Few dare question the Lone Star State’s love affair with barbecue. No matter where you are, you’re never too far from a decent cut of brisket – often found in some of the unlikeliest of places.
Want proof?
“Proof” might be a useful word for where we’re headed next because recently our go-to barbecue expert, Texas Monthly barbecue editor Daniel Vaughn, came across a joint operating out of a Fort Worth liquor store – and that is hardly the most distinctive feature of this particular establishment.
Vaughn joined the Standard to dish on the details. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: I’m a little reluctant to ask, Daniel, but how’d you happen to find this place?
Daniel Vaughn: Well, I saw smoke coming out of a liquor store… Well, the Liquor Up store – that’s the name of it. It’s on the west side of Fort Worth on Alta Mere. And yeah, I saw that there was this barbecue counter inside and I had to go check it out.
I’d never had Cambodian barbecue before. But yeah, they were right, all the folks who sent me that way. There is a barbecue counter in the back of that liquor store.
And what did you say the name was?
Well, it’s called Kelly’s Cambodian BBQ. The owner, whose name is Kelly Vorn, her Instagram account is @getinmybelly_kelly. For a while, I thought her name was Kelly Belly, but that’s not the case.
No, that is not. All right, so I understand this is not your usual Texas-styled smoked meat. What is this about grilled brisket?
Yeah. Well, you know, when you first walk in, like you order from the cashier at the liquor store. And so there’s a menu written. And then it says “brisket” on it, but I didn’t really know what to expect. I didn’t see a smoker out back or anything.
And so I ordered up the brisket and the ribs and the sausage and head over to the counter. It’s kind of an open kitchen situation. And the owners, Curtis and Kelly, are back there manning these two little charcoal grills, like backyard charcoal grills, that are just under this really powerful hood vent and so you can’t really smell the smoke.
You can see the wood coal or you’d see that charcoal burning and you can hear the sizzle of the meat grilling, but yeah, everything on the menu is grilled hot and fast – there’s nothing smoked there at all.
Well what is your order? Do they have a formal menu or just what you do?
A couple of their most popular items are some fried chicken wings, which are delicious, and a shrimp fried rice, which is also great. But I was there for barbecue, so I got your classic trinity: It’s brisket and pork ribs and sausage.
The sausage they make is a Lao sausage. Laotian sausage is a little different than Cambodian sausage. She felt like she wanted to keep the menu as authentic as she could to Cambodians, but she really thought that the Fort Worth crowd might enjoy a Laotian sausage better because it’s just a little less strongly flavored.
And then there’s pork ribs, which aren’t smoked at all. They’re deep fried. So they’re individually marinated and then deep fried and seasoned. So, they’re a little crispy, a little chewy.
But it was the brisket that’s turned two different ways, which just really stopped me in my tracks. Like I’ve had so many different versions of brisket and it’s this cut that just… You feel like it needs to be smoked for long and low for a really long time to get there and that’s really the only way to eat it.
But Kelly’s like, “you know what? The Cambodians, we like a little chew to the meat.” And they also marinate it for two days before they slice it very thin and then grill it. And they serve it medium rare.
I was stunned, like to see pink in the middle of your brisket is like an automatic no-no. Like, walk away, run away. But this was so tender, dipped it in the jeow som they make, this spicy sauce, and it was… I loved it.
Tell us about that sauce. That’s probably not your run-of-the-mill barbecue sauce.
Yeah, some Thai chilies, and it’s got some fish sauce in there. It’s a sweet sauce, but it’s quite thin and really quite pungent. So you only need just a little bit of it, which the fact that it’s so thin really helps out.
You know, it strikes me that the definition of BBQ has gotten to stretching quite a bit in recent years. I know that there’s a place out near me that comes to mind – that Egyptian Texan, you’ve probably heard of it, KG BBQ, right?
Yes, yeah.
It seems like we’re seeing a lot of different mixtures of flavors and cultures. Is this a real thing or we both just get lucky?
Well, you know, I mean, so much of what we’ve seen in Texas recently is places like KG BBQ, that they’re using traditional smoked Texas meats and really just adding different flavors and sauces from their Egyptian roots or whatever culture they might be from.
And so this one is a little different, like this is Cambodian barbecue that equates better to, let’s say, Korean barbecue, right? Like you go into a Korean barbecue restaurant, you’re not going to get smoked meats. It’s just because of all these fusions that we’ve been seeing with smoked meats, whether it’s Vietnamese or Chinese or Ethiopian or Egyptian.
I kind of expected this was going to be a version of that. And when I realized that it’s, no, this is like traditional Cambodian barbecue, which is over live fire – over an open flame – and hot and fast using marinades to keep things tender and very thinly sliced meats to make sure it is tender… It sort of opened my eyes to those possibilities.
You know, as good as it sounds, I think that there may be some purists who are saying, well, you know, at some point, Daniel, you got to start saying this isn’t really barbecue as we know it.
This is Cambodian-style eating, which is unto itself great, but where does barbecue begin and something else pick up?
Well, I think there’s a trend really in the barbecue community towards live fire and being more inclusive of grilled items that are grilled over wood or charcoal. There’s even now like live fire portions of barbecue competitions.
So it comes down to the live fire, you think?
Yeah, I think so. Yeah. I mean, you know, if you’ve got into a good Korean barbecue restaurant, they probably got the charcoal there that you can grill on yourself. But the not-so-great ones, they’ve just got a gas flame there.
And, I don’t know, I do think that makes a difference. I think that the charcoal or the wood, the smoke, the meat dripping down onto that, and the flavor it creates… I do think that is a little different than just using a hot plate.