Think I mentioned this in another thread and it is by no means scientific...but my buddy and I have come up with a sure fire way to know if the place is going to be bad. French Fries on the menu = bad bbq Time after time, it's proven true. Pappas BBQ? Actually great fries...horrifyingly bad bbq. Sping Creek BBQ? Fries on the menu...maybe worse than Pappas BBQ.
Spring Creek is the worst and yet its packed everyday. One thing about Spring Creek is, they do free blue bell ice cream on Sunday and I get some peach cobbler and I am set for a big dessert, dont get the bbq but the cobbler is awesome
If forced to go there when outvoted by family members with a less discriminating pallete (at least for BBQ), I'll get a basic baked potato and maybe have a roll or 2. I tried their turkey fairly recently, thinking they couldn't possibly screw that up. I was wrong.
I'd never heard of this place until yall started talking about it recently...absolutely no idea they have like 20 locations around Texas until I just googled them. You'd think that might be a good sign, but it's not.
Spring Creek is popular around here in the DFW area, too. I think it's because people who love sauce douse the bbq with it. The bbq itself is meh. It's not Dickey's bad, but it's ... meh. I won't try to avoid Spring Creek in the DFW area if it was the only place around, whereas Dickey's I'd get something else if it were the only thing around. lol. I always wonder with as many great bbq places there are nowadays as opposed to say 20-25 years ago, how Dickey's is still around. Maybe they're just cheaper - I don't know.
Cooking a very-high-quality brisket isn't complicated... but it takes time and some specific equipment/supplies. My recipe & process: 1. Use an offset smoker 2. Use Post Oak wood 3. Trim off excess fat from brisket (see youtube videos on this) 4. Coat brisket with plain ol' French's yellow mustard 5. Season brisket heavily with salt and a good amount of pepper 6. Keep the chamber at round 240 degrees (measure at the same height as the meat) 7. Smoke brisket for around 1 hour per pound, or until meat's internal temp reaches 185 - 190 degrees (use a probe thermometer). Following the instructions above, your brisket will be on par with the highest-quality brisket in restaurants. The real secret is to use Post Oak wood. The great-brisket restaurants start smoking theirs in the middle of the night, so that it will be ready at lunchtime the next day. Don't even think of adding sauce to this. It's insulting. The average-brisket restaurants don't follow this process and don't cook for that long. The resulting brisket might be.. okay... feel free to add sauce. Postscript: Some people will say to use butcher paper, or beef tallow, or other techniques... I'm not gonna say they're bad, but I like to keep it simple. BUT.. beware of anyone who says to season the brisket with anything other than salt & pepper. Great briskets do not get their great flavor from seasonings.
^ kosher salt ... and put the meat in fat-side-up so that the fat renders into the meat. Don't believe me? It's not much different than the way Franklin's does it.
There are over 1,000 McDonald's Restaurants in Texas. Not many will consider their food great, but it is fairly consistent from location to location and some people are satisfied having that Floor. Perhaps/probably it is the same for the chain BBQ Restaurants. Their customers are missing out the possible upside of going outside their Comfort Zones and finding a good - great BBQ place. But they are also avoiding the possibility of experimenting and finding a BBQ place worse than their favored chain BBQ place.
That matches some of the recipes I’ve seen. I’ve seen ones that don’t use mustard but my understanding is the mustard is just a bidet and doesn’t really add any flavor.
bidet? LOL Yeah - the mustard is more of a binding agent and helps the crust form. It's not used for flavor. Some places use water, but yellow mustard has done well for me.
Even their sauce is gross. At least Rudy's has good sauce (and better BBQ than Spring Creek). There's absolutely nothing, outside of their rolls, that is redeeming about that place. I'm fine with places like this existing, even Dickey's...but it should not be in Texas. They're just embarrassing themselves.
I think a big prohibitor is that the price of great BBQ is outrageously high. Very cost-prohibitive. I've heard that Truth BBQ is excellent. It's near my house and I drive by it all the time... .but I've never eaten there because their brisket is $34/lb, not including sides.
Had Big Horn in Manvel the other day. Wasn’t impressed - just not that tasty. Solid mid. They also charged me $1.50 for jalepenos and had them free in their fixins station.
