The Texas Bar-B-Q Company (Metairie, La)

Conveniently (in Metairie standards) near the corner of Veterans and Houma St., The Texas Bar-B-Q Company will be receiving a 2 out of 5 stars.

The Texas Bar-B-Q Company (in Metairie, La) is located right next door to Corky's BBQ. Driving down Vets I decided to review the local joint instead of the chain. As I walk in the establishment there were longhorns on the wall and news prints of criminals and cowboys of the 19th century including the likes of The Apache Kid, Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, Jesse James, and Butch Cassidy. Everything was looking good until I had a sip of my weak tea and noticed that I am NOT surrounded with the auroma of Hickory Wood.

Other than the prices being really cheap and them having some of the best coleslaw ever, there is nothing to brag about here. The food lacks the smokey flavor you expect in BBQ. I assume this is another classic case of oven baked BBQ. The brisket was pulled like pork with an average texture and drowned in an overly sweet BBQ sauce. The Ribs (beef) were a little fatty and fell right off the bone. This isn't necessarily a great thing when ribs fall off the bone. They have a very gummy texture and (like the brisket was) drenched with an overly sweet BBQ sauce. Needless to say I felt like I was eating dessert the whole time. The beans were also overly sweet. There is so much sauce that you are given a lot of crunchy frenchbread to sop up all the sugary juice.

This place is a diabetic nightmare. Only because of the cool decor and the incredible coleslaw, The Texas Bar-B-Q Company will be receiving 2 out of 5 stars.

Ms. Hyster's Barbecue (New Orleans, La)

Conveniently located on Claiborne next to the Freeway in Central City (New Orleans), Ms. Hysters Barbecue will be receiving a 1.5 out of five stars.

As I walked up to this establishment I was surprised that I didn't smell the Hickory smoke outside the building. I thought "Do they actually smoke their meat, or is this oven baked BBQ"? While there is a small tinge of hickory flavor in the food (keyword small), I'm pretty sure that this is oven baked BBQ. I was sad that they were out of Brisket, but was glad that they had beef ribs that were pretty lean (I hate fatty ribs). Their chicken was dry and their sausage tasted packaged.


I noticed that the Ribs were cooked with the membrane on. While I would have thought this was a negative attribute to bbq, I'm starting to sway my opinions about the the membrane on the back of ribs. The ribs were also not that meaty but as I said earlier they were lean. With the ribs and chicken being dry my wife and I used up all the sauce that was given to us.

They were missing a lot of sides so I had a plate of lima beans that were...ok. You can never have too much pork in your beans and unfortunately there was too little to no pork flavor (or any flavor) in the lima beans.

The Positive. I'm not a fan of sweet sauce, but their sauce was sweet enough and had the most smokey flavor than anything else they had. It wasn't so sweet to where I felt like I was eating candy. But sweet enough to go good with ribs. Their prices were cheap. They had sandwiches that were in the 3$ range. And the woman who ran the place was one of the sweetest old ladies I've met in New Orleans.

Ms. Hyster's Barbecue - 1.5 out of 5 stars.

BBQ - Offbeat

In this months Offbeat Magazine, my smoked brisket was chosen as a feature. Keeping the pattern of this new spotlight, I will be switching the focus of this blog to all things BBQ in New Orleans. I might have a political interjection if need be. I will however need to give a disclaimer. New Orleans is not a BBQ town by no means! Do I uphold the standard of New Orleans BBQ to the likes of Texas, Memphis, Kansas City, & St. Louis BBQ? Or do I give these restaurants an A for effort? I'll have to make that decision as time goes on. I will however keep Blogs on BBQ places outside New Orleans. Until then you can read the offbeat feature "In The Kitchen w/ James Westfall"

http://www.offbeat.com/2010/06/01/in-the-kitchen-with-james-westfall/