Boneless ribs?
Dumbest list ever: Survey of best barbecue joints in America messes with Texas
Online men’s magazine Made Man has released a list of the “11 Best BBQ Joints in America” that has some, well, interesting results.
The first thing any Texan wonders is which restaurants made the cut. And the good news is that Texas has two joints on the list. They’re not ranked, but the Salt Lick in Driftwood and Angelo’s Bar-B-Que in Fort Worth received recognition.
The bad news: No barbecue emporiums in Houston were mentioned and other nationally-recognized places across the Lone Star State were left out.
If you agree with someone like Daniel Vaughn — or just about anyone else — then this list manages to hit Texas, you know, a foot from the bull’s eye. There are probably 11 spots in the state that would make this list before Angelo’s or Salt Lick.
There are probably 11 spots in the state that would make this list before Angelo’s or Salt Lick.
Unfortunately, author Jason Epstein didn’t just stick to messing with Texas. In a list with 11 joints, he included one from Ohio; two from New York; one from Chicago; and one from Venice, California.
Sure, Fette Sau in Brooklyn has won Zagat’s “Best BBQ in NYC” two years in a row, and it is known for house-made brisket, pastrami (!) and boneless ribs (!!). But we’ve got real beef with including Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, a chain with locations in Syracuse and Rochester, especially because it is lauded for “killer Southern-style picnic items like deviled eggs and fried green tomatoes.” They make their Creole potato salad the way their parents taught them, with recipes passed down from many great Southern generations.
Of course, none of that even matters compared to Baby Blues BBQ in Venice, where you can get black Angus brisket, Texas-style beef ribs and Memphis-style pork ribs. You know who else does Memphis-style pork ribs pretty well? Memphis, a city that does not have one representative on the list, even though it’s one of the four barbecue capitals in the country.
This list would be worth getting angry about, but that would require more effort than Epstein put into it — so that seems silly.
We’ll just say this: Enough with the “everyone gets a trophy” mentality. You don’t have to cover every corner of the country if said corner does not do the best whatever. But, sure, California and New York have great barbecue and “Southern-style sides.”
Stick to manscaping tips and telling us eight ways to party all night, Made Man.