Texas is home to a multitude of barbecue joints that meld traditionally smoked meats with cuisines from around the world. The Egyptian-Texan mix of KG BBQ, in Austin, is widely known; Khói Barbecue, in Houston, takes inspiration from Vietnamese dishes; and Smoke ’N Ash BBQ, in Arlington, might be the world’s only Ethiopian smokehouse. One would assume Kelly’s Cambodian BBQ, in Fort Worth, is built on a similar model, but there’s a big difference. “We don’t smoke anything,” co-owner Kelly Vorn said. “We don’t have the patience.” Fear not, barbecue lovers—you’ll still find brisket here.
Spotting two portable charcoal grills sitting under a vent hood behind the counter was a surprise, but then again, I’d just walked into a liquor store to order Cambodian barbecue. A friend of Vorn’s husband, Curtis Bennett, owns Liquor Up on the west side of Fort Worth, and the store had a vacancy in its fully outfitted kitchen. He offered it to Vorn and Bennett to run their operation, starting last March. From one of a few stools at the stainless steel counter, you can watch your meat cooking on one of the grills in the open kitchen. Just be sure to order at the front register before sitting down.
The brisket comes two ways. The Beef Stick features thin, skewered slices of marinated brisket that have been rubbed with kroeung, a lemongrass-forward Cambodian seasoning paste that also includes crushed lime leaves, garlic, and turmeric. The result is a flavor bomb of tender grilled beef with a good dose of char. The other option begins with fist-size chunks of brisket that Vorn marinates for two days in a soy sauce–based liquid. Bennett grills the chunks over charcoal to order and then slices them to serve. They arrive pink in the center, cooked just beyond medium rare. It’s an alarming visual to anyone who eats a lot of Texas brisket, but the meat was quite tender. “Everybody’s used to that Texas brisket, that you don’t need no teeth to eat it with,” Bennett said. The bit of resistance in each bite might be a surprise, but Cambodians, Vorn told me, prefer to have some chewiness in their meat.
The traditional Cambodian sauce to serve with grilled beef is tuk prahok, whose key ingredient is fermented mudfish. Vorn’s mother, Sinoun, taught her how to make it. She escaped the brutal Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia at age sixteen, when she was pregnant with Vorn, and eventually made it to Texas, where Vorn was born. Vorn’s early customers in Fort Worth found the pungent sauce a bit too aggressive, so she makes the more approachable jeow som instead, which hails from Cambodia’s neighbor Laos. The sweet and salty dip is fiery but complements the beef well, especially with a bite of the sticky rice, available as a side. Vorn said she’s considering bringing back the tuk prahok for her Cambodian customers. “I’d also like to reintroduce it to the Americans,” she said.
“The Lao, Thai, and Vietnamese, we all use the same ingredients, but everything tastes so different,” Vorn said. Herbaceous flavors like those of lime leaf and lemongrass are typical across the region, so the tastes at Kelly’s Cambodian BBQ will be comforting to those familiar with Thai food. Weekly specials include chicken khao poon, a Laotian dish with vermicelli, and the Cambodian version of pho, called kathiew, which Vorn makes with a combination of beef chuck, eye of round, beef ribs, and oxtail.
Along with brisket, the other members of the Texas trinity are also on the Kelly’s Cambodian BBQ menu. Vorn marinates pork ribs and deep-fries them individually to order. She uses a Laotian recipe to make her own sausage, which has more herbs and less fat than Cambodian tvako sausage. I preferred the juicy link to the ribs, which were a challenge to separate from the bone.
Kelly Vorn and Curtis Bennett.Photograph by Daniel Vaughn
Shrimp fried rice is one of the restaurant’s bestsellers, but the inspiration for it is a geographical surprise. Bennett’s father is from East St. Louis, Illinois. I was unaware that the St. Louis area had its own style of fried rice, but it certainly does, and Bennett urged Vorn to lean into it. “They don’t like peas or carrots or none of that in their rice,” he said. The rice at Kelly’s gets only the additions of eggs, white onion, and bean sprouts, which are all heavily seasoned with dark soy sauce. Vorn adds sautéed marinated shrimp and a few leaves of fresh basil to the mix for a hearty portion.
The top seller is Vorn’s fried chicken wings. Have some patience, because she fries them to order, and you’ll need to wait a few minutes for them to cool down once served. Vorn first marinates the chicken and seasons the rice flour the wings are dusted with. After frying, she adds a sprinkle of a proprietary blend of powdered spices. The skin is crisp, the meat is juicy, and the flavor is deep. I swear the wings were still warm after I drove back home to Dallas.
On your way out the door, grab an order of banana pudding made with golden Oreos or a 7Up bundt cake baked by Bennett’s mother. And if you want more Cambodian food, look for Vorn’s booth at the annual Khmer New Year celebration, which is held every April. The Cambodian Buddhist Temple of Dallas hosts the event, and it was where Vorn first sold her food to the public, in 2024. “Once I saw the reaction of people at the festival, I was like, ‘You need to do this full-time,’ ” Bennett said. And now there’s a family-run business inside a liquor store serving brisket in a way that’s completely new to most Texans.
Kelly’s Cambodian BBQ
3080 Alta Mere Drive, Fort Worth
Hours: Thursday–Saturday noon–8
Phone: 682-270-1928
Pitmasters: Kelly Vorn and Curtis Bennett
Method: Charcoal in a direct-heat grill
Year opened: 2025
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