Questing for Texas Barbecue

In my recently completed business trip to Dallas, I made multiple efforts to try and eat in some Texas BBQ restaurants hoping for some good, representative meals.  If what follows in the diary is typical for Dallas, I'd appreciate any suggestions that folks have, because I was very disappointed.  This week I am making a second, shorter trip to Dallas and I'll perhaps have only one or two sit-down meals in the NE area (towards Richardson).  I'm beginning to doubt whether Dallas has any good BBQ at all.

More on the flip, where I give results of my efforts...

I grew up in the area around Kansas City, and I know there are regional differences and what's considered good in one area isn't recognized in others.  To me, my favorite restaurants in KC for BBQ include KC Masterpiece, Gates and Sons, and Arthur Bryants.  I don't get out often to some of the others, but I know there are about a hundred restaurants there serving BBQ and it's all about the rubs and the sauces - usually a thick, rich, smoky, slightly spicy and slightly sweet sauce.  I have had many great meals from them, and only rarely am I disappointed.

When I arrived in Dallas last Monday, I had in mind going and trying a BBQ restaurant recommended by my boss - I don't know if he'd eaten there or just seen the sign from the highway.  Well, after a long drive from the airport including some planned and unplanned detours, I finally gave up and called the restaurant about 9:05.  "Oh, we close at 9:00" was the response.  I was to find that many restaurants in Dallas seem to close at 9 or even earlier.  

In my wanderings, I had passed a place with smoke bellowing out of some large pipes on the side with a sign touting "Bone Daddy's House of Smokes" just off highway 75.  It had lots of cars in the lot, but I couldn't tell if this was really a place for BBQ.  It turned out to be a kind of sports bar, with monitors in every booth, and yes, they did have BBQ entries.  I ordered a variety plate with baby-back ribs and beef brisket.  The sides included beans and potato salad (they also delivered by mistake a mashed potato/cheese/bacon dish I think was called something like roadhouse potatoes - might have been good had I been in a mood for that.  The meat had some flavoring to it, and there wasn't much spice or heat to it.  The brisket was a little dry, but they had sauce to help it along.  It was okay, but it wasn't nearly on a par with the best melt-in-your-mouth and catch-every-drop that I always hope for when I'm in KC.  Perhaps the best part of the meal was the booth because I got to watch the basketball game on ESPN while I dined.  

The next evening, I returned to where I had finally found the Spring Creek Barbecue restaurant.  I was there a little after 8PM, and the large dining room was mostly empty.  This was an old-fashioned type of place - like a large barn where you walk in to the back, order your dinner from the various things they had on the counter, and they'd carve it up for you.  You could have as many vegetables as you could fit on your plate - but they really weren't very appetizing (they appeared to be canned and the sauce had a skim on top) so I could understand how they weren't really taken up on this.  I did have some basic potato salad and a little slaw.  The sausage was the best meat there - the ribs weren't great, and the beef slices were again tough and dry.  Maybe that's how they make 'em in Texas, but I know from my Kansas City background that they can be a WHOLE lot better.  The best part of the meal was the peach cobbler ala mode, but that's not a great compliment when I went there for the barbecue.  Overall it was rather dreary and not worth all the trouble I had taken to go there.  

The next couple of nights I worked through dinnertime, but finally, on my way out at the airport, I had one final opportunity.  I saw that there was a Dickey's BBQ in my terminal.  I've eaten at a couple of them here in the Denver area, and not been too impressed, but I felt maybe mass produced BBQ might save the day.  I walked the whole way around to it, only to find out that the restaurant had no hot water, so they were closed.

For Texas, I was basically satisfied only once on three efforts, and that one was probably not worth returning to.  I had much higher hopes for going and getting Texas BBQ.  Maybe my choices were just unlucky; maybe Dallas isn't the place to look.  I did make quite the effort, and maybe I can work with our local rep to help me find a good place (the Dallas Observer recommends Baker's Ribs).  I'd appreciate any feedback, as I may have to go there another time or two.  I may just have to go searching for a good steakhouse instead.