Tag: Pork Ribs

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InterStellar BBQ – Austin, Texas

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

With more than 2,500 purveyors of bodacious barbecue in the Lone Star State, Texas Monthly Magazine has increased the likelihood of smoked meat aficionados locating and enjoying the very best.  That’s largely because of Daniel Vaughn, the magazine’s “Barbecue Editor.”  Vaughn has traveled the world sampling smoked meats at over 1,800 barbecue joints, most of which are in Texas.  Texans making pilgrimages in pursuit of barbecue carry with them Vaughn’s tome The Prophets of Smoked Meat: A Journey Through Texas Barbecue.  They also take along Texas Monthly’s “The 50 Best Texas Barbecue Joints.” Vaughn’s Texas Monthly compilation, last published in 2021, will be updated in 2025.  These are the barbecue bibles to which believers are called. There’s only two jobs I’ve ever coveted and both are under the employ of Texas Monthly.  One is Daniel Vaughn’s aforementioned “Barbecue Editor” position.  The other is “Taco Editor,” a position held by Jose Ralat.  In a state covering 268,596 square miles, the chances of meeting either one of them aren’t very high.  Much less likely is the opportunity to dine in close proximity to one of these culinary giants.  It was sheer serendipity that the man, the myth, the legend himself, Daniel Vaughn would…

AlbuquerqueChineseDog FriendlyNew MexicoRating: Very Good

Noodle Works – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno7:11 PM

“To witness the birth of a noodle is a glorious thing. I have listened, spellbound, as an 85-year-old noodle chef in Beijing told me why the act of making noodles helped him make sense of the world.” -~Terry Durack, Noodle In the movie Mr. Nice Guy, martial artist cum actor Jackie Chan portrays a  chef with a successful television show.  In the movie’s opening scene, Chef Jackie is presiding over a flour-dusted table, stretching, twisting, and pulling a piece of dough into fine strands of noodles, a process the TV host can only describe as “alchemy.”   For the culinary obsessed among us, that was the highlight of the movie, all the “special effects” we needed.  Later on, Chef Jackie would be stretching, twisting and pulling a drug lord and his syndicate in much the same manner as he did the noodles. There’s something almost mystical about the artisan process of pulling noodles by hand.  Certainly for the onlooker, it’s entertaining to the point of being mesmerizing.  It’s not prestidigitation in that there’s no sleight of hand to deceive you.  It’s sheer brilliant mastery of an time-honored craft.  It’s performance art and scientific precision in one.  Learning to repeatedly stretch…

BarbecueRating: N/R (Not Rated)TexasUnited States

Terry Black’s BBQ – Lockhart, Texas

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

My Kim won’t be jealous that I was in the company of two winsome women during my inaugural visit to Terry Black’s BBQ.  She might, however, be unhappy if I were to come home perfumed by post oak, a sure sign I had been enjoying Texas barbecue without her.  Post oak is the wood many of the Lone Star State’s best barbecue restaurants smoke to give their meats inimitable flavors and aromas.  Okay, she might also be jealous that I polished off a monsterous beef rib, the type of which tipped over Fred Flintstone’s granite automobile.  It would have been more than enough for her and The Dude to share with me, but hey, how often do you get to visit Lockhart, Texas, the legislature decreed “Capital of Texas Barbecue.” My trip to the San Antonio area was meant to be a solitary adventure, an opportunity for me to visit some of my old haunts.  I would have been perfectly happy to spend time alone.   Then Melinda Martinez came into my life.  We met while standing in a long queue in front of Burnt Bean, a  2024 finalist for the James Beard Foundation’s “Best Chef – Texas” honor.  We shared…

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Black Mesa BBQ – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

“Barbecue may be our nation’s most democratic food. (Think small d-democratic, as in of the people, by the people, for the people.) That’s part of the problem: Egalitarian foods with elemental appeal oftentimes get short shrift.” ~John T. Edge for Gourmet Magazine When we first heard about a restaurant in Albuquerque’s South Valley offering “Texas style barbecue in the Land of Enchantment,” three questions came to mind.  First, of course, was “could this really be Texas style barbecue?”  “Texas is like a whole other country” in which there is no one style of barbecue.  Instead, barbecue varies from one region to another across the Lone Star State.  Pundits who refer to “Texas style barbecue” are usually talking about Central Texas barbecue hailing from the hill country region around Austin.  My second question was “why would an Albuquerque restaurant call itself “Black Mesa.”  New Mexico’s most famous Black Mesa is the sacred mountain within the confines of the San Ildelfonso Pueblo just north of Española.  It’s about 80 miles from the Duke City. My third question and maybe the easiest to answer was “why would someone open a barbecue restaurant here.”  “Here” is Coors Blvd. just about as far south as…

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Nomad’s BBQ – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

As a spindly teenager who hadn’t yet metamorphosed into my (then) scrawny 6’1″ stature, I had grand delusions of someday playing basketball for the University of New Mexico (UNM) Lobos.  There could be no greater aspiration for a twelve-year old from the mountains than to wear the cherry, silver and turquoise and play for UNM Coach Norm Ellenberger.  Back then Coach Ellenberger could do no wrong in my eyes…or in the eyes of every Lobo fan.  A 1974 Sports Illustrated article described him as “the Newman-Redford among coaches, a man of such striking looks and charisma that his picture, hanging in Albuquerque restaurants, must be guarded lest it be defaced with scribbled I love hims.” When my Uncle Fred introduced me to the legendary coach,  I brazenly told him I’d someday play for the Lobos (obviously that didn’t pan out).  I was so starstruck when Coach Ellenberger shook my hand and spoke with me that it’s a wonder I didn’t tell him that I’d never wash that hand again.  That’s just not something aspiring Lobo basketball players do.  Over the years I’ve met and befriended many people I’ve admired and respected, but have never uttered the platitudinous phrase “I may…