WE WERE WRONG, THE LOCATION IS NOT GONE. IT'S NOW AJ'S TEX-MEX BBQ! WE WILL RE REVIEW.
“The
myriad of flavors explode on my tongue, shimmy through my mouth, slap my taste
buds and call them filthy bastards, and I love it.”
---Stacy
Jay, Romeo Redeemed
TEXAS
BEST BBQ
12123
Riverside Drive
North
Hollywood, CA 91607
818-761-5451
11:30
AM to 9:30 PM Every Day *
No
Web Site
We
were driving down Riverside Drive one morning on our way to breakfast and some
errands after an early morning doctor’s appointment when we just happened to
notice Texas Best BBQ. It is a real hole
in the wall place wedged into a Jurassic (in Valley terms) proto strip mall
next to a bar. It was originally a cafe called
Kerry’s. Since some of the best que we
have found has been in real hole-in-the-wall places, we resolved to try it. The next evening, we did.
I
tried to look up their web site only to find that they didn’t have one. Well, that’s understandable. Web sites have to be maintained and this is a
very small operation and they are occupied with producing and serving food
rather than maintaining a web site. This
means we actually had to go there to see the menu. There are a couple of picnic tables out
front, for outside dining, but I, personally, would not sit outside on a
sidewalk alongside Riverside Drive, even if cars on the road today aren’t the
polluters that they were 40 years ago.
Inside there is just enough room for three small tables and some
chairs. There is a walkup counter for
ordering and the menus are to be found on the counter. There is also an open pass thru to the bar
which is probably the reason they got a “B” from the Health Department. This may turn some people off, but having
been in food service ourselves we know that it doesn’t take much of a slip up
on an inspection to get a “B”.
We
started to order anyway, but ran into a problem that is common with small barbecue
operations. They run out of things. They load the smoker with what they think
will sell the next day, open at 11:30 and start selling. In a traditional Texas, hole-in-the-wall
barbecue, the business hours end when they run out of meat. This doesn’t miss it by much. At 6:00 PM they had already run out of some
of the meat we wanted to try. We decided
to try it at a later date.
A
few days later we tried it again, and they did have the meat, but there was a
large family group that had two of the tables pushed together and the other
table was occupied, so we went takeout.
They have two meat and three meat combos at $15 and $20 respectively
which is remarkably inexpensive as barbecue goes. We ordered a two meat combo with Barbecued
Chicken Breast and Pork Ribs and a three meat combo with Pulled Pork, Beef Ribs
and Tri-tip. The sides were Coleslaw,
Mac and Cheese, and a double order of Baked Beans. (They already had run out of one of the other
sides.) While we were waiting for our
order to come up there was a steady stream of to go orders so we could see how
they were running out of things. It
wasn’t too long before we had our bags of Styrofoam trays and containers to
take home to enjoy in the comfort, and quiet, of our own dining room. (Yes, we have an actual dining room and
actually use it.)
Coleslaw
The
mix of cabbage would have been good, but they mixed it with the most annoyingly
cloying mayonnaise based dressing that I quit after one bite. I didn’t even entertain the idea of making a
pulled pork sandwich with it. They
really need to change this.
Baked
Beans
The
beans were as good as the coleslaw was bad.
It was not an elaborate haute cuisine concoction of baked beans that you
might find at one of the up market barbecue places (See our post on Baby Blue’s)
not the traditional too sweet tomato based sauce, but a fairly conventional
baked beans with pork, spices and chunks of peppers and onions. It had a subtle, tomato based sauce that did
not overwhelm the other ingredients. The
thing is that it was done absolutely right, with the flavors combining to
tickle the palate. I’ll warn you that it
is a bit on the peppery side and it was a bit too much for Sharon. You won’t want a bowl of these as an entrée,
but you won’t find a better side dish of beans.
Mac
and Cheese
The
mac and cheese was OK but I think that they were just about to run out of it
and our serving was dug out of the bottom of the tray. The cheese sauce was a bit dry and the
macaroni seemed a bit overdone, but our impression was that if you got it when
the tray was fresh that it would have been one of the better mac and cheese
preparations.
Barbecued
Chicken Breast
This
IS barbecued chicken. It has a great
smoky flavor and is done through but moist and tender. Someone really knows how to barbecue. Not only that, but the chicken must have been
a monster. The breast was quite enough
for a serving for both of us with some leftovers for the cats. This chicken passed the kitty test with
flying colors.
Pulled
Pork
Having
had pulled pork in the South I can truthfully say that it is as good as you
will find anywhere. It is tender, moist
and the flavor is smoky and distinct from the other meats. Again, the portion was much more than adequate;
in fact I had a couple of lunches out if it in the following days. The only thing that would have been better is
if they had supplied a real mustard based southern style barbecue sauce to go
with it.
Beef
Ribs
While
these are conventional beef ribs, not the “Texas Ribs” they are still a good
sized portion and as flavorful as any Texas Rib I have had. One of the nice things about Texas Best BBQ
is that they serve the barbecue sauce on the side and you really get to taste
all the meat with just the smoke and the rub before deciding if you want
sauce. This seemed to have been done
with a plain salt rub, real Texas style.
I didn’t want any sauce.
Pork
Ribs
The
pork ribs were not quite fall off the bone tender, but close. The important thing was the flavor, again,
distinct, and smoky. Again, it seemed to
be a salt rub, and we could not discern any herbs and spices in the rub. If they were there, they were incredibly
subtle. There seemed to be a whole slab
of ribs on the plate, and we had leftovers…really good ribs!
Tri-tip
What
makes tri-tip so wonderful is that when it is done right the experience of
eating it is somewhere between a steak and a roast. In other words, it’s tri-tip! They did it right here. It’s served sliced, but not too thin, so you
get the chew and the juiciness with the wood smoked flavor. As usual with Texas Best the portion is not
stingy and the leftovers gave me the opportunity to be creative. I made a tri-tip salad that was the following
evening’s dinner for both of us.
One
of the sure signs that the grill master knows what he or she is doing is that
each different kind of meat has its own distinct flavor. At Texas Best BBQ someone knows what they are
doing. Sides aside, this is a place to
come for the meat. And, the portions are
really Texas sized. This place is a
fantastic value for the money. They may
be relatively new here, but they can really show a few of the old legacy
traditions in barbecue a thing or two.
We rate it an eight and if they improve the coleslaw, and are more
careful with the mac and cheese, with their meat they would get a nine.
