年代ome of the Best Texas Barbecue Is in Los Angeles
This is it. This is the moment when East L.A. backyard legend Andrew Muñoz ofMoo’s Craft Barbecueestablishes himself as one of the most formidablePitmastersin the country. He’s quit his job as a commercial insurance underwriter to focus on cooking the bestTexas-style brisketand beef ribsLos Angeleshas ever tasted. This meat is marvelously supple, moist, smoky, beefy, and fat-flecked, the kind of thing that’s achieved only through extraordinary skill combined with time and love.
Andrew’s wife, Michelle, says her primary job is still being the mother of their sons, who are 5 and 7. But she’s also a crucial part of Moo’s. Michelle, who was a cosmetologist before becoming a stay-at-home mom, is a great chef who deftly weaves inMexican-American flavors when making verde pork sausages and Moo’s sides like esquites.
Moo's在洛杉矶市中心的Smorgasburg食品市场每个星期日都有一个帐篷，烧烤是如此出色，以至于总有一条线直到肉消失vwin德赢ac米兰。即使在寒冷多雨的时候，客人也等待30至45分钟。
The Muñozes, who were born and raised in L.A., are looking for a standalone brick-and-mortar location where they can open a restaurant and park their 500-gallon offset smokers. They’d like to be in the Eastside or maybe downtown or possibly in the San Gabriel Valley, where they met as teenagers. They’d like to have their restaurant open later this year.
It’s important to understand the magnitude of what’s happening. Moo’s isn’t just serving Texas-style barbecue that’s considered good for L.A. or California. This food, including beef ribs that are on the level of what you get at Dallas standout Cattleack Barbecue, is comparable to the top-tier meat you’ll find in Texas. Don’t just take it from me (even though I lived the first two decades of my life in Texas and can tell you that Moo’s tastes like some of my happiest memories). Houston-based photographer Ben Sassani justInstagramm摄了一张照片with a caption that read: “If@mooscraftbarbecue在德克萨斯州，这将是前10名。迅速同意的专家包括Robert Jacob Lerma, the king of Texasbarbecue photographers。
This is a remarkable moment. Texas barbecue has become a cuisine with no borders. What state you’re in matters so much less than the quality of what you serve. From Matt’s BBQ in Portland to ZZQ in Richmond, Virginia, toJames Beard Award semifinalistBilly Durney’s Hometown Bar-B-Que in Brooklyn, Texas barbecue has become a very serious and very good thing around the country.
Moo’s—which, remember, doesn’t even have a restaurant yet—deserves to be a big part of this conversation. Plus, items like Michelle’s verde sausages with fire-roasted poblanos and pepper jack put Moo’s right in the middle of another wonderful barbecue movement. That pork sausage is inspired by智利Rellenos, which is one of Michelle’s favorite classic Mexican dishes. The sausage is also a nod to green chorizo, but it doesn’t crumble like chorizo. Michelle’s pork sausage has the texture of Texas sausage but a totally different flavor. Like 2M Smokehouse in San Antonio,Valentina’s Tex Mex BBQ在奥斯汀，甚至是洛杉矶的地下球员Ragtop Fern's，Moo's都将自己的原始墨西哥裔美国人旋转在烧烤架上。
“That’s who we are,” Michelle says. “When we first started this, I wanted the experience when people came to our backyard to be like they’re coming into our home. What do we eat at home? What did we grow up eating?” So she decided to do an amped-up riff on street corn by making esquites with jalapeños and fresh herbs. She’s teased Andrew about how her verde sausage is more popular than his more traditional jalapeño-cheddar sausage made with brisket trimmings.
“All that we’re missing is tortillas,” Andrew says.
It turns out that this stuff has been in Andrew’s blood all along. His father’s parents met in El Paso, near the Texas-Mexico border. Tortillas are something the Muñozes plan to make at their future restaurant. Right now, the idea of having tortillas at Smorgasburg is daunting because Moo’s is in an outdoor space and “there’s so only so many we can do before they get hard and stale,” Andrew says.
He’s already talked to Esaul Ramos at 2M about how to keep tortillas warm and fresh. Andrew, who remembers being starstruck when he first met亚伦·富兰克林，喜欢这样一个事实，即他是一个烧烤专业人士社区的一部分，他们总是互相推动努力，以更好地建立这种文化。他经常向许多基于德克萨斯州的Pitmasters发短信。他每天都与加州烧烤朋友保持联系，例如洛杉矶的伯特·巴克曼（Burt Bakman）特鲁迪的地下烧烤and Slab, and Matt Horn of Oakland’sHorn Barbecue。霍恩（Horn）曾经住在安德鲁（Andrew）和米歇尔（Michelle）的后座，并用安德鲁（Andrew）的吸烟者进行了洛杉矶弹出窗口。
During Horn’s visit, Andrew realized that he didn’t have to cook overnight for once, so he actually went to bed at a normal hour. But now that Andrew’s doing barbecue full-time, between Smorgasburg and private events, he’s cooking more than he ever has. He’ll do test cooks to experiment with things like how he splits the California white oak he burns. He’ll pay close attention to how the changes he makes affect the bark on his brisket and the flavor of the meat.
安德鲁说：“我认为甚至在去德克萨斯州之前，我一直都喜欢肉类和烧烤。”“我的岳父，他是一个大型食肉动物。他总是告诉我，‘当您去德克萨斯州时，请尝试找到好的烧烤。我听说那里真的很好。’”
当安德鲁（Andrew）去达拉斯（Dallas）进行医疗保险工作时，他在经纪人会议和其他工作完成后立即去寻找烧烤。起初是命中率的，但随后一位同事将他带到了主教艺术区的洛克哈特烟熏屋。
“这只是改变了我的世界，”安德鲁说。“我简直不敢相信这是多么的好。所以我回去了。”
He returned to Dallas for work a lot and also tried Pecan Lodge and Cattleack. He would excitedly text Michelle photos and bring meat home to her. Then he started thinking about how to recreate these flavors in his backyard. He got a big propane grill, which was terrible, so he returned it within two weeks. Then he bought a Weber. Then he built a vertical smoker. He spent a year-and-a-half cooking pork butts and spare ribs before he was confident enough to try beef.
他的工作领土扩展到休斯敦，因此他必须在Tejas，Killen和开瓶器等地点用餐。米歇尔（Michelle）感觉到丈夫的热情，告诉安德鲁（Andrew）他们应该一起去奥斯丁。所以他们做到了。
米歇尔说：“我尝试的第一个地方是La烧烤，我当时想，‘我他妈的得到它。’
It was the same kind of feeling that Andrew had at Lockhart Smokehouse.
“The big beef rib and the sausages and the ribs, it’s like nothing I had ever experienced in Los Angeles,” Michelle says.
经过this point, Andrew had been bringing his own spare ribs and briskets to birthday parties or when he got invited to watch boxing matches or MMA fights at someone’s house. In February 2017, Moo’s Craft Barbecue did its first popup in Andrew and Michelle’s backyard. They were nervous that nobody would come, but social-media buzz made Moo’s an instant success.
“It was so cool,” Michelle says. “Those DMs started coming in. Peopleshowed up.透明
他们迅速卖掉了四个牛s，也许是六到八个肋骨。Michelle制作了Agua Frescas（她计划在Moo拥有餐厅时再次做的事情），土豆沙拉，凉拌卷心菜和辣椒豆。所有这些都卖光了。
They started having regular backyard pop-ups that attracted hundreds of people. Then Moo’s did a pop-up at Indie Brewing Company in Boyle Heights, and the line was down the street. Andrew and Michelle, who were high school sweethearts who met when he was a junior and she was a freshman in Montebello, started to realize that this might become more than their family hobby.
They had pop-ups at other breweries. There was a two-hour line when Moo’s participated in Smorgasburg’s annual barbecue day. Smorgasburg general manager Zach Brooks encouraged Andrew to quit his job and do Moo’s full-time. Andrew quit in October. In January, Moo’s started coming to Smorgasburg every single week.
布鲁克斯说：“我们在斯莫加斯堡有很多很棒的烧烤。”“有黑糖with pork ribs and pulled pork. Stoked does Santa Maria-style tri-tip. Ugly Drum does pastrami that’s clearly a hybrid of barbecue and deli pastrami. But we’ve never had that hard-core Texas-style brisket vendor and we’ve always wanted that.”
毕竟，纽约的Mighty Quinn’s Barbecue从布鲁克林的Smorgasburg开始，然后在纽约及其他地区开设餐厅。
布鲁克斯说：“我一直想要MOO，因为这是一个伟大的洛杉矶家庭。”“他们正在做完美的烧烤，您可以感觉到他们在烧烤和业务本身中的东洛杉矶根源。在他们的帐篷里，就像他们的整个家庭一样。”
On a cold and rainy February Sunday at Smorgasburg, Andrew steps out of the tent so he can finish preparing sausages in his double 500-gallon smoker. He’s wearing aBrisket Cartelhat as he tries to avoid puddles while shoveling wood out of a fire box and into the smoker. He humbly confesses that he stepped into a lot of water that day.
Andrew’s dad, Harvey, is also by the smoker while Andrew’s cousin, Denise, works inside the tent with Michelle. It’s raining pretty hard, but there are more than 20 people in line.
A week earlier, the weather was even worse. It poured during Super Bowl weekend, and the Smorgasburg site was flooded. Around 8:45 on Saturday night, the Muñozes saw an e-mail from Brooks: Smorgasburg had to be canceled on Super Bowl Sunday.
这可能是一场灾难。Moo已经pre-sold17 whole briskets and increased their volume of meat for the weekend. Plus, they had made food for a baby shower that was also canceled because of the rain, so they had twice as much esquites as usual. Michelle reached out to Cindi Thompson of Crafted Kitchen, a venue in the Arts District where Moo’s does its prep.
米歇尔说：“马上，就像老板一样，她只是‘来这里做弹出窗口。’“‘‘做任何要做的事情。考虑我的家你的家。’”
Moo的贴在Instagram,in touch with everybody who pre-ordered. Andrew and Michelle started selling meat at Crafted Kitchen at 11 a.m. on Sunday. By 2 p.m., everything was sold out: 37 briskets, 72 beef ribs, 40 racks of spare ribs, 80 pounds of sausage, six pork butts, six turkey breasts, and all of Michelle’s sides.
这是现在的安德鲁和米歇尔。他们know the demand is there. They know they can handle their cooking and sell all their product even when the circumstances are terrible. Things should only get busier in the spring and summer. The Muñozes, who were referred to a real estate broker by their restaurateur friend Briana Valdez of HomeState, want to let it be known that they’re ready to do big food festivals and maybe even take Moo’s on the road for special events while they’re also working toward opening a restaurant.
On Mondays, when Andrew and Michelle are still recovering from Smorgasburg, their sons get off from school early at 1 p.m. Monday is also when Moo’s gets its brisket delivery for the week. Trimming the meat is exhausting work. Andrew feels it in his joints every week.
但是知道他正在为家人以及与家人一起做这件事，使一切都值得。他和米歇尔在一起已经近22年了。他们于2007年结婚。2011年，他们买了一所房子，这是安德鲁（Andrew）开始烧烤的地方。尽管Moo最近在洛杉矶的崛起类似于火箭，但这与通宵成功的故事完全相反。
那就是关于烧烤的事情。在2019年，它似乎迷人，性感和时尚，但这是需要时间的食物。vwin德赢ac米兰这是深夜的vwin德赢ac米兰努力和持久的日子，当时下雨了，以至于水侧向您散发出来。这是要进行调整，因为您足够关心在其他人可能会放弃的情况下更加努力地推动。
拥有一家小型家族企业的重要组成部分是您一直与家人在一起。安德鲁（Andrew）和米歇尔（Michelle）在一周内休息一下，参加洛杉矶市中心的Corepower瑜伽课。
“We’ll sneak that in and stretch our muscles out,” Andrew says. “That’s kind of what keeps us balanced.”
Andrew says it’s nice to do this in the middle of a weekday, when CorePower Yoga isn’t crowded. He laughs as he jokes about how people with office jobs are “suckers.” He sounds like a man who’s enjoying his newfound freedom while also being more motivated than ever. This is it. This is what it’s like to be in control of your own blazing future.