a little sweet crunch on the top, but that’s just sugar sprinkled on the batter before baking.  Darren said they have their own pastry chef in-house.  Whoever this person is  should win the Nobel Cornbread Award!

And I ate a whole peach pie!  Well not really.  They don’t have peach pie at Smokey D’s, but they do have these amazing Peach Sliders.  And they tasted great too.

The restaurant is full of BBQ Championship trophys.  The gang at Smokey D’s don’t just run a first class BBQ restaurant they are amazing competition BBQ cooks.  And winning the Grand Prize on the 2nd Season of BBQ Pitmasters is proof enough these folks know their BBQ.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Larry Gaian

There’s a voice in my head that I hear when I’m thinking about eating at a BBQ restaurant.  I call it the BBQ Force.  It steers me away from horrible dining experiences.  Yesterday was one of those times when the Force spoke to me.  I should have listened.

I pulled into Smokey’s Kitchen and performed my normal “check list” inspection.

• Smoker visible –Check
• Smoke visible from smoker –Nope
• Woodpile –Nope
• Smell of BBQ –Nope

It was at this point the voice began whispering to me. “Larry!  Don’t go in that restaurant.  You’ll be sorry.   Larry…use the Force.”  I didn’t listen to my inner BBQ voice and parked the car and walked in.  And that’s when Smokey’s Kitchen in Truckee, California failed the final part of the “check list.”

• Smells like smoke –Nope

My Inner BBQ voice tried once again.  “Larry!  It’s not to late to leave.  You’ve got to leave now.”  Did I listen?  No, I didn’t.  Should I have?  Yes, I should have.

I checked out the menu board and chose a two meat combination.  When I do try a BBQ restaurant I usually choose pulled pork and brisket.  By having the same meats I have some basis for comparison.  I asked the guy behind the counter if the brisket was chopped or sliced.  Since he told me it was sliced I decided to go ahead with the pulled pork and brisket.  For sides I picked cole slaw and beans.  Cornbread also came with the combo.

It was a beautiful day in Truckee so I decided to sit outside.  It was a few minutes later, when my plate appeared, that I realized I had neglected to ask a very important question.  “Is the meat already sauced?”  It was at that very second I realized my Inner BBQ Voice was correct and I should have listened.

The pulled pork and brisket came covered in sauce.  Take a look at the picture you can’t really tell where the pulled pork stops and the brisket ends.  What a mess.

The meats were cold and lacked any real BBQ flavor.  No rub…no smoke…just sauce.   And the sauce was just a sweet BBQ sauce that lacked any real spice flavor.  Not much better than the generic store bought stuff people find appealing.

The brisket was sliced.  Sliced about as thin as a brisket can be sliced.  Since the slices lacked any trace of a fat cap it appears they use a trimmed flat instead of the whole packer.  There was a little smoke ring on the brisket and some resemblance of bark on the pork but not much.

I love cole slaw!  You’ve got to really screw up to serve a cole slaw I don’t like.  The cole slaw at Smokey’s Kitchen is so full of cilantro that it’s almost inedible.  I’m not one of those cilantro haters.  I love cilantro.  But cilantro doesn’t even come close to matching the flavor profile in the meat/sauce.  It I’d ordered some nice fish tacos this slaw would have been perfect with a little chipotle sauce.  But with BBQ it failed.

The beans were good but the bar, by this point, was pretty low.  They had nice flavor and appeared to have been made fresh.  The corn bread was awesome, the best part of the meal and the only thing I completely finished.

Smokey’s Kitchen has quite an extensive menu.  And there’s a good chance some of the other dishes are good.  But whatever you do stay away from the pulled pork and brisket.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Larry Gaian

…as I drove past Sierra Smokehouse this afternoon  at lunch time I saw something that gave me hope.  First, there was the smoker on a trailer out front, a real live smoker isn’t a guarantee but it’s a good sign.  Second, there were wisps of smoke coming from a fenced off area around back (yes, I looked before I went it).  And third, there were three Placer County Sheriff’s cars in the parking lot.  I’ve come to trust the taste buds of most law enforcement officials.  So I decided this was where I should have lunch today.

Walking into Sierra Smokehouse my optimism continued to soar.  The place smelled like smoky BBQ.  The cashier area had bottles of their sauce for sale, so I knew they were proud of it.  Funny thing is though, the cashier area is as close as I got to their sauce.

Along with some of the traditional BBQ dishes the menu contained a nice selection of salads and sandwiches.  The more traditional BBQ dishes were Texas brisket, pulled pork, St. Louis cut ribs and chicken.  Sides included Sweet Potato Fries, Mac & Cheese, Cole Slaw and Baked Beans.

As I was reading over the menu I heard another good sign!  The lady behind me exclaimed to the waitress, “My parents are from Tennessee and this is the best BBQ sauce I’ve ever had.”  Now I’m always glad to hear people enjoying their food, and it’s especially good to know that having parents from Tennessee makes you a BBQ sauce expert. This just made me even more excited to try their BBQ sauce.

I ordered the Texas brisket, cole slaw and baked beans.  While I was waiting for my lunch to arrive I noticed something I had never seen in a BBQ restaurant anywhere.  There was no sauce on the table.  There wasn’t even sauce in the waitress stations.  No little side table with bottles of sauce.  This, in my mind, didn’t bode well for my brisket.  If there was no sauce to be found anywhere that must mean it was coming on the plate.  Right?  Did this mean I was getting brisket smothered in sauce?

The service was very good and I got my lunch within a couple of minutes.  And much to my surprise there was no BBQ sauce on my plate.  There was no BBQ sauce on my brisket.  Not even a little plastic cup of sauce.  Now I don’t usually sauce my brisket but I sure wanted to taste the sauce, and since I’ve never had to ask for sauce in a BBQ restaurant I decided to see what happened.   You know what happened?  Nothing.

I prefer my brisket sliced and “juicy” with a little of the fat cap left on.  As you can see the brisket came out sort of chopped and sort of chunked.  This is normally a sign of leftover, warmed over brisket.  But since it didn’t have the texture of warmed over brisket I’m not really sure if it was or not.  The brisket had a nice smoke ring, but not much bark.

The brisket had a nice texture and tasted pretty good.  It tasted of smoke, but lacked the typical brisket “rub” flavor.  It’s  obvious they don’t use much seasoning on their brisket.  It’s kind of a shame because if they had seasoned the brisket it would have been pretty good.  Instead I had a plate of brisket with a little plastic container of  au jus.  Yes, you read that right AU JUS.   And because the au jus didn’t have any smoke taste chances are it didn’t come from the brisket juices.

Often times in a BBQ restaurant the beans are one of the biggest disappointment.  Usually when beans are bad it’s because the pitmaster has taken canned beans and tried to doctor them up.  Canned beans can be doctored in a suitable manner but a great deal of care and thought needs to used.  In the case of Sierra Smokehouse the beans weren’t canned, if they were they need a new source for them, because these beans were raw.  I’m not talking al dente, I’m talking crunchy.  There’s no excuse for serving under cooked beans.  The flavor was okay, but they were not edible.

The slaw was just plain boring.  Mayo based with no seasoning.  Just a splash of vinegar would have punched this slaw up to an acceptable level, and some salt wouldn’t have hurt either.  The slaw turned into raisin salad by the time I got to the bottom of the dish.

The sad thing about my lunch at Sierra Smokehouse was that all the food was close to good.  If just a little more detail had been paid to the food it could have been elevated to a nice place.  But it appears to me that they are just going through the motions.  I gather from the comments I heard from the other tables that I was probably the only person in the place that didn’t like the food.  And this fact just re-enforces my theory that most people just don’t understand real BBQ.  Because this wasn’t good BBQ, it wasn’t all bad, but it wasn’t good either.

Upon finding the address I thought we might have a winner.  The restaurant is located in an old Rexall Drugstore.  As you can tell from the picture signage is at a minimum.  Normally this would be a good sign.  A BBQ restaurant that can make itself known without garish signs has got to be good.  Right?  Well not necessarily.  Just as you shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover, you shouldn’t judge a BBQ restaurant by it’s exterior.  Looks can be deceiving.

It’s interesting that “Baby Blues” is a BBQ restaurant best known, I guess, for it’s hamburger.  A hamburger they were out of, by the way.  They were also out of chicken and initially out of Memphis Style ribs.  Upon sitting down we had a chance to hear the waitress explain to one table how Memorial Day was so busy they ran out of lots of stuff.  And because of how they smoke their meat it just takes too long to get it cooked.  (Come one guys, step up.  Get up early and smoke some meat) Landarc and I just looked at each other with a dumb founded look on our faces.  These two customers finished their drinks and left without eating.  While we were eating another pair of customers left when they were informed that there was no chicken.

We both ordered the “Hound Dog” combo platter.  The platter consisted of of 1/3 rack Memphis Style ribs, brisket, cornbread and one side.  Landarc chose cole slaw and I went with the collard greens.  And this is where the fun starts…

First the collard greens.  They were undercooked in some type of bitter tomato sauce stuff.  Not a hint of salt pork or ham hock to be found.  But best of all was they served them uncut in a little bitty bowl.  Check this out:

I received three or four leaves of collards just like this in a little bowl.  Pretty funny isn’t it.

As I mentioned we were initially told they were out of Memphis Style ribs and, as was proper, we were offered baby backs at the same price.  We accepted this offer.  The “kitchen” is visible from almost every table in the place so it was pretty easy to see the ribs were kept somewhere (not a smoker) and warmed on a grill.  Not necessarily a bad thing, especially since the ribs weren’t half bad.  The flavor was good, the meat wasn’t mushy and they came without sauce like they should.  They have a Southern Pride smoker and I’d like to give the ribs a try when there were fresh off the smoker.

The cornbread was a color I’d never seen before, it had more the appearance of ginger bread.  This odd color is due to the molasses they use in their cornbread.  If it wasn’t for the whole kernels of corn in the bread it would have been hard to tell it was actually cornbread.  But even though it didn’t taste like cornbread it was good.

We also got a helping of their beer braised brisket.  And what they did to that brisket was a violation of every BBQ rule I can think of.  It’s a crime to brutalize that piece of beef like they did.  I’ve eaten crockpot beef with BBQ sauce that was better.  It was cooked, shredded and obviously keep warm in the liquid it’s braised in.  The brisket was overcooked, dry and not edible.  Here’s the picture:

Just what in world are they thinking here?

The San Francisco location is the third spot to open.  The other two are in Southern California.  Don’t be fooled by all the awards they display on their website.  It appears the vast majority of those awards were earned by the other stores.

Would I go back to Baby Blues BBQ?  Probably not.  One, who wants to risk a trip to San Francisco only to find out they were out of food.  And I’d have a hard time sitting in the same room with people that desecrated brisket like they do.