“After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one's own
relations.”
--- Oscar Wilde
BURNT
TO A CRISP TEXAS SMOKEHOUSE
(Food
truck, no fixed location.)
(713)
562-1058
Twitter: @burnttoacrisptx
Instagram: @burnttoacrisp
Facebook: Burnt To A Crisp
We noticed the Burnt To A
Crisp truck in front of the supermarket in Burbank doing our weekly grocery
shopping. Unfortunately, we had already
eaten dinner. That led to several months
of attempts to coordinate our movements with the locations of the food
truck. Somehow our schedule never quite
matched theirs. This afternoon, we were
going to fuel up my car and go to lunch when I noticed the Burnt To A Crisp
truck and the Fried Ice Cream truck in front of the supermarket. We decided to come back and get lunch there
after filling the tank.
Since we weren’t in a
dessert mood the Fried Ice Cream truck got only a passing glance, but Burnt To
A Crisp got a thorough examination. The
menu is in several places, a blackboard, a paper card, and somewhat amusingly, some
Chinese restaurant menu style photos posted under the ordering and delivering
windows. This is actually useful since
some of the items on the menu require some explanation or visual aids if you
are not from Texas.
The basic barbeque offered
here is brisket, pulled pork and sausages. There are no ribs on the menu. They have Sliced Brisket, Chopped Brisket, Pulled
Pork and Sausage sandwiches, Sausage Wraps, with a choice of sausages, done in
a tortilla (The way I like to do hot dogs, but that’s for a different blog,),
Texas Style Frito Pie, Texas Tornado Burritos, Brisket Quesadillas, bowls of Burnie’s Chili, and Texas Size Chili
Fries. The available sides are Texas
Style Baked Beans, Texas Tater Salad, French Fries, Burnie’s Chile, and chips.
There were two young ladies
running the truck and they cheerfully took our orders. There are two all meat combos, the Texas Two
Step, two meats plus sides, and the Texas Trio, three meats plus sides. We were told that a Texas Trio would be more
than enough for both of us so we ordered one with Sliced Brisket, Pulled Pork
and a Cheddar Sausage, rather than a Hot Link since Sharon doesn’t do well with
hot links. Our sides were Texas Style
Baked Beans and Texas Tater Salad.
Sharon decided to sample the Burnie’s Chile so we ordered it as an extra
side. Since all orders are served Texas
style, with pickles, chopped jalapenos and onions, we requested no jalapenos or
onions, another thing that Sharon does not do well with. The order came in a few minutes with all the
meat in a Styrofoam container and the sides in individual, lidded cups along
with plastic utensils and napkins in a paper bag. Everything smelled good and we took it home
to eat.
We put some real plates and
serious flatware on the dining room table and unpacked our lunch. That’s when things started to go a bit off. First we noticed that the Texas Tater Salad
was missing. I think that the young lady
who filled the order though that we were changing our side order not realizing
that we paid for an extra side. Also,
the meat container contained a toasted Honey Butter Bun, instead of the
Southern tradition of white bread. That’s
not a problem except that the bun was a bit over toasted and Sharon has a thing
about burnt bread. The other thing off
was that the pickles came with raw onions after we asked for no onions.
Sliced Brisket
We had a generous portion of
really good looking sliced brisket, in fact, a little too good. The smoke ring was the widest that I have
ever seen. It was tender and tasted like
brisket should, but had a somewhat peculiar after taste. It took a while to identify, but we finally
realized the taste was the smoke. I have
complained, in the past, that some barbeque places seem to have chased their
meat through the smoker, but here is a brisket that seems to be a bit over smoked! (That is something that I never thought I
would write.) Their barbeque sauce
smooths it over but the brisket still come out good but not great.
Pulled Pork
I like my pulled pork to be a
bit more moist than this, but it is tender and flavorful. The pork was not overwhelmed by the sauce. (All
the meat is served dry with sauce on the side, as I prefer.) I haven’t made a sandwich with it yet, but it
should turn out well. Their sandwiches
are done with pickles and raw onions, not coleslaw or fried onions so be
warned.
Cheddar Sausage
We choose to try the cheddar
sausage over the other two sausage choices as we thought it would be the milder
choice. The sausage was sliced in half,
lengthwise, and had a garnish of grilled bell peppers and onions. It was good sized, well seasoned, and had a
nice amount of cheddar in it. To my taste it was mild, but to Sharon it had too
much of a peppery after bite. This is
definitely a better than average sausage and given the opportunity I would try
the others.
Burnie’s Chili
These people could teach a
lot of others how to make chili. I’ve
had authentic Texas jailhouse chili (Don’t ask!) and this compares with the
best. It’s a chicken chili done with
spices and a touch of onion. The side
order had no beans in it. There are
dedicated chili houses that don’t do this well.
Texas Style Baked Beans
We found these to be
slightly sweet and slightly spicy, apparently vegetarian beans. They are done without the more traditional
tomato base. There is nothing wrong with them but they are just an OK side
order of beans.
We do admit that we were a
bit disappointed with Burnt To A Crisp, but a lot of that feeling was because
they didn’t get our order right. This
also brings up the point that you have to be very careful to check your order
before you leave a food truck or takeout location. We admit that we didn’t check it as we do
when we go through a typical drive through.
That being said, their food is good but for the most part, not
great. We give it a 7.5. And they neglected to give us a receipt for
our order.
