What they Don't Tell You about American BBQ

I've eaten a LOT of American BBQ and have come to a surprising conclusion

My friend, I’m about to say something that may upset some of the die-hard BBQ aficionados out there, but I come to these conclusions following a lot of experimentation.

For American-style BBQ, I am of the opinion that good meat - prepared well (and slowly) in the correct ways - is good meat!

I’ve been to good American BBQ-style BBQ places in lot’s of places: Edinburgh, Scotland (yes, you read that right - I rate it right up there), Nashville, Charleston, New York City, small-town Florida, the Fort Worth stockyards, and let me also recount my recent trip to Luling Texas.

By the way, in case you find yourself in Luling and - as I did - pronounce it in the obvious way (luh-ling), be warned - it’s pronounced Looling.

On a road trip from San Antonio to Houston, I was told repeatedly to make a stop at the City Market - which is a BBQ joint right on the corner of the main crossroads of the town.

Apparently, the place usually has a queue of hungry revellers waiting outside the door at lunch time - we arrived around 1.30PM and thankfully missed the crowds.

In the pit room, we were greeted by a burly and bearded Texas viking. “Where you from, big guy?” he asked. “Scotland,” I responded nervously. Thankfully, and is often the case on my travels around America, this response granted me access to see the pits up close.

We were recommended brisket, ribs and the home-made City Market sausage. To cut the long story short, it was delicious. The meat was soft and full of flavour, with particular mention to the ribs and sausage.

It was just damned good BBQ. Good meat. But was the meat alone better than the BBQ meat I’ve had at American-style BBQ in other places, including here in Scotland? Hard to tell. It’s is all just very good.

Where places like the City Market are able to stand out from the crowd is through some of the extra special touches - in this case, homemade sausage and, even more-so, the most incredible BBQ sauce I’ve had anywhere in the world.

Seriously, the sauce is incredible. I wish I could get my hands on it over in Scotland - while the meat was indeed very very good, the sauce was the key differentiator for me, and i could literally suck it out of the bottle. And, it’s home made.

If you haven’t seen it yet, watch my video on the famous Luling City Market here:

My Cheesesteak Fund

Big news!

In exactly one week from now, I’ll be back in the United States, and I’m going somewhere I’ve never been before: Philadelphia (and surrounding areas). I’m very excited about it and will be announcing a really cool collaboration project while I’m out there.

During my time in the area, I’m looking to eat as many good cheesesteaks and other good local food as I can. If you have any specific tips of places to go and eat, or any other tourist things, please leave your recommendations in the comments below. And if you’d like to buy me a cheesesteak sandwich while I’m in Pennsylvania, I’d hugely appreciate if you’d consider contributing to my trip.

Buc-ees

Oh, and down below, I’ve just posted a new video from my very first experience at Buc-ees in Texas on my YouTube channel. We went to the New Braunfels store, which is said to be the biggest convenience store in the world. Buc-ees is an impressive experience all round and I look forward to sharing some of my other trips there in future videos.

P.S. - have you been enjoying my US travel series? If you have, I would hugely appreciate if you’d consider sharing my posts. Take this blog post, for example: copy and paste the link to it, and share it on your Facebook page, Twitter, Instagram or any other online place you frequent. Or maybe you could send it in an email to someone you think may enjoy it. I’d hugely appreciate it :)