Dallas Food - DFW Quest for 'Cue (Part 5)

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DFW Quest for 'Cue (Part 5)
Posted on Monday, December 13 @ 23:56:53 PST
Topic: Barbecue

From the pulpit on Sunday, a speaker quoted someone as having said, “Show me what a man thinks of when he doesn’t have to think of anything in particular, and I’ll show you what that man is.” My wife leaned over to me and softly whispered, “Honey, that means you’re a brisket.” Lately, at least, that seems to be the sad truth. But the list of high profile independent barbecue joints in Dallas is getting shorter. Soon, I’ll be hitting the Yellow Pages. In this installment, I’ll be looking at Hickory House, Mike Anderson’s Barbecue House, and Lakeway Smokehouse. On to the food…

First up was Hickory House.

I first heard about Hickory House from a Chowhound who said he hadn’t been there, but that it looked promising when he’d driven by. The rundown joint is located on South Industrial, near the Mixmaster. As I turned into the parking lot, I saw a metal awning with about six large work trucks pulled under it for curb service.

By the time I parked, I had some feel for why most of the customers had trucks. The “puddles” in the gravel lot verged on being geographical features. I parked and circumnavigated Lake Hickory House, entering the restaurant from the front. The interior is old-school diner. The furnishings, floor coverings, and kitchen equipment look like they’ve been in place for half a century. And, looking around at the patrons, it’s strictly blue collar, despite the proximity to Downtown. The menu covers more than just barbecue, with basic breakfast items, sandwiches, burgers, steaks, enchiladas, and chili. While a chili cheeseburger is always tempting, I stayed on task and ordered brisket, ribs, and hot links.

Let’s start with the worst first. The brisket was inlaws/dog-grade. No discernible smoke, no flavor, and zero moisture. Gray matter of this stripe doesn’t justify or ennoble the sacrifice of the cow that made it possible. I picked through the slices, vainly searching for some pocket of flavor--a moist bit, maybe, or a piece of sweetly blackened crust. No luck.

While they were preparing my order, I saw a cook pull something off the grill with a broad spatula and deposit it in a Styrofoam box, which then went into my bag. “Nice touch, toasting the bread,” I thought. I thought wrong. It wasn’t bread he was pulling off the grill, but the hot links, which had been sliced and briefly sautéed. Tasting the links, I picked up no smokiness. The flavor was radically two-dimensional. Dimension One: supermarket hotdog. Dimension Two: cayenne pepper. If sautéed cayenne hotdogs sound good to you, Hickory House is your place. I’ll abstain.

After the one-two punch of brisket and sausage, I was braced for the worst as I set into one of the honkin’ quarter-pound ribs. Maybe it’s just a function of the lowered expectations, but the ribs actually tasted pretty good. Very mild smokiness, but good texture and decent bark. They weren’t great (or even very good) ribs, but they were slightly above the Dallas average.

While the ribs were okay, nothing I ate at Hickory House was good enough to bring me back. It’s a shame, too, because they have the look of a great barbecue joint.

While I was about to make a u-turn on Industrial, I spotted Fuel City.

Some Chowhounds have recently been mentioning the tacos at Fuel City. I made a mental note of the place, but hadn’t planned on going there. But there it was.

Fuel City builds on the recent trend of incorporating taquerias into new gas stations. An elotes cart sits in front. Inside the store, banks of monitors show Mexican music videos, while the music plays loudly. The taqueria, tucked into a corner room, is accessible through external and internal service windows.

The options are very limited: tacos de fajita, barbacoa, pollo, pastor, and picadillo. Since I was saving room for another barbecue joint, I just ordered three tacos.

The fajita taco--beef strips in a thick, mildly spicy sauce--had decent flavor, but the meat wasn’t crispy from searing (ala asada), as I would have preferred. The pastor, however, was very nice. Small bits of crisp pork melded with the flavor of freshly minced cilantro and grilled onions. (More taquerias seem to be moving towards grilled onions, instead of raw and minced. That’s a trend I’d like to see continue.) The best of the three tacos was the unconventional barbacoa. While it was too lean and meaty to be from cabeza, the beef was ultra-tender, juicy, and intensely flavorful. I didn’t see an al pastor spit in the food service area, leading me to wonder if the meats aren’t being prepared somewhere else. (If so, where?) And the tortillas were from La Favorita, rather than freshly made. But with the good (though limited) meats and grilled onions, this is a nice little taqueria.

Next up was Mike Anderson’s Barbecue House.

Anderson’s sits on Harry Hines, directly across the street from UT Southwestern (and around the corner from the Inwood Sonny Bryan's). This is another one I’ve driven by many times without trying. Meats are served in a cafeteria line. I ordered brisket, ribs, regular sausage, and hot links from the friendly server.

More bad brisket. Smokeless, flavorless, bone dry, and with the texture of a cheap pair of flip-flops. Does anyone working at Anderson’s think this is great, or even good, brisket? Do they know the difference? Do they not know how to make better brisket? Or do they know, but just not care enough to do so?

[crackle, crackle, pop, pop] We interrupt this post with an important Public Service Announcement.

Consider the brisket detail in the far left panel. Note the visible juiciness, the caramelized crust, the appealing color. Consider the brisket detail in the far right panel, again noting the crust and juiciness. Okay, now look at the two middle panels. One is gray and desiccated. The other is dry, while retaining rubbery, unrendered marbling. And both lack a crust. The outer briskets are from Kreuz and Smitty’s. The inner briskets are from Hickory House and Anderson’s. There is a difference. It doesn’t take a schooled gourmand to see and taste it. Why, oh why, can’t someone in Dallas make a great brisket? We now return you to your regularly scheduled barbecue report...

Anderson’s ribs weren’t as bad as their brisket. But they were still very average, even for Dallas. They had decent flavor, but lacked both tenderness and smokiness.

The sausages, however, were both pretty good. Their Polish sausage was from Rudolph's, which already sets it above average. Their hot links (from a different, but unspecified supplier), while not really hot, also had a nice flavor and texture, offering some contrast to the Polish. Neither had much smoke flavor, however.

Anderson’s scores points for having two varieties of good sausage. But, other than that, there was little to admire.

The last entry for this report is Lakeway Smokehouse, in Wylie.

Some weeks back, as I was standing outside Holy Smokes taking a couple of photos for that report, I was approached by a pair of Aussies who wanted to know what I was up to. When I told them I was trying to find good barbecue in the Dallas area, they were eager to help. Though I was familiar with all but one of their recommendations, it was an enjoyable conversation. These guys had really connected with Texas barbecue. They’d been to some of the Central Texas greats and agreed that nothing they’d had in Dallas really compared. But their enthusiasm even for Dallas barbecue was infectious. As for the joint they mentioned that I hadn’t been to, they couldn’t remember its name. And they could only vaguely describe the location: “Go past Southfork, from the show Dallas, turn right, and it’s somewhere on that road.” With directions that sketchy, I doubted I’d ever even try for the place.

Last Saturday morning, I woke up excited about the unofficial Chowhound lunch at 369 BBQ (i.e., Chinese). Since I had some time to kill, I decided to head up that way a little early. By the time I reached Plano, I still had about an hour and a half before the Chinese lunch, so I turned off Central and headed east on Parker towards Southfork. When I reached Southfork, I saw that there was a right turn immediately before the ranch. Was that the turn the Aussies had indicated? I wasn’t sure. So I stayed on Parker until it ended in a t-intersection with FM 1378. I turned right (i.e., south) and immediately passed a convenience store/bait shop. Instead of going in and asking if there were any barbecue joints nearby, I kept driving south until I was fairly well convinced I’d made a wrong turn. So I headed back north, planning to ask for barbecue tips at the convenience store just south of the intersection with Parker Rd. When I arrived, I pulled into the lot and, to my surprise, there was the very joint I was looking for--a shack sitting in the corner of the gas station parking lot, Lakeway Smokehouse. The smoker (pictured at the top of this article) was so close to the road, I don’t know how I could have missed it. I waited a few minutes for them to open, then went in and ordered brisket, ribs, and sausage.

Lakeway’s brisket (which had been wrapped in plastic and stored in a steam-heated tray) had slightly above average smokiness and flavor, but was brought down to lower sandwich-grade by its dryness. Decent brisket, but not truly good.

The ribs came out a little better. With good smokiness and flavor, they were ever so slightly above the Dallas average.

Lakeway’s sausage turned out to be the winner of the bunch. It looked strangely familiar. And, when I bit into a slice, I immediately realized why. These links had a chorizo character. The sausage was as tasty as it was unique. (More barbecue joints should consider doing chorizo-influenced sausages.) The lone person working there said their sausage supplier was out of Garland, but couldn’t be more specific.

Lakeway Smokehouse’s prominently displayed pit and woodpile raised expectations that went largely unfulfilled. Perhaps if I’d had meats fresh from the pit (which wasn’t in use while I was there), I would have had a more favorable impression. But despite the lackluster brisket and ribs, the sausage was remarkable--one of the most interesting Dallas offerings I’ve had in that category.

Summary of Results
All the standard caveats apply. These impressions are of particular cuts of meat on a particular day. And for each of these joints, I’ve only had one meal there ever. Though the holy trinity of brisket, sausage, and ribs may be a good measure of a barbecue spot, it doesn't tell the whole story. But, for my purposes here, I'm honing in on the backbone of barbecue--the smoking of meat to perfection. I'm trying to find out if anyone, anywhere in or around the Metroplex, is doing work that can compare with the best Texas has to offer.

Best Overall. Ranking the three barbecue joints in this report might create the false impression that one of them was actually good. In “overall” terms, all three are average for Dallas on the basis of these meals, with exceptions noted below.

Best Atmosphere. First Place: Hickory House, which has the look and feel of a true relic. Second Place: Lakeway Smokehouse, as an unimproved shack being swept over by upper middle class urban sprawl.

Best Sausage. First Place: Lakeway Smokehouse, for the interesting chorizo-influenced links. Second Place: Mike Anderson’s Barbecue House, for having two above average sausage offerings.