Bluebonnet Bar-B-Q

Pretty greasy unimpressive brisket, but then again what can you expect from a grocery store… even Whole Paycheck. Folks using an electric pressure smoker isn’t real BBQ… no bark, rubbery meat, and you may as well soak the brisket in liquid smoke and cook it in the oven. Do yourself a favor and skip Blue Bonnet BBQ, you’ll just end up singing the BBQ Blues like I did.

Today I decided to see how Bluebonnet Bar-​B-​Q at the Lakewood location of Whole Foods measured up. Bluebonnet felt more like an actual barbecue spot than a grocery store. They had a real knife man cutting all of the meats to order, but I was still pretty disappointed by the use of heat lamps.
The overpowering «Eat! Eat! Eat!» coming from my stomach got the better of me. I ordered a 3 Meat Combo: garlic pork sausage, St. Louis-​style pork spareribs, and sliced beef brisket. All of their combos come with two side dishes, and I settled on potato salad and bbq beans.
The potato salad was pretty tasty. Dill isn’t exactly my favorite herb, but it gave the potato salad a good amount of flavor, coupled with a pleasant sweetness from the cream. As much as I enjoyed the potato salad, the beans were my favorite of the two. The jalapeño and onions mixed in added a good crunch and a big kick of spiciness.
Rare as it is to find, I thoroughly enjoy all-​pork sausage. The garlic gave this offering a good flavor, but I didn’t find as much other seasoning as I would have liked. The meat itself sort of crumbled apart, which was probably an unfortunate byproduct of the all-​pork stuffing. Overall, it seemed more grilled than smoked.
The thin slices of brisket had a good black crust and a slight smoke ring. The lean slices were a little dried out, though they still had a decent amount of smoke to them. The fatty slices needed more rendering, but were tasty nonetheless. This brisket was much tastier than I was expecting.
St. Louis-​style ribs are probably my favorite rib cut. These had a hint of smoke, but certainly not as much as there should have been. I also thought the crust could have used more seasoning. The meat had good staying power, but was still very tender and juicy.
Bluebonnet Bar-​B-​Q wasn’t perfect by any means, but it was definitely better than many actual barbecue restaurants that I’ve sampled in recent months.