BBQ 08: our quintessential, quinquennial review of the fifty best barbecue joints in Texas, with special attention paid to the top five (one of which you've probably never heard of), the cherished components of the classic barbecue meal, and the pits in which our meats are smoked, seared, or (Lord help us!) gassed.

Publication: Texas Monthly

Publication Date: 01-JUN-08

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COPYRIGHT 2008 Texas Monthly, Inc.

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"YOU'LL BE EATING IN YOUR CAR MOST OF THE TIME." The younger writers looked alarmed. Eating in your car? The speaker, senior editor Mike Hall, was addressing the eighteen writers, editors, and fact-checkers who had signed up to be eaters on the 2008 TEXAS MONTHLY barbecue team. Spread across the conference table was a smoke-impregnated feast from Smitty's Market, in Lockhart. Mike clutched a massive pork rib. "So order your barbecue to go," he said, waving the rib. "You'll need to hit at least five places a day or you'll never get through."

This is our third feature on the state of Texas barbecue. From the day we published our first, in 1997, readers have continually inundated us with love letters and brickbats. Early this year, we compiled a spreadsheet of these tips, along with the top fifty places from our last barbecue issue, in 2003, and all the other joints our research had unearthed. Regions were assigned and score sheets handed out. In urban areas the danger was overeating-the record number of stops in one day was nine, in Central Texas. In West Texas, the eater risked starvation just driving between lunch one and lunch two. By the time it was all over, we had racked up 14,773 collective miles by car and plane and visited 341 places (the most by one person was 56).

So what did we find? The state of our barbecue union is strong, but change is afoot. Only thirteen joints from 2003 carried over to the 2008 list. Four of our top five were repeats, but a newcomer nabbed the number one spot (see page 124). The quartet of brisket, sausage, ribs, and chicken still rules, but pulled pork is moving in from Dixie (hooray!) and smoked turkey is omnipresent (yech!--this is dell meat with a veneer of smoke). Sadly, few places bother to make their own sides anymore, as purveyors such as Sysco offer mass-produced tubs at irresistibly low prices.

But the biggest change over the past five years is that the gas-burning commercial smoker is gaining ground (for an explanation of how it differs from a traditional pit, see page 134). To give the devil his due, this contraption has brought acceptable barbecue to areas where it hardly existed, like the Rio Grande Valley. The danger is that it will replace traditional pit-smoking, as fewer and fewer people are willing to get up at three in the morning to sustain this labor-intensive craft. The smoker has also enabled giant, mediocre chains like Dickey's and Bill Miller (about 70 locations each statewide) to proliferate like houseflies. With so many children cutting their teeth on institutional barbecue, one fears for the future.

And so we issue this call to arms: Perfect pit-smoked meats rank with the finest expressions of culinary art anywhere, and we must not allow them to disappear. It is incumbent upon all Texans to celebrate and support our state's uniquely sooty, fat-besotted heritage. The cost will be a measly $ 7.95 or so a plate, including sides, a small price for the satisfaction not only of preserving our history but of ingesting a masterpiece. PATRICIA SHARPE

TOP 50 BBQ JOINTS IN TEXAS NO. 1

LEXINGTON SNOW'S BBQ [A]

The best barbecue in Texas is currently being served at Snow's BBQ, in Lexington, a small restaurant open only on Saturdays and only from eight in the morning until whenever the meat runs out, usually around noon. Snow's is remarkable not only for the quality of its meat but for the unlikeliness o fits story. No one on staff had heard o fit until we received a reader tip following our 2003 barbecue issue. To stumble upon a place this good and this unknown is every pit hound's dream, and so we feel compelled to offer, as evidence in favor o four judgment, our story of discovery. It begins with a staff writer's asking her husband for a favor ...

KATY VINE: With so much ground to cover, we are on occasion forced to deputize our spouses. This year my designated barbecue bailiwick in Central Texas was chock-full of well-known, top-quality pits. To save time, I sent my husband, George, to check out a few of the unknown places, after giving him the proper training, of course.

When George reached Snow's. at around twelve-thirty, the only remaining meats were two ribs and an entire brisket. The owner made him a deal for all of it, then brought him out a few slices of brisket. George had never tasted barbecue this good. He returned home, placed the brisket on the counter, peeled back the foil. and told me to try some. What I tasted was as heavenly apiece of meat as I'd ever encountered. I immediately called our food editor, Patricia Sharpe, and told her we had found the best brisket in the state.

PATRICIA SHARPE: I was at a very loud party and having a great time, but Katy and George were so excited, I ran out the door and drove straight to their house. The brisket was sitting on their kitchen counter like a gold bar from Fort Knox. I put a bite in my mouth and closed my eyes. Good God almighty! Even six hours off the pit, it was perfect. Smoke permeated every morsel; the texture was pure velvet. On a scale of one to five, it was a seven--no, a ten!

The brisket was outlandishly good. But was it merely a happy accident? To find out, we sent veteran reporter S. C. Gwynne, whose appetite for good barbecue is surpassed only by his desire for the truth.

S. C. GWYNNE: Anybody who knows barbecue knows that on a given day any idiot can get lucky. So I was dispatched to Snow's to find out if this little pissant wood-frame building with four hours' worth of business per week could reliably-produce.

My wife and I arrived around ten, ordered everything on the menu, sat down, and tucked into a steaming mound of meat. Our verdict was not long in coming. The experience was otherworldly. The brisket was astonishingly tender, but it was actually topped by the pork steak. This was the best barbecue we had ever had. And the chicken, flavored with a mop sauce, was fall-apart delicious.

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So who was the genius behind this fantastic meat? The answer added yet another layer of improbability. It turns out that the pitmaster is a petite, energetic 73-year-old woman named Tootsie Tomanetz who works during the week as a custodian in the Giddings school district. I visited with her while she tended her fires and meats, and it quickly became obvious that Snow's was no mistake. Tootsie knows meat. She's been smoking since 1967, when she ran the pits at City Meat Market, in Giddings. She and her husband, White, owned a combination meat market, butcher shop, and barbecue joint in Lexington for twenty years. When Snow's opened five years ago, she helped owner Kerry Bexley design the pits. Every Saturday she arrives at three a.m. and builds the fires. She starts the meat smoking at four and wraps the brisket in butcher paper around six or seven. When I asked her why Snow's wasn't open more than one day a week, she said matter-of-factly: "There's no market for it."

PAUL BURKA: I timed my arrival for one p.m. to see if Snow's could pass the late-crowd test, but when I got there, the restaurant was closed. Sold out! Empty! Locked! I turned around and headed for Taylor to double-check Louie Mueller's. The next week I made it to Snow's before noon, but even as I was contemplating my choices, I heard Bexley telling a customer that the brisket was already gone-too late again. "TEXAS MONTHLY has been here the last two weekends," he added.

"I'm the third," I said. I ordered pork ribs, chicken, and pork butt. The pork ribs were fantastic. The chicken was perfectly done. The pork butt was tender and yielding. By the time I had finished, Bexley and I were alone. He called me to the counter. "I didn't want to say anything while other people were here," he said, "but my daughter is coming in today and I've put up some brisket for her. Would you like some?"

Never have I felt such an outpouring of gratitude for my fellow man. He reached into his private stash and put a single slice upon my plate. I took a bite ... our quest for the best barbecue in Texas was over. * Rating: 5. 516 Main, 979-542-8189 (for preordering on weekdays, always a wise move), 979-773-4640 (on Saturdays). Open Sat 8-noon-ish. Closed Sun-Fri.

The story only got better from there. Gwynne learned that Bexley's initial motive in opening the restaurant was to give his teenage daughters a place to get work experience, something Bexley (whose childhood nickname was Snowman) takes seriously. Prior to his current job as a control room operator at a local power plant, he was a long-haul trucker, a field officer in the prison system, and for fifteen years, a rodeo clown. He also ran his own rodeo, the Rockin' B Rodeo, for more than a decade.

We were nearly ready to anoint Bexley's joint as the best in the state. All that remained was to send the Double-Checker, Paul Burka.

TOP 50 BBQ JOINTS IN TEXAS TOP 5

LOCKHART KREUZ MARKET

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THE OLD KREUZ MARKET WAS LIKE A ONE.ROOM CHAPEL. THE humble brick building off the courthouse square in Lockhart had turned out divine smoked meat since 1900. But just as churchgoers nowadays...

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