Stutts House of Barbeque

Stutts BBQ from the outside doesn't look like much, the sign is dated and nothing matches. It's truly a hole in the wall BBQ joint. When I first arrived I saw a small shack with a sign that you could miss if you blinked, but thanks to the sometime reliable GPS I found the establishment, which has a tiny parking lot. When I stepped inside I realized that the inside could accommodate all of the cars it could accommodate on the outside. By first assessment, I would say this place could hold about 20 to 30 people on their modest table tops. 

They smoke with a combination of hickory and pecan wood.This place was good, but not great. The sides were nothing to write home about and the meat was moist, but nothing stood out. I would give them three out of five stars.

2021 E Apache St
Tulsa, OK 74110

Ollie's Station Restaurant

Across the river there is a little mom and pop sort of diner that serves comfort food. The theme of the place is train related. So there's little model trains running around the top of the restaurant and there's tons of train activity in the area. I guess there's rail roads, rail road offices, and railway associated. It's a cute way to sell the fact your meal may be accompanied by some train noise.

I stopped in after church on a Sunday and it was a good place for the after church crowd. I've read that this place has great fried chicken and I was amazed to see that there was a Sunday buffet with fried chicken available.

The server I had was very pleasant and quick. The foot was comfort food that was pretty good, not great, but good. The place could have been cleaner, but it may be that it's just an older place. I would give this place a score of two and a half stars out of five.

 http://www.olliesstation.com/

Pho V-Nam & Vietnamese Sanwhich

Recently, I relocated to Tulsa, OK. The blog name will remain the same because I LOVE Albuquerque and that's where the blog started. One of my criteria for me to live in a place is that pho has to be available. I tried another establishment than the subject of this blog, so I knew that it was available in the Tulsa market and the pho I have had prior to going Pho V-Nam & Vietnamese Sandwich (PVVS) was good but not great, I'll write that blog another time.

So PVVS opened up less than a year ago to the best of my knowledge. It's tucked away in a nice strip mall in south Tulsa. I've been weekly since I've moved to Tulsa because the pho is that good and it's comfort food to me. The decor of the restaurant is nothing to write home about, but it's a very simple design with part of the kitchen exposed to the dining area. The modest restaurant is pretty clean, but I wouldn't eat off the floor. The menu is very small and simple. They seem to mostly sell what the name is, pho and Vietnamese sandwich or banh mi.

The service here is not always fast, but it's always friendly. The owners will sometimes sit at a nearby table and chat with you if they're not too busy. As I understand they are from Houston, moved to Oklahoma about 10 years ago, and came to the states about 20 years ago. If I recall correctly, they used to run Vietnamese restaurant in Houston, one of the most competitive markets for Vietnamese food.

In this visit, my dinner companion and I split an order of spring rolls and each had a bowl of pho and iced coffee. The spring roll, pictured above, was good, but not great. The protein was a combo of shrimp and chicken which was pretty standard for spring rolls, but I felt that they had put too much noodle in. The veggies of the spring roll were good, it was nice to see some daikon and carrots, but again, too much noodle. This appetizer is served with peanut sauce, but I asked for a side of nguc chum. The nguc chum here is good, but not great, I like my nguc chum hotter than fire so don't listen to me. I like the show of hot water coming through the metal coffee filter, but I have yet to see this in the Tulsa market. The iced coffee here is good, but I miss the showmanship of the hot water dripping over the condensed milk as well as the ability to control the strength of coffee.

My friend ordered a bowl of the pho tai, pictured to the left and above, which is pho with thin sliced beef the portions here comes in three sizes and pictured is the small or the medium which is a great size for a medium appetite. I always get the pho dac biet, pictured to the right, here which is the pho and various cow parts. I know it may sound gross to many of you out there, but I love this stuff.

The backbone of a good bowl of pho is the broth and the broth is the best I've had in Tulsa. When I say this this is huge, because I've had pho at most of the Vietnamese restaurants in the Tulsa area. The noodle portion is generous, but not an overkill.The veggie plate is pretty thin but I suppose you can as for as more if your heart desires; the veggies are always pretty fresh. The pho here is so good, I have not bothered with the other menu items, but I read the bahn mi is killer. It's a few dollars more than your average Vietnamese joint, but no MSG is used here. I would give Pho V-Nam & Vietnamese Sandwich a rating of three and a half stars out of five. It's currently the best pho I've had in Tulsa. 

8122 S Harvard Ave

Tulsa, OK 74137

(918) 574-2888

Stubbs BBQ

Stubb's BBQ in Austin has a lot more than the front of the business lets on.The restaurant is fairly large and has concert grounds in the back. My dinner companions and I walked there from our hotel which was close to the capitol building. I'm unsure if this part of Austin is called downtown or not, but the streets were numbered, there were tall buildings, and it felt like a down town area. We got to Stubb's around 6 PM or so and there was a 45 minute or so wait. I think there was a private party that night. We decided to kill sometime at the Irish pub that did not serve Murphy's stout, but was a lot of fun due to the owner having a lot of personality. He was not a fan of the beer from Cork, Ireland. We had an inappropriate conversation with the proprietor of the bar but led to more laughs.


The hostess was pretty accurate about the time that it would take us to be seated. Our party was three, but got a table that sat six.That night was pretty busy and we saw some really fun parties. One of my friends encountered some friends from another state in Austin and we ran into a Bachelorette Party. What a lucky guy, marring a girl that loves BBQ. The meal came out pretty quickly and I ordered a cross section of the smoked meats. All of it was pretty good. The meats were flavorful and tender. The sides were good, but not great. I think that Austin is a tough BBQ market. The front of the building makes the property look a lot smaller than it really is. In the back they have an outdoor eating area and a small concert area. It seems that BBQ in Texas is an event, the Salt Lick is similar with it's vineyards and bocce ball courts. Overall Stubbs is good, but not great. I would give it a three and half out of five stars.

http://stubbsaustin.com/

The Salt Lick BBQ

 I've read for many years that there is a BBQ joint near Austin, TX called the Salt Lick that is awesome. This restaurant has three locations, the one I visited was is in Driftwood, TX which was about a 30 minute drive from downtown Austin on a Saturday morning. From what I was told it's in the hill country which is basically a foreign term to me, but I guess it was hilly driving out there. The drive was beautiful and a rich experience as some friends from childhood and me drove through the Texas "Hill Country." The GPS got to exactly where we should have been. It's easy to miss the Salt Lick because all you really see are the vineyards that make the scenic BBQ joint. As you enter, it's not very clear on where to park so I drove around the parking lot twice, but when in Texas do as the Texans so I parked where I saw Texan license plates. Again, not knowing what to do my understanding friends allowed me to lead us around despite the fact I had no clue where to go. I stood by a podium that was un-staffed because we arrived a few minutes before opening. Luckily we had some Texans or Austin locals to meet that showed us the way. This Salt Lick location is BYOB which made me VERY HAPPY because I purchased a lot of Texas micro-brew that we needed to consume. With my perpetual thinking mind, read guy who likes to drink, I made us a cooler with the supplies we had, read beer box and trash bag, and this was a great thing to have as we waited and ate at the Salt Lick. I was like a kid in a candy store all the stories I heard, saw, and read were true.

The famous open pit

The Salt Lick uses something I have NEVER seen in a BBQ joint, an open pit. The open pit is pictured to the right and I'm floored that this makes excellent BBQ. I would assume that your meat wouldn't get hot enough to cook your meat, but what do I know? When we were seated, I dropped the bomb on our server, "I hope you guys live up to the hype." I know, I am an ass. We had a party of six that day and we were seated at a wood picnic style bench that was spacious enough for heavy meat consumption and my first class beer cooler.

The menu was very simple, but I had to complicate life, I asked our server to sell me the smallest quantity of every meat that was available. He was very understanding of this but sold me three times what I could eat, but my friend's dog ate very well for a few days.

Sausage, turkey, brisket, and a pork rib

The Salt Lick does something that is different than most BBQ joints, they sauce their meat while smoking. Their sauce is mustard based so it doesn't burn like other sauces that are contain a fair amount of sugar. The sauce is thin, but has a ton of flavor. BBQ is a food to be eaten with your hands and the sauce does go everywhere because it's already on the meat, but I didn't care. I would have worn the sauce as a hat.Yes it was that awesome.

Half a chicken

I did order side dishes, but I'm not going to lie, I was SO happy with the meat I didn't care or remember what I ordered for side dishes. Don't get me wrong they were good, but I couldn't recall what I ordered.

Beef Rib

The grounds that the Salt Lick are beautiful like I mentioned earlier, but there is a little wine and beer store if you forget to pack some adult beverages, bocce ball courts, and nice grass patches to run around on if that's your thing. This location of the Salt Licks is an experience. I thought it was really cool that you can have your wedding here. The only thing that was "bad" about this place is that they only take cash, but they have at least one ATM there. Salt Lick was better than the hype. I LOVE this place. I would give the Salt Lick a rating of four and a half out of five.

http://www.saltlickbbq.com/

Danny's BBQ

In Carlsbad New Mexico there's an old Dairy Queen that became a BBQ joint. From the stories I've heard they were a Dairy Queen franchiser that sold BBQ. Corporate Dairy Queen didn't really care for this and they had some issues with the menu that wasn't the DQ menu, so they became a BBQ joint.  I was familiar with Red Chimney in Carlsbad, but I did not hear about Danny's BBQ until read "America's Best BBQ: 100 Recipes from America's Best Smokehouses, Pits, Shacks, Rib Joints, Roadhouses, and Restaurants." The staff is not well organized, but it's small town New Mexico. When I arrived there were about a half dozen staff standing around. I was instructed to seat where ever I wanted so I chose a small table near the front of the restaurant. I arrived about 6 PM on a Thursday night so it was slow at first. The service was just OK and the restaurant was clean. They do not have a mutli-meat combo but the server was nice enough to ask the manager for me, I was able to get a cross section of the meat that they serve. I didn't really care for the sauce; I think one was mustard and the other was vinegar based. The meat was phenomenal for a BBQ restaurant, meaning it was not overcooked according to certain standards; for example, fall off the bone ribs are bad. It was interesting to see that BBQ rub was sprinkled on the pulled pork and this was a good touch to layer flavor on perfectly cooked meat. The ribs were amazing, not overcooked and great flavor. The sides I ordered were the fried okra and beans. The beans were over done and the fried okra was fried okra, you can deep fry anything and it would be tasty.  I would give Danny's BBQ three out of five stars.

http://www.dannysbbq.com/

Burger Rush

The Burger Rush Menu

 I may have mentioned in previous post that there has been a gourmet burger boom as of late with the recession. With any boom there tends to be a bust. It seems like the boom may be ending. I don't think bRgR is open any longer. I was cheering for bRgR, but I don't think that they were able to work the bugs out. Recently Burger Rush opened up on Paseo del Norte and Wyoming. The color scheme is different then your typical place for dining. It's nice but it's weird how colors impact how we eat and we tend to see red.  The lay out of the shopping center is odd. you cannot access the shopping center from Paseo del Norte so getting there takes a bit of planning.

Single Burger and Fries

It's a five step process: pick your protein, pick a bun, add cheese if you like for a charge, choose your condiments,  and additional toppings, some of which cost extra. It's a no frills menu. I'm not sure how this will fly in this neighborhood. I was surprised to see no salads available. So the novelty of this place is knowing where the beef comes from, a Heritage Ranch Premium Source. From what I gather, it just verifies that your meat came from to a specific ranch.

Double Burger and Onion Rings

The burgers are cooked on a flat top griddle. I ordered a single burger on a wheat bun with cheese, ketchup, lettuce, green chile, onions,and bacon; onion rings and fries to share with my cousins. The place was clean and fairly busy for a late weekday lunch. The burger patty is 4 oz and not cooked to order. The patty was a little dry. I felt that the burger was expensive for what I paid for. The food was good, but not great. I would give Burger Rush two and a half stars out of five.

http://www.burgerrushabq.com/

ABQ Food Trucks - Talin Market On Wednesdays

The Food Trucks lined up

Food trucks have become pretty popular in the past few years with Food Network shows and food trucks evolving to cater to foodies around the country. There is the stigma of "roach coaches" associated with food coming from a truck, but in the past few years many of my meals have come from these mobile culinary facilities. Thankfully, I have not gotten food poisoning or found any surprises in my food. In Albuquerque on Wednesdays at the Talin market we are fortunate to see a pod or group of food trucks set up shop in the parking lot. The day I went was a lot attendance day according to one of the vendors. According to him they normally get about six trucks, but today it was only three. He speculated it was due to bad weather, but I was glad to have the time to see the trucks. Overall, it's a really cool experience to be able to try different foods in one outing. If you go keep in mind seating is an issue, there is no real seating or tables. Below are summaries of my experience at each truck.

Make My Lunch

Potato Bacon Soup

The lady who ran Make My Lunch was very pleasant. I think she became excited once she knew of my excitement about the experience about the Talin Wednesday food truck gathering. She struck me as a well seasoned veteran of the food truck circuit and she gave me some stickers for the food truck group as well as for her truck. The truck struck me as a deli on wheels. She offered some sandwiches that looked like great selections, but I was limited by my crazy idea of trying each truck. From my little research into her business I guess her company does catering services for large events and will make you a healthy lunch and drop it off. Maybe this food truck gathering is a way for her to advertize.

I wanted to get a Cuban sandwich, but I opted for the soup of the day option which was the potato bacon soup pictured to the right. I like how she minded the details like her truck presentation, choice of quality utensils, and  food appearance. The soup tasted good, but not great. This may have been due to her trying to reduce fat content in her food. The potatoes were undercooked, the texture was waxy and little crunchy for a potato. Overall good, but not great. I may need to try more of her food to give a better review.

Bill's BBQ Truck

BBQ is easy to make, great BBQ is very difficult to make. I've judged a few BBQ contest and cooking on the road is very hard, but a lot of folks do it. Talking to Bill was a very pleasant experience, but his Q is good, but not great. I was sort of put off by the color of his sauce. I think it was too much mustard that gave it that odd color. The meat's favor was OK, but it was over cooked because the meat just fell off the bone. I know what you're thinking, "isn't fall off the bone good?" It is not in competitions and this instance. I felt in this case the fall off the bone was too much fall off the bone, the texture in the meat was mushy. Bill did have a very nice smoker. 

 Oz Patisserie

 Oz Patisserie was great but due to being on the road their pastry that I bough was still frozen. I broke my first utensile digging into my dessert which was excellent, but needed some time to thaw.

Overall, it was a great experience. We are not on the same scale or quality as other markets but kudos to Albuquerque and Talin for persuiing the food trucks. I would give all of this a score of three and half stars out of five.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/ABQ-Food-Trucks/144504942304388

Cool Water Fusion

 Cool Water Fusion is a cool restaurant. The food is familiar with a unique twist. An example of this would be their blue corn crusted fried chicken. Tucked away in a strip mall near Wyoming and Menual the restaurant is not visible from the street. The dining area is small, dark, well decorated, but very nice.  Their beer/wine selection is OK, but definitely nothing to write home about. Pictured to the right and below were the appetizers we got on our first visit, blue corn dusted onion rings and the spinach/artichoke dip. The onion rings were excellent. The textures in the onion ring were phenomenal; the crust had a complex crunch with an onion that maintained it natural crunch and flavor. 


I did not take a pic on my steak, it was good, but not great. The reason I say this is I LOVE rare steak. I would get my steaks Pittsburgh more often in this market if I could, but most places in our market cannot make the black crust on the outside.  The blue corn crusted fried chicken my friend ordered gave me a really bad case of food envy. The pieces pictured below and right were small but very flavorful. The corn and mashed potatoes were an excellent paring. My main gripe about the fried chicken was the size of the pieces of chicken.
I can't recall the fish dish pictured below, but it was pretty tasty from what my friend said.
Below is one of the desserts we ordered it was the bread pudding a la mode. It was really tasty and texture wise true to bread pudding.

Our server was a freak of nature. When I say this she did not have an arm growing through her forehead, but that she was pleasant, personable and a medical student.  Cool Water Fusion is a great culinary wise, but could use more space and better wine/beer list.

I would give Cool Water Fusion a three and a half stars out of five.

Kim Long Asain Cuisine

Cha Gio - Egg Rolls

In the past few years more Vietnamese restaurants have been opening north of Lomas which is great, so not all the restaurants are located in one section of town. About a year ago, Kim Long Asian Cuisine opened up. I didn't hear about it until a few months ago from a friend. Kim Long is tucked away in a strip mall on San Pedro south of Uptown. The parking lot for the strip mall is not too spacious, but it's sufficient. The restaurant does have a bar area that faces a TV and a few tables to the right. The place is nothing fancy, but it's pretty clean and the restrooms are OK. This is defiantly a small business, which I think is great.   

Banh Beo Chen

According to my friend this place put taro in their egg rolls. This is the first time I've heard of someone putting taro in their egg rolls. The taro didn't really change the flavor of egg rolls, but it did add a slight crunch which was great. The Banh Beo Chen is something I have not seen on any menu, but according to my aunt we have a relative that makes this dish on occasion and I've eaten it before. This was a rice cake in a small bowl topped with pork and shrimp bits. This was a tasty appetizer that was not too heavy.

Bun Cha Han Noi Kim Long

 A dish a friend of mind recommended was Bun Cha Hanoi, which I'd never heard of. My friend has been in Hanoi for more than a year teaching English so any input he has about Vietnamese food may be worth a look. The Bun Cha Ha Noi I would describe as bun or vermicelli noodles with different components, like  dish of pork in broth, a veggie plate, and nuoc cham. The pork dish had onions on top with grilled pork and meatballs in a clear broth. The broth was a little salty but over all the dish was good. When all of this was put together to eat the whole was greater than the sum of it's individual parts.

Pho Dac Biet

Bun Bo Hue

The big meal in Vietnamese food seems to be pho. I LOVE pho. It would be in the running for Anthony Bourdain and my last meal. The pho here is good, but not great. The parts that go into it are great, but I felt that the broth lacked in complexity or depth. Don't get me wrong this is good pho, but definitely not my favorite for Albuquerque. The bun bo Hue was excellent, not as good as homemade, but great for a restaurant. I did get mine with blood pudding and pig's feet. If you don't like that stuff request it without. This broth had a rich lemon grass flavor that was spicy. This dish was great.  The picture below is what my aunt ordered on one of my many visits in a fairly short time. It was a rice and pork dish. I tried a bit and it was pretty good.

I enjoyed Kim Long Asian Cuisine. They server some beers and their modest beer selection offers some good stuff like a few Marble Brewing selections and Fat Tire. It's nice to wash down your bowl of Vietnamese with some suds. The service here is good; the staff is quick and polite. They offer a lot of different dishes and everything I've had is excellent. I would give Kim Long a rating of four out of five.

http://www.kimlongalb.com/

bRgR

bRgR is a few letters short of burger, but does the place make up for the missing letters? I first heard about bRgR from ABQ Beer Geek. He wrote about this place because of their selection of craft beer. Their selection is good, but not great. They have a "house" beer, Sierra Blanca Beer, Santa Fe Brewing Co, Marble Beer, a few Colorado breweries that are available at most reputable bars, a few beers from Sierra Nevada and Kona. Their house beer is just Sierra Blanca Beer read Isotopes, bRgR house beer, Rio Grande Brewing company and a few others. Sierra Blanca beer is OK; I've drank worse beer, but you know how that goes. I was impressed that they had the Santa Fe Brewing Company Java Stout. It was the second time I've seen it on tap. The servings of beer are not full pints, but at a price of $3.00 for craft beer you can't gripe too much. I read the other day that burgers were going to be the next "bubble" which is unfortunate because a great burger truly is a culinary marvel.

The front of the house is well done with decor and color scheme, but the back needs some work. The bathrooms are small and an afterthought. The napkin dispenser pictured above has of a really happy lady holding a burger and the text describes their happy hour that doesn't exist. I brought the happy hour topic at the specified time with my server and she looked at me like I was a spaceman. I then pointed to the napkin dispenser and she then informed me that this was not something they were doing currently. On their website it's advertised as meat and greet with meatballs, mac & cheese, and beer flights. I was not impressed that the staff was uninformed and they are advertizing for something that is non existent, so it's like I'm selling my unicorn and I don't know anything about it. They did allow me to try all of their house beers which was cool, but standard practice for most micro brew sort of establishments.

I ordered two sides: mac and cheese, french fries, a mojo mind hamburger, and a Java Stout for my dinner. My meal ran about $20 which was not bad for a great hamburger. The mac & cheese did have an pretty awesome flavor with panko topping which provided a great texture and is very similar to my mac & cheese. They cook their burgers to "medium" but not my sort of medium next time I will go medium rare, but I like rare meat. The mojo sauce was pretty good, but watery. It was very similar to a sort of oil based salad dressing. The fries I asked to be cooked extra crispy because I read from other reviews the fries tend to be soft. I took the advice and the fries were good. I like the attention to detail with the presentation and quality of food. I like bRgR it's novel, had good food, but has a lot of things to work out.
Three stars out of five.

http://www.brgrabq.com/

Nexus Brewing

Albuquerque is in the middle of a craft beer renaissance. We have had a few new microbreweries open up in the past year. Nexus is the new business into the market. When they first opened up they had some issues with getting their equipment approved in time by the health inspector, but what do you expect from the government? The result of the delay by the health inspector was delayed release of their beer. Since the opening I have been there a few times. All of the food I've had is great. Pictured to the right is fried chicken and waffles. This sounds like an unusual combination, but the flavor and texture contrast is awesome. The owner of Nexus Brewery has a great story, he is a former banker with 30+ years of experience and wanted to open a brewery. The story is on the website below. Nexus describes their food as New Mexican Soul Food or maybe New Mexican food with Soul. It's damn good grub, but don't expect it to come out fast. The food is made fresh and it takes a bit to cook food. It takes the average person probably at least half an hour to cook a dinner.

Nexus did hire a head brewer and a brewer-master: Maun and Dr. Farnsworth or Dr. Beer. Dr. Beer has helped a lot of breweries get off the ground around the world a few in the New Mexico market too. Their beer is good. It seems to hit the sweet spot or pallet of most beer drinkers, nothing too extreme. The only beer from Nexus I have anything bad to say about is their stout, but I love stout. The stout is a mild summer style stout. I love stout that is complex and that needs a fork and knife to be consumed.

Nexus has great atmosphere, but it echos. I've mentioned this to the staff and the owner. The service is good. All of the staff seems to be there because they love the business. Nexus gets three and a half stars out of five.

http://www.nexusbrewery.com/

Golden Crown Panaderia

The  biscochito is a great thing that seems pretty simple; it's a cookie with anise, cinnamon, sugar, and sometimes lard or most of the time. I cannot recall if I've ever had a bad biscochito, but I can recall the great ones I've had.

On Mountain there is a neighborhood bakery that has been open for about thirty years that makes legendary biscochito, Golden Crown Panaderia. I've heard of this business for years, but didn't make the trip to visit them until recently. From what I gather, it seems like they get a fair amount of business from the downtown crowd during the week with their sandwiches and pizzas. 

The bakery is what seems to be an old adobe house with small parking lot. This place is definitely a dive. The inside of the place it cluttered and cramped.

I ordered a side salad to start my meal and it was just OK. The variety of options available for pizza was pretty cool; individual Golden Crown's combination with green chile crust and a Golden's Big Meat with blue corn crust were ordered. The meal was finished with off a bischchito "chocolate" cookie. The food over all was good, but not great. I liked seeing the variety of options in the pizza options, but the biscochito was great though.

Three stars out of five.

http://www.goldencron.biz/shoppingcart/

Bailey's On The Beach

Can a restaurant bring the beach experience to the desert? I was skeptical at first, but a restaurant can bring us the beach dining experience minus the sand. Bailey's On The Beach does a pretty good job of offering an eclectic menu at a reasonable price of what I would call different food; examples of what they serve are fish tacos, baked clams stuffed into a pasta shell, and a good selection of burger/hot dog options. When I first walked into Bailey's I was blown away by the attention to detail that was put into the decor of the restaurant. The restaurant was clean and very modern, some would even call it slick. The menu was posted near the ordering counter and on display was a great selection of micro brews that you can't find everywhere. I did find the ordering system different; the way you order is by filling out a sheet. The owner of Bailey's is a seasoned restaurateur which is always great to see. Not too much to say in this review, but Bailey's has great atmosphere, good beer selection, and food that is pretty good. It's food that is not normally offered at restaurants in town at a pretty reasonable price. I almost felt weird not rocking flip flops at Bailey's. I would give Bailey's a rating of two and a half out of five stars.

http://www.baileysonthebeach.com