Tag: Texas Monthly

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Taconeta – El Paso, Texas

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

The meme below purports to show where the highest quality of tacos in Texas can be found.    Study the map and you’ll get the impression the meme’s creator believes tacos are “nonexistent” throughout about half of the Lone Star State.  That includes the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex as well as all of West Texas.   Most of what the meme’s creator believes are the Lone Star State’s “best tacos” can be found only in San Antonio and the South Texas Plains as well as in portions of the Texas Hill Country.  A “best tacos” designation is also accorded to the El Paso area. There is, of course, no official sanctioning of this (or any other) Texas Taco Map.  It’s just someone’s…

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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…

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Little Miss BBQ – Phoenix, Arizona

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

If you grew up in New Mexico, you’ve likely heard some variation of that tired old epigram “The reason New Mexico is so windy is because it’s bordered by Arizona which sucks and Texas which blows.”   If any truth whatsoever can be ascribed to that witticism, New Mexico should have fabulous barbecue because it’s bordered by Arizona which has great barbecue and Texas which has the best barbecue in the universe.  Alas, virtually every barbecue aficionado I know agrees that the Land of Enchantment’s barbecue has a lot to be desired.  It’s “good” most will agree, “better than it used to be,” others will tell you.  Still many of them will tell you the only barbecue restaurant in New…