Houston BBQ Smackdown recap

A couple of Saturdays ago, Brad and I made the trip to Houston for the 3rd Annual Houston BBQ Smackdown, which featured samples of brisket and ribs from 6 Houston BBQ joints. The format was three trips down the line of samples (getting the samples of 2 joints each time), scoring after each trip. The food was so so. I thought two of the joints' samples were good, with 1 edging out the other. I wouldn't want the other 4 again. When I bought the tickets, I didn't know that the joints themselves would not be cooking on site, that they were simply sending their food. This, of course, meant that the meats weren't fresh; and most of them were warm, at best, while a few were cooler than that.

The event was held at Pearl Bar, which I thought was too small of a venue, considering there was not a seat at any table after any of our trips through the line, forcing us to eat standing up. I'm not above standing while I eat, but for that long of a drive and almost 40 bucks for a ticket, a seat woulda been nice (especially considering it was a limited-number-of-tickets event, so you'd think the number would be limited to, say, the number that could be seated). And if I were a drinker, I would say that having at least some alcohol included in the ticket price woulda been nice, but cash bar it was.

Going to Houston was totally worth it, because we got to hang out with our friends BBQ Snob, Houston Foodie, Fulmer, Tino, and Paul (with whom we hit up the recently-opened Phil's Texas Barbecue after the event - will post pics later), but as for the event, the value was lacking. For that much per ticket, the BBQ should, at least, be hot and fresh. After that, a seat would just be gravy.