Monk: Southern Living readers pick their favorite barbecue in each state in the South for the annual “Best in the South” issue. While Robert Moss provides a foreword, please remember that this is a reader chosen list and not his South’s Top 50 Barbecue Joints list. So address your ire at the masses and not Moss’ inbox.
Moss does note that half of the 14 are repeat, with the other half being new to the list. For North Carolina, the reader’s pick this year was Lexington Barbecue but it was not a repeat winner as last year’s choice was Buxton Hall Barbecue.
Check out the Southern Living reader’s pick at the link below.
Congrats to Black Powder Smokehouse on their Asheboro location, their second store
Midwood Smokehouse is doing pork versions of birria tacos
Tickets are now on sale for the Pinehurst Barbecue Festival taking place Labor Day weekend
Non-Native News
Hector Garate of Palmira BBQ is headed to Austin later this month for a collaboration with Interstellar BBQ
Sapced Cowboy Pit Master Series for 2023. Our first guest will be Hector Garate, founder of @palmirabbq in Charleston SC on March 26th. Hector will bring his unique style to Austin for the first time to collaborate with our pitmaster @chefjohnbates_atx Menu to be announced. pic.twitter.com/eXswOXyxj5
Monk: I can’t say that I’m all too familiar with Phil Rosenthal outside of work on “Everybody Loves Raymond.” But he’s turned into a sort of Anthony Bourdain travel docuseries guide in his most recent career turn (albeit a less-knowledgeable-but-more-agreeable version of Anthony Bourdain). The show’s clearly been a success for Netflix, as it somehow just released its sixth season of episodes, including one that focuses on the Austin food scene.
Phil starts the episode in a studio talking directly to camera relaying anecdotes from when he was shopping his show to various networks including Travel Channel and Food Network. According to them, barbecue was apparently all that anyone wants to watch these days. So when he finally visited Austin in season six, Phil obliged.
Along for the ride is Daniel Vaughn, BBQ Editor of Texas Monthly Magazine, and together they embark on a barbecue crawl across Austin. But their goal is not to hit the obvious spots in the Franklins or the La Barbecues, but rather to visit the newer joints.
At LeRoy & Lewis (3:55), Phil and Daniel of course get the standard Texas platter but with LeRoy & Lewis’s “new school barbecue” including beef check, sausage, bacon rib (aka pork belly on the bone), smoked burger, and cauliflower. LeRoy & Lewis is located in a food truck park in South Austin and has reached must-visit status for any serious barbecue fans, as evidenced by it #5 ranking in 2021’s Texas Monthly Top 50 list. And word on the street is that a brick and mortar is in the works.
Next on the trail is Distant Relatives (8:30), where traditional southern barbecue is influenced by sauces and spices from Africa in addition to the usual southern traditions. Owner and pitmaster Damien Brockway currently serves at Meanwhile Brewing in an industrial park in south Austin and was recently named to the most recent Texas Monthly Top 50 list as an honorable mention.
Fast forward to 15:38 where Phil and Daniel visit Interstellar BBQ and before eating we get a little bit of Vaughn’s backstory and how he got into Texas barbecue from his former life as an architect from Ohio. At Interstellar, Chef Jon Bates serves a typical central Texas platter of typical barbecue meats including turkey, which Jon jokingly considers a vegetable at his place. Bates honors Texas barbecue with some fine dining touches here and there. While I’m sure its all good (after all, it was #2 on last year’s Top 50), this is the most classic Texas barbecue of the places featured on this episode.
After taking a break from barbecue Phil treats the friends he’s met along the way in Austin to a family meal at Salt Lick Barbecue (43:30). The famed restaurant and winery is located just outside of Austin proper and while its not going to a show up on a Texas Monthly Top 50 list anytime soon, it certainly seems to hold a soft spot in the hearts of many barbecue snobs in Texas. It was one of our first stops as the Barbecue Bros in 2012, and I can understand why.
The Austin episode of “Somebody Feed Phil” was my first exposure to the series, and I will certainly be on the lookout for any more barbecue-related content in future seasons. While no Anthony Bourdain, Phil’s likable nature makes it an easy watch.
Monk: Eater’s Smoke Point series takes a look at the “cheffed-up” barbecue at Austin’s Interstellar BBQ, including the pastrami beef rib.
Description: At Austin’s Interstellar BBQ, pitmaster John Bates and his right-hand man, Warren McDonald, a.k.a “War Dog,” put a spin on classic Texas fare. Using all of the kitchen skills and attention to detail he learned as a chef in high end restaurants, Bates plays up traditional ribs by rubbing them with a mole seasoning, serving them with a riff on mole sauce and cotija cheese, and makes other distinct offerings like pastrami beef ribs and jalapeño popper-stuffed sausages.
We use cookies to optimize our website and our service.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
