Posted on 04/19/2024 1:59:21 PM PDT by nickcarraway
This exciting pitmaster is putting her own stamp on Texas-style smoked meat
At Southern California’s newest barbecue hotspot, there is no white bread available for sopping up the sauce.
Instead, Smoke Queen Barbecue fills its trays with unique smoked meats and an array of sides seen nowhere else before. For perhaps the best example, check out the restaurant’s take on Louisiana-style dirty rice (a Southern staple); theirs is infused with the flavors of Singaporean Hainan chicken and flecks of Chinese sausage. It may look about as simple as a slice of white bread, but the complex flavor is anything but easy to master — and this is just one of the menu’s many nods to owner and pitmaster Winnie Yee-Lakhani’s Chinese and Malaysian heritage.
Originally a pandemic-born pop-up, Smoke Queen opened its first brick-and-mortar in Orange County a few weeks ago. Its new standalone location and Asian-inspired reimagining of Texas-style barbecue further solidify its standing — along with Heritage Barbecue in San Juan Capistrano, Moo’s Craft in Los Angeles and Simi Valley pop-up Zef BBQ — as one of the top spots redefining what Southern California barbecue looks and tastes like today.
Smoke Queen is the first tenant to set up shop at Cottage Industries in the northern Orange County city of Garden Grove, a development that will eventually house several local small businesses. From three 1,000-gallon smokers placed directly in front of the restaurant (formerly a one-story house on a decidedly suburban block), Yee-Lakhani is smoking 2,500 pounds of beef, pork and chicken over white oak every week. Customers line up to order heaping trays of by-the-pound meats every Thursday through Sunday.
On weekends, some 500 customers wait patiently for up to two hours for her garlic, paprika, and cumin-scented beef brisket, gochujang-slicked beef ribs (available Sundays only), and pork
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
You don’t really want to get in the restaurant business, do you? You’ll never get a real day off if you do.
I have no doubt your BBQ is amazing. Yours probably rivals my son’s, and he says the same thing about wanting to open up a place.
“…Chinese SAUSAGE???? NO THANKS!…”
There’s a chance the sausage barks.
Wow.
Two months until it shuts down.
Polluting the universe like that could stop the planets in their orbits.
Looks like she samples a lot of her cooking.
I’m going to LA weekend after this one to visit the Petersen Automotive Museum. We love BBQ, so we will have to try one of the ones mentioned. Thanks for the lead!
Well if try a set up at a street fair or something similar. Try a smaller one first and do your research so you don’t loose money.
-PJ
She’s going low-CARB. lol
-PJ
Rolling Smoke in LV.... yup, just north of the Venetian. Going there in a couple of weeks.
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