BBQ Sandwich KING
My father used to be a butcher in Chicago, Illinois and we always had the best cuts of meat on our table, so I embraced meat from an early age instead of rebelling into some facet of vegetarianism.
When I was 13, we moved to Dallas, Texas where I was first introduced to the various ways of barbecuing meats.
I then moved to Austin, Texas to study at the University of Texas at Austin, where I was exposed to several fantastic sandwich shops. However, the backbone of my inspiration of barbecue sandwiches in Texas comes from a hardcore, country-style BBQ joint in a small town called Lockhart, which is referred to as the “BBQ Capital of Texas”. There is a place there called Kreuz Market, which has been in business since 1900.
After I graduated from UT I moved to Seattle, Washington to continue playing drums in another band called Shiver. In the daytime, I worked at an Italian restaurant managed by Steve Katsandres - a man of great drive and personality, who, to this day, maintains a commitment to high standards of quality and customer service. At the time I met Steve, he was preparing to open his first restaurant called Bad Albert’s Tap & Grill (badalberts.com), which he still runs today, many years later. He asked me to come and work with him, so I did. And the rest, as they say, is history.
While in Seattle, I started experimenting at home, out on the back porch, on weekends during football season with barbecuing chicken breasts and pork loins, which was the birth of my own sandwiches. They were very popular with my housemates, and I continue to make them for my family every time I go back home to Texas. Actually, it’s now become a tradition.
Having traveled in Asia in 1993 prior to graduating from university, and following the spontaneous combustion of my band, I decided to take a break and go to Bangkok, Thailand in 1996 to teach English. I don’t have a proper kitchen in my apartment, so I eat out for every meal. I have a very curious palette and love exploring f&b establishments in big cities, so I have covered a lot of territory over my many years here. I can tell you with complete confidence that an awesome, high-quality sandwich does not exist in Bangkok. That’s why I’m going to attempt to “fill the vacuum”.
Why am I doing this?
First, my father and my brother-in-law got the corporate shaft back in the States. After twenty-six years of loyal service to a Big Meat Packing Company, my father got laid off due to slumping profits. My brother-in-law worked for Corporation X, which turned into Corporation XY, then back to Corporation X, and now exists as Corporation Z. In the process, he lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in stock. Need I say more? The corporate world sucks!
Second, I need a new challenge in my life.
Third, I simply love sandwiches.
Fourth, on my deathbed, I don’t want to look back on my life and think about what might have been. And I am neither lazy nor cowardly.
Why did I choose the name BBQ Sandwich King?
Actually, I don’t really like the name, but it seemed to fit, and this is why:
- My partner and former boss, Steve Katsandres, stirs up enthusiasm by telling his employees, “Hey (Mark), you’re the king!” whenever they respond to him with positive news or a good answer to a work-related question.
- At the time of pondering a name, one of my favorite bands, Pearl Jam, had just released a new album, whose cover depicts two skeletons wearing crowns.
- Thailand is a kingdom.
- The name is good for franchising (if I choose to go that route in the future).
About BBQ Sandwich King:
There are gazillions of bbq sauces out there, from the big commercial food processing companies to the small independent foodies. Ours falls into the latter and is an expensive and complex sauce to craft, which requires ingredients from the USA, France, Australia and England due to our specific geographical location.
- To cook our meats, we use a Cookshack electric smoking oven from the state of Oklahoma (USA) and the hickory wood we use is also from the USA.
- We use boneless chicken breasts, pork loins and pork spare ribs and our beef burger patties are made of tenderloin, rib-eye and sirloin.
- We blend our dry rub and seasoning salt in-house.
- Our Texas Twister relish and S3 burger sauce are home-made.
- The cheese we use is real Cheddar cheese.
- The buns we use are supplied to us by Folies French bakery.
- We serve genuine American potato products and we fry them in rice bran oil, which is one of the world’s healthiest cooking oils.
By the way, if you notice a pink color around our meats, it’s all part of the authentic barbecue (smoking) process; you needn’t worry about a thing. The pink color often exists around the edges of the meat or near the bones; it’s science, actually, not love. So, relax, eat and enjoy.
What is BBQ?
BBQ, Bar-B-Q or barbecue, actually means slowly cooking meat, with indirect heat, using coals or wood, not quickly cooking it over direct heat (fire); that’s called grilling.
How our Cookshack smoker works
When cooking with wood, charcoal or propane, you are cooking with fire. Combustion draws air in, which passes over the meat on the way out. Even in a well-designed smoker, there is still a lot of air movement. In our Cookshack smoker that we use here at BBQ Sandwich King & The Slider Shack, which uses electricity for heat, there is no combustion, so the only air movement is from heated air rising. With just the small drain hole (bottom) and the small vent hole (top) there isn't much movement. That's why the meat stays so moist and cooks without drying out. Plus it’s computer-controlled, along with a timer, to help idiots like me. I get so deep in shallow thought, that I forget a lot of things. I need all the help I can get, so that’s why we use a Cookshack smoker.
What is dry rub?
It’s coarsely ground seasonings and spices for meat in slow-cooking methods such as barbecue. It can be any mixture of ground spices that is made for the purpose of being rubbed on raw food before it is cooked. The rub forms a coating on the food and can be marinated for some time for the flavors to incorporate into the food or it can be cooked immediately after.
What is a quesadilla?
A quesadilla (kay/suh/dee/yuh) is a type of Mexican food made primarily of cheese inside a folded tortilla (flatbread made of corn or wheat) and cooked until the cheese melts. Occasionally a second ingredient is added with the cheese to add variety to the dish. The word comes from Spanish and means "cheese in tortilla."
In a Tex-Mex style of quesadilla (the kind that we serve), cheese and other ingredients are sandwiched between two flour tortillas, and the whole thing is grilled and flipped so that both sides are cooked and the cheese melts. Then it is cut into triangles and served with a condiment such as salsa and/or sour cream. We serve ours with our home-made, Texas-style bbq sauce.
By the way, some folks say quay/suh/dill/luh and it sounds cute.
What is Texas Twister Relish?
It’s our home-made condiment that consists of diced yellow onions, diced garlic-dill pickles & extra virgin olive oil.
The inspiration is from authentic, hard-core, Texas-style bbq joints, which put dill pickle and onion slices on butcher block paper to accompany the meat. We simply transformed it into a relish with a catchy name.
What is Lone Star Chili?
It’s our award-winning, home-made version of chili con carne. We make it with smoked pork loin and smoked chicken breast, tomatoes in sauce, yellow onions, bell peppers (capsicums) and spices and seasonings. We call it Lone Star because that’s the nickname of Texas: the Lone Star state. America is a very big country and there are many different kinds of chili as you go from east to west. And we’re sure that you’re mother and grandmother make better chili than we do.
Thank you for reading.
Mark J. Grygiel
Founder
