At dawn on the morning of Sunday October 16, I drove into the parking lot of the Washington Lodge of the Sons of Hermann. As I described in an earlier post, a handful of old fraternal organizations in this part of Texas have preserved the pit barbecue style that was once common all [...]]]> At dawn on the morning of Sunday October 16, I drove into the parking lot of the Washington Lodge of the Sons of Hermann. As I described in an earlier post, a handful of old fraternal organizations in this part of Texas have preserved the pit barbecue style that was once common all across the South. This Sons of Hermann Lodge was established in 1898 and the members claim that their barbecue tradition goes back that far too.

I heard about the event from Bubba Roese while eating a burger at the legendary 105 Grocery. Bubba and I were talking about Texas cooking when he got onto the subject of barbecue. He told me that the German meat markets in Lockhart and Giddings weren’t really cooking barbecue. Barbecue isn’t supposed to taste like smoke, he said. He invited me to come to the Sons of Hermann hall on the third Sunday in October to see how it’s done. It took me a couple of years, but I made it.
Twice a year, once in October and once in April, the lodge holds barbecue fundraisers. At the April event, only chicken is served. But at the annual fundraiser held on the third Sunday of October, pork and beef are barbecued.

Pork butts and briskets are the preferred cuts today and the fuel is charcoal, but 50 years ago, lambs and the small pigs called shoats were slaughtered on this spot and cooked over wood coals.

“We didn’t barbecue beef until we started buying briskets in the 1960s, recalls Bubba, who has been attending barbecues at the lodge since the 1940s. Back in the 1940s and early 1950s, the animals were slaughtered on the spot. And you couldn’t kill a steer unless you were having a really huge barbecue. “Refrigerators were pretty rare, and it was just too much meat to handle. Texas barbecue was mostly whole hogs and whole lambs on an open pit back then.” I asked him if anybody still barbecues whole hogs in Texas today. “Some people rented the hall for a wedding not long ago and they cooked whole hogs out here,” Bubba said. “You can get six hogs on this barbecue pit.”

“We don’t use wood coals anymore, dry wood is too expensive. We’ve switched over to B&B charcoal. It’s a Texas charcoal company, they make lump charcoal and its really easy to cook with.” The pit was open in the old days, but today it’s covered with sheets of cardboard to retain heat and moisture and cut down on fuel consumption.

While the rest of the meat is cooking, the barbecue crew likes to make special items for their own consumption. There were several coils of homemade sausage and couple of rabbits cooking that morning.
The Sons of Hermann barbecuemen started their fire at 2am and cooked the beef and pork until around 10:30, when it was time to start carving for lunch service. The brisket was a revelation, tender, juicy and nicely flavored with charcoal. I didn’t really miss the smoke. The pork was succulent and practically squirting fat, but it wasn’t cooked long enough to yield the mushy “pulled pork” texture that’s popular in much of the South.

It was a rare honor to attend this event, interview the participants about old-fashioned barbecue and take down their mop sauce and barbecue sauce recipes.

I was gobsmacked to see that the centuries-old Southern barbecue tradition has been preserved in Texas.

The Saigon Burger at Burger Guys in Houston

The banh mi burger is a very tasty emerging trend. Most of the banh mi burgers I have heard about are created by American restaurants and burger joints rather than Vietnamese banh mi shops. Rub BBQ in NYC has one as a sometimes special and [...]]]>

The Saigon Burger at Burger Guys in Houston

The banh mi burger is a very tasty emerging trend. Most of the banh mi burgers I have heard about are created by American restaurants and burger joints rather than Vietnamese banh mi shops. Rub BBQ in NYC has one as a sometimes special and another place in Redhook Brooklyn offers them too. The Houston version I tried was pretty impressive.

It was called a “Saigon burger” at The Burger Guys on Westheimer near Kirkwood and it featured their standard half-pound akaushi burger patty on a toasted hamburger roll spread with French-style paté and topped with pickled carrot and daikon–extra jalapeños on request. I would love to sample a banh mi burger made on a banh mi baguette. If you see one in Texas, let me know.

The original banh mi sandwich is a syncretized Viet-French creation, but I am thinking the American-born Vietnamese burger is an example of full-on creolization. Especially if the pickled jalapeños come out of a Mexican La Costeña can.

On the way to Minute Maid Park on Sunday, I stopped by to visit Joe Hernandez at his new place “Mr. Joe’s Deli” on Preston. The last time I saw Joe was in 2001 when the Houston Press ran a story about the light rail construction putting Joe and a lot of other [...]]]>

On the way to Minute Maid Park on Sunday, I stopped by to visit Joe Hernandez at his new place “Mr. Joe’s Deli” on Preston. The last time I saw Joe was in 2001 when the Houston Press ran a story about the light rail construction putting Joe and a lot of other small family-run restaurants out of business.

It was great to see him back. His sandwich shop on Main Street used to be famous for its Philly Cheese Steak but now he is branching out into the New Orleans Roast Beef Sandwich poor boy genre. My buddy Paul Galvani also reports Joe’s Deli is serving a remarkable hand-formed hamburger. I promise to try both soon.

3x3 at Tornado Burger

Tornado Burger, the Houston burger joint that patterned itself after In-N-Out, may soon get some competition from the real thing. The Orange Country Register has confirmed that Southern California’s iconic fast food burger chain, In-N-Out, has plans to enter the Texas market.

In-N-Out is famous for its quality [...]]]>

3x3 at Tornado Burger

Tornado Burger, the Houston burger joint that patterned itself after In-N-Out, may soon get some competition from the real thing. The Orange Country Register has confirmed that Southern California’s iconic fast food burger chain, In-N-Out, has plans to enter the Texas market.

In-N-Out is famous for its quality ingredients including never-been-frozen hamburger patties. The chain maintains its own meat packing plant in Southern California to supply fresh burger patties to each location every other day. Up until now, company spokesman have said that didn’t want to open any outlets beyond a 500 mile radius of the meat plant because of logistics.

The first In-N-Out burger stands will be in the D/FW area. In order to service the Texas In-N-Out hamburger stands, the company will open a second meat plant in Dallas.

BBQ burgers on the smoker

The barbecue burgers at Guy’s Meat Market on OST are remarkable. In a city of great burgers, they stand out because of the smoky flavor. To make them, half pound partially-cooked ground round patties are placed on the rotisserie in the barbecue smoker and smoked with hickory for [...]]]>

BBQ burgers on the smoker

The barbecue burgers at Guy’s Meat Market on OST are remarkable. In a city of great burgers, they stand out because of the smoky flavor. To make them, half pound partially-cooked ground round patties are placed on the rotisserie in the barbecue smoker and smoked with hickory for about an hour. When they come off of the smoker at 11 a.m., there is already a line of people waiting. This Thursday, a famous food writer from New York was one of the guys waiting in line.

George Motz, Hamburger America author

George Motz, author of Hamburger America, is currently working on a second edition of the American burger guide. In preparation, he is traveling around the country checking out burgers that got left out of the first book. Evidently, quite a few Houstonians wrote to Motz to recommend Guy’s BBQ burger.

When I met George at Guy’s I tried to explain to him that you don’t get a Guy’s barbecue burger with lettuce, tomato, mayo and the rest of the usual condiments. It doesn’t taste right that way. (Neither would a sliced brisket sandwich.) You have to order a Guy’s burger with BBQ sauce, onions and pickles. But did George listen to me?

No, of course not. George is a New Yorker after all. He is also the authority of hamburgers. And he always shoots them the same way. So he took a bunch of photos of the Guy’s barbecue burger with lettuce and the rest. Then he ate part of the burger. He wasn’t impressed.

Finally, I got him to try one with barbecue sauce, pickles and onions. His eyes rolled around in his head. “There is no comparision,” he announced. And then he had to order another burger with barbecue sauce and start the photo session all over again.

If you’ve never had a Guy’s Meat Market barbecue burger, you need to go try one. But be advised they are only available Tuesday through Friday and they sell out by noon. There aren’t any tables at the meat market either. You have to get your burgers to go.

Southbound Food Radio Studio

George gave me his photo model burger because he couldn’t eat any more. I took the smoked burger with me to the recording studio and gave it to the Southbound Food Show crew. I couldn’t believe that LIttle Bigs co-owner Bryan Caswell had never had a Guy’s barbecue burger before. He loved it.

Tune in the Southbound Food Radio show at 1560AM on Saturday at 11 a.m. The subject is barbecue this week. And then come see me at Alabama Ice House on Sunday from 2 to 5 p.m. We’ll be grilling and chilling and I’ll be signing copies of the Tex-Mex Grill and Backyard Barbacoa Cookbook. See you there!

The Hamburger Kid

The “Hamburger Kid” is the proud owner of a new hamburger joint that moved into the Hubcap Grill’s short-lived second location on Main Street a little north of 610. Like the Hubcap, the new place serves hand-formed, half-pound hamburger patties from well-seasoned, never-been-frozen ground beef. The place has only been [...]]]>

The Hamburger Kid

The “Hamburger Kid” is the proud owner of a new hamburger joint that moved into the Hubcap Grill’s short-lived second location on Main Street a little north of 610. Like the Hubcap, the new place serves hand-formed, half-pound hamburger patties from well-seasoned, never-been-frozen ground beef. The place has only been open for two months, but it shows great promise.

I tried a cheeseburger and I was impressed with the juicy, medium-rare burger meat. Too bad it didn’t really have any crispy char on the outside. Maybe the griddle wasn’t quite hot enough or something. So far the menu is limited to a burger, a cheeseburger, a bacon cheeseburger, a turkey burger and a pork chop sandwich. But the “Hamburger Kid” claims to be working on a hamburguesa estilo Monterrey that will blow your socks off.

We shall see.