Tag: Texas

Bartz – 3/4(?) Hooves, Cliques

Name: Bartz BBQ

Hooves: I *think* 3/4?

Cliques: Not entirely sure how I found them.

The Beef: It was good (?)

I’m gonna keep it really real with you now.  I went down to a brewery in El Segundo, and I’m not even entirely sure which one, but I was with my drinking buddies and we were hell bent for leather.  We had no intention of staying at this brewery for more than a couple, but the BBQ dudes from Bartz showed up late and we decided to take a plate for a spin.  By the time they actually got set up, I had had quite a round number of whatever small-batch artisanal pale dirty penny meads they were slinging; suffice it to say there were enough hops in my system to choke a horse. I finally got a plate (2 hours later? 2 days?) and basically unhinged my jaw and Boa’d that stuff down my gullet.  I don’t know if it was good.  I think so, but the record is VERY smoggy.  Anyways, I’d like to give it a fair shake next time, Bartz, so show up on time and I’ll nurse a lite beer til then, deal?

Bludso’s (Reboot) – 2/4 Hooves, Bricks

Name: Bludso’s BBQ

Hooves: 2/4

Bricks: (not the Compton one, the LaBrea one)

The Beef: Bludso’s is dead. Long live Bludso’s.

Apparently, Kevin Bludso, the OG pitmaster from the OG Bludso’s in Compton has shuttered for good. This makes me sad, thinking about the handmade smokers with the Dallas Cowboy ornamentals, just sitting in storage somewhere. His original place in south LA was good. Like really good.

But a few years back, a couple of savvy LA restauranteurs paid Kevin some money to use his name and recipes in a fancier spot on LaBrea. This other, newer Bludso’s is not a terrible place, the cocktail program is far superior to the walk-up window in Compton that bears the original name (shocking, I know). The ribs are decent, the greens are really good. However, they served me “brisket” that was like a mop that had been used to clean up a Manson Family picnic. There is NO WAY that Kevin Bludso would ever have given that particular dish his name.

Go to the only remaining Bludso’s in a pinch, or just for a well-crafted drink, but pour a little out for those Cowboys smokers languishing somewhere in Compton.

Moo’s Craft BBQ – 4/4 Hooves, Cliques

Name: Moo’s Craft BBQ

Hooves: 4/4

Cliques on IG: mooscraftbarbecue, Various pop-ups, some driveway, catering events

The Beef:  THIS IS TEXAS BBQ.

Andrew and his wife (I feel terrible I never caught her name, but she (apparently) happily responds to Mrs. Moo) are 100% DYNAMITE.  Good people with hearts as big as all outdoors, making the best complete BBQ plate in SoCal (and it’s not particularly close, either.)  Top to bottom, the meat, the sides, the presentation, the vibe, the whole thing makes me weep tears of Alamo blood at missing my home state and how glad I am Moo’s Craft exists in mi ciudad adoptada.  They’re ambitious AF: they do brisket, ribs, pulled pork, and 3-4 truly remarkable sides (courtesy Mrs Moo). (BTW, if you’re reading this Mrs. Moo, I know you have a name and are actually the driving force behind this stellar operation, so write me comment and tell me your name!)

Although there are very subtle nods to their East LA beginnings, if you want to get Texas in Los Angeles, find these  Moos.  I can’t stress this enough, this IS Texas BBQ and although Trudy’s still wins the brisket contest by a silver skin, Mr. and Mrs. Moo beat everybody else in everything else.  FIND THEM.

Pearl’s – 1/4 Hooves, Bricks

Name: Pearl’s BBQ

Hooves: 1/4

Bricks: DTLA in the Arts District

The Beef: It’s not great (SO FAR)

I’m very conflicted.  Pearl’s space in the arts district DTLA is PERFECT.  It 100% reminds me of East Austin, or West Houston, or East Dallas, or Laredo, or Lubbock, or San Angelo etc etc. The neon sign outside is magnificent.  The trailers and big-ass Fat Stack smoker give me goosebumps. The giant TX flag is an amazing touch. Here’s where my concerns start, though: the owner, who I tried to introduce myself to, was not in the least bit friendly and the food unfortunately didn’t make up for it.  I went twice, thinking it was just a bad day, but the meat was leather and not like some supple tanned hide, more like something they cut off George Hamilton from the 1970s. More on the food later.

Meanwhile, they’ve hired a bunch of young women to work the joint wearing ultra derivative, low-cut cowgirl outfits. There are model shoots and scantily clad-women  all over Pearl’s IG page, (plus myriad misspellings but that’s a different blog).  Now, you don’t have to be the nicest, most erudite hombre to run a BBQ shop. One of my fave smoke shacks was in Denton TX at Steve’s BBQ (RIP) and Steve would sit behind the counter in his Lay-Z Boy and yell at Judge Judy on the furniture TV, “QUIT FILIBUSTERIN BITCH.”  He’d yell at you that you were disturbing his rest, but my god the meat that came out of that smoker. There is also a grand tradition of beautiful women promoting all kinds of products, I happen to love women so much that I married one. It’s just that there’s something not-yet-great at Pearl’s.  Many people I’ve talked to in the local scene said he just jumped the gun – He didn’t put in the time to hone his craft, he hired an outside pitmaster, didn’t value the traditions and just wanted the accolades and instant Texas barbecue clout.  Most of this is heresay, I never got a chance to talk to the dude.

I had a brisket taco and it was about the furthest from Valentina’s in south Austin that I’ve ever felt. Plus, there was PACE PICANTE on his salsa table AND THAT WAS IT.  Apparently Pearl’s has run into all sorts of trouble from jump, including health dept issues, so I do feel bad for the dude and honestly wish him the best – I intend to give them another shot.  I’d love for that space to become a music venue/ honky tonk BBQ spot that I’d race to get to a cold-ass Shiner on summer nights, but although I know it’s still early for Pearl’s, the two times I went there, I left more disappointed than full.

Ray’s BBQ – 2/4 Hooves (REVISED 2019), Bricks

Name: Ray’s BBQ

Hooves: 2/4 (REVISED 2019)

Bricks: 6038 Santa Fe Ave, Huntington Park, CA 90255

The Beef: A Review in Two Acts

Here is my initial review from 2017:
I made the trip down to Ray’s a while back with a buddy.  It’s a tiny, cheery building in an industrial section of Huntington Park, not really close to much.  Ray was there and was super friendly and all-too-happy to talk TX BBQ.  He’s a young skinny Salvadoran dude, but I got the feeling after reading up on him that he really is one of the pioneers of the current LATXBBQ scene.  That means he was traveling solo to Texas and hanging out at the backdoor of Franklin’s pilfering secrets in spanish from the cooks before most of these underground guys were doing it.  If I recall, he did the driveway thing for a minute but went brick and mortar fairly quickly.  This also comes with some issues.  He didn’t get to build up any hipster mystique by doing the underground thing during the current apex.  He also fell prey to having to deal with LA City smoke ordinances, which means he’s smoking in little commercial indoor boxes.  The cook suffers – the meat is good, but doesn’t pull well. He’s got some oddly intriguing things on the menu like brisket burritos with mac and cheese, but just after talking with him for a minute or so, you can tell he’s a meat head from way back, he LOVES BBQ. Go see Ray, he’s doing a thing.  Plus he’s the only mofo in town with Big Red.
Here’s my follow-up about a year and a half later, after going to the Smorgasburg LA where there were a few BBQ spots represented:
Not sure what happened to Ray.  The first time I met him in Huntington Park, he was generous, friendly, and clearly passionate about TX BBQ.  Since then, I see him post a lot of bitter, acrimonious stuff on the socials trying to bring down other local cooks.  I’m sure he feels like the successes that some of these guys seems unfair, since he was one of the earliest LABBQers who really worked hard to reproduce good Texas fare, and he doesn’t have the kind of underground ‘cool’ that some of these upstarts have gotten, let alone some of the commercial successes.
One of my favorite things about cooking and eating together is that it’s such a perfect community-builder.  Everybody has a mouth, everybody needs to eat – we can all come together and forget our differences over something cooked with real love.  When done right, cooking can convey pure emotion through quotidian nourishment. When done right, it’s high communal art that fills our hearts, not just our bellies. While it’s painfully temporal and fleeting, the true lasting effect of eating well-cooked food is the memory of the people with which we experienced it.
I talked briefly to Ray at Smorgasburg.  He seemed nervous and stretched thin. Other BBQ booths had lines that were 10x as long as his.  Since I truly liked the guy when I first met him, I tried some of his brisket at the food fest and it wasn’t great – tough, skimpy slices with little flavor.  It’s like what I’ve seen him become has come out in his cooking.  Here’s hoping he remembers he got into the game for the love of making real Texas Barbecue, serving it with real Texas love, and that’s what we’re ALL here for.

Maple Block – 2/4 Hooves, Bricks

Name: Maple Block Meat Co

Hooves: 2/4

Bricks: 3973 Sepulveda, Culver City, CA 90230

The Beef: If it’s based on their brisket alone, it’s an easy 4/4 Hooves

Some people follow religious figures, sports stars, musicians, I follow Daniel Vaughn, BBQ editor for Texas Monthly.  He wrote an article a few years back that said “California Finally Has Good Brisket” or something like that.  My hands were shaking as I scrolled to the page, praying with all my might that this brisket was in Southern California. It was.  And it was like 2 miles from my house.  Maple Block has some shortcomings: they’re geared more towards Ladies Who Lunch than Gals Elbow-Deep In BBQ Sauce. Much of their menu is forgettable. Many of their meats are not great.  That brisket, tho.  The brisket is GREAT.  Danny Vaughn has yet to steer me wrong, and Maple Block’s brisket is fucking fantastic.  Go there, get a lb of fatty, a Shiner, and experience a kind of nirvana rarely seen west of the Brazos.  Plus, everybody’s super cool there, especially owner Mike (also owns newcomer Lunetta).  This is the brick-and-mortar I most often recommend to people when they ask me where to go.  (The summer salad is really good too but if I said that here, I’d lose whatever fragile cred I might have.)

Trudy’s – 4/4 Hooves, Cliques

Name: Trudy’s Underground BBQ 

Hooves: 4/4

Cliques on IG: trudys_underground_bbq, Only driveway smokes (for now)

The Beef: This dude is the cot dam truth, best beefsick brisketman in town.

My least favorite thing about BBQ is that for every hipster savant like Franklin, there’s a pioneering black pitmaster you never heard of who had to shutter. But it also belies a hopeful lining: Pan-ethnic love for regional foods can be a great community builder, something that is in short supply these days. That’s why I love that the most autodidactic, passionate, cerebral pitmaster I’ve found to date in SoCal is a Zimbabwean Israeli who feels right at home with octogenarian Tootsie from Snow’s in Lexington TX: Burt at Trudy’s.

Burt was one of the 1st underground dudes I stumbled upon over the past few years and his brisket is the most legit – this dude goes to Texas more than I do.  He’s a REAL cook: he’ll finish a sous vide tomahawk in the firebox while he waits for briskets to smoke. He makes no sides, only meat, and it seems like it’s almost like he’s daring you to notice that – he’s a bona fide meat purist.  His spare ribs are quite good, not overly remarkable, his beef rib (I’ve only had one) would quietly pass in most Austin eateries, but the brisket rivals any I’ve ever had in LA OR TX.

Apparently Burt is taking over the old Doughboy’s spot on 3rd for an actual brick and mortar joint, calling it ‘Slab.’ which is thrilling news for those who can’t make it to his driveway in the Valley.  My only fear is that whatever restauranteur investment group is throwing money his way will make him take his laboriously researched and tested, but ultimately sublimely straightforward brisket, like THE PLATONIC IDEAL of brisket, and gussy it up, all gentrified and reworked into something fancy.  I’m not afraid of tweaking something  to make it remarkable, but to me, the vaunted TX BBQ tradition is sacrosanct and Burt is currently nailing it.  Basically, don’t small-shared-plates-of-artisanaly-roasted-hay me into not getting at that transcendent pectoralis profundi.