sampled 9/21/19
We have been to all of the Smoked Dallas fests and we sure don't plan on missing any future versions. This year they featured 20 great Q joints, plus Cafe Momentum serving sides. There was supposed to be a pie place, too, but I never found them. That's OK. Schmidt Family served banana pudding and Tejas Chocolate Craftory had their excellent bourbon chocolate mousse so we got our dessert fix, too.
As always, we bought the VIP tickets and got to the venue about 35 minutes before the VIP opening at 1 pm. I was surprised to see about 100 people in front of us. Usually if we got there 30 minutes early we were about 10th in line. Someone suggested it might be the fault of blog posts. Mea culpa. We cued up in the chutes, got carded for booze and wrist banded for BBQ. Their FAQ had an onerous warning about tight security and said backpacks and chairs would not be allowed. Not true. Folks in front of us had back packs and chairs and got in no problem. In previous years, I had always worn my small backpack, but brought a smaller bag this time for sun screen and give-aways. There was no bag check at all this year, at least when we went in. Sort of strange. The PreKindle and security folks always seem to be a bit flaky at these events, but it was more so this year. More than once I heard some staff person say one thing, then get corrected by another staff person almost immediately. Good help is hard to find.
They let the VIPs in about 5 minutes early and we were off to the BBQ races. Security let in all the chutes at one time, instead of in order, causing a big jam up at the entrance. Noobs in charge. After we got through the scrum, it was business as usual. We gathered our first box full of goodness and headed to the VIP area to grab our first beer and start gnoshing. A couple of joints were not ready to serve yet, which always puzzles me a bit. Black's immediately had a line about 15 deep, so I skipped them and moved on. I caught up with them and the tardy servers later. After chomping through my first batch, I headed back to catch the rest. Black's still had a good line so I saved them for last. We had no trouble gathering all 20 samples before the general admission hordes descended a little before 2 pm.
There was the usual mixed bag of samples being handed out by the participants. Brisket ranged from a tiny bite to half a slice, there was plenty of sausage, several soft tacos, but only one pork rib. I don't think we had a bad bite of brisket or sausage all day, and the huge parmesan pork rib from Smoke Sessions was very good. Louie Mueller's stood out with some excellent beef rib bites sliced by Wayne Mueller.
There were several participants in the "other" category including excellent whole brisket poppers from Panther City and popper bites from Hutchin's. Black's had some awesome jalapeno sausage corny dog bites that would go over great at the State Fair. Ferris Wheeler's had some nice smoked turkey. Hurtado had a prime rib taco. Heim had their wonderful bacon burnt ends and Meat Church had their equally wonderful chicken fried burnt ends. I really wanted to grab that pot and run off.
We had a lot of great food from 20 joints. The only thing I left alone were most of the tacos. Shredded brisket or pork tacos with green stuff on them were not worth the stomach space compared to the more traditional BBQ servings and even most of the "other" samples. I know some folks dig them, different strokes, folks. We headed out about 2:30 pm and there were still hordes of folks in line to enter.
Smoked Dallas is always a very fun event. I appreciated the fact they had more beer choices this year. The tall boy Shiners were my pick. There was even a Daniel Vaughn sighting this year. The original Meato Bandito!
The second annual Smoked Fort Worth has been pushed off til next Spring and we will sure try to make that one, too
A couple of posts of booths, food, and others photos will follow below. As always, you can click on any photo for a larger view.
