“It’s A Chicken Train Going To Flavour Town!”| Diners, Drive-Ins, And Dives.

I love coming to Colorado. Great weather, great people. And so when I'm driving through Longmont right outside of Boulder, and I see that there's a fried chicken joint, you know I gotta check it out. The bird is the word at Post Chicken and Beer. Four piece fried in the window. I actually haven't had chicken that good since my grandma made it when I was little. Boom, let's sell that country gravy on there. I won't go anywhere else now. And I've had fried chicken all around the country. Right. This will set you free, brother. This will set you free. The liberator here is owner Brett Spinney-Smith, whose simple Southern concept is flying high at the foot of the Rockies. Beer and chicken. Chicken and beer, a match made in heaven, really. It's a beautiful thing. That's good. And it's crispy, it's crunchy, it's so moist on the inside. They put it in a pressure cooker. Now that's a real deal method of cooking chicken that I get nostalgic about. First restaurant I ever opened, the restaurant before us was called Big John's Chicken. It had to be good. Big John was the best. He's still great. John Pavelka. So when we took over, he had three of these, and I thought they were the coolest things in the world. It renders the fat better inside of the chicken, gives you better skin. Builds that crust up. So let's get into this. So the first thing we do with our chicken, we make a lemon and rosemary brine. Okay. This is some toasted coriander, toasted black peppercorn, crushed chili flakes, a few bay leaves, sliced jalapeno, a little salt, a lot of salt, actually. Brown sugar. Some apple cider vinegar. Okay. Some good old Colorado water. We add our fresh rosemary, squeeze some lemon in there. Bring this up to a boil. Let this simmer 20 minutes. Strain it out. So then we take that and brine the chicken, and how long are we going to brine the chicken? Four hours. All right. Flouring's got to take place. First part of that is we've got to make our house seasoning blend. Okay. So we've got some chili powder, some cayenne, toasted coriander, onion powder, garlic powder, black pepper, and salt. Got it. So then that goes into our rice flour. So we call this our first flour. First flour. So there's a lot of flour power. A lot of flour power. Yeah. A lot of hippies around. It gets coated in rice flour overnight. Soaks it up. This starts to develop that crust for us. All right. So we've got that chicken that sat overnight in the first flour. Got it. Got it. We're hitting it with some buttermilk. Okay. So now this second flour is our top secret gluten-free blend. Top secret. Top secret. Get this coated up real good. And then on these towers, we've got the fatter part of the breast on the outside. Then we do the two thighs on the corners, and this heating element is around this way of the fryer. That part's going to cook a little faster. Okay. And then the drumsticks, and then the wings are the smallest, so they get piled in the middle. No kidding. Yep. And then this gets put into this rack like this. Wow. Yep. We cook it 15 minutes at 300 degrees, and that builds up the crust really nice. And this thing just sounds like it's ready to blow. It hangs out. Yep. It's a chicken train going to Flavortown. Woo! Woo! This is how it comes out, just like this. Let it rest for a little bit. Bring this rack out. Uh-huh. Hit it with our house seasoning. Same house seasoning that's in the flour. Okay. We're going to plate this with a breast, thigh, drumstick, and a wing. So you get half a chicken. You get half a bird. Wow. This is picnic chicken 101. It's exactly what you want it to be, nice and tender, not over-seasoned. The skin's nice and crunchy. In the library at Flavortown, this is one of the reference pictures of fried chicken. This is really dynamite. I have been to more barbecue joints than most people. More than you can shake a stick at. More than I can shake a stick at. In country and out of country, I've seen it all. So today, here in East Dallas, Texas, I brought my buddy, barbecue guru David Knight from Old Hickory Pits to tell me how legit ... How do I get to drive the car? After we eat, David, are you hungry? Heck yeah! This is 190 Smoked Meat. Chili Mac coming. This is the best barbecue place of all. Three-meat plate in the window. I'm, like, crazy about it. Ha-ha, I'm working. These guys seem to have it all nailed down. That's because Herman Guerra and Kyle St. Clair worked out the kinks in their backyards till they were ready to quit their day jobs. I worked for a federal judge, did a law clerkship. And then you just thought you'd trade that in for a smoker. Yeah. That smoke makes you crazy. Present company included. Chopping brisket for the spicy brisket. I'm having the spicy brisket sandwich. You get a nice element of the smoke. You get the true flavor of the actual brisket. All right, so let's talk about the brisket first. We don't pull all the fat off. Fat is where a lot of flavor is. And so what we're going to do is just season our brisket. Salt and pepper. Look at that. It's a flick of the wrist, David. Square bottle with the pepper. That gives a nice, even shot at it. You can definitely get to the perfume of it. In the smoker. Six hours. We'll bring it out, we'll wrap it, and then we'll finish it four to six. Four to six. We're going to make our spicy barbecue sauce. All right. Start with a little. A little bit of the drip from the brisket. Tomato sauce. Do a little bit of ketchup. Are you a ketchup barbecue sauce guy? There's so many different kinds sometimes. Okay. No, I'm with you. Vinegar. A little liquid smoke. Chipotle peppers, onion powder, garlic salt. Anything scaring you so far? Not yet. He's good. He's watching you with a close eye. I'm watching it. Creole mustard. Got to have a little mustard in there. Yeah, we're cooking. Some Worcestershire, molasses. Ooh, that's your sweet. A little black pepper, some honey. Darling? Hey, sugar. So mad. It's great. I get to use all my old material on David. It's like new stuff. So we're going to let that cook normally for about an hour. Good sauce. Let's get some brisket. You don't even need a knife with that. You can cut that with a bad look. Beautiful. Give it a little pull test. Tell me I didn't get you anything nice your birthday. Mm. That would make a bulldog bite his chain. I knew one of those was coming. That's good pepper. Nice unctuous fat. Just melts. Now, do you serve sliced plates? We serve it by the pound. We serve it on plates. On plates? We get it. It's okay. Don't say. We say we put a sandwich together. Let's do it. Let's go. We're going to get our roasted poblano pepper, drop on our in-house smoked cheddar cheese. Now we're cooking. Get our meat on the brioche bun. Bun is beautiful. Yes, it is. Get a little sauce. Do a little of the red onion. A full serving of pickle. There you go. Whoa. Look at that. Mm-hmm. I think. So the barbecue, of course, reigns supreme. Awesome. The brisket's not overcooked. It's smoked the right amount, good seasoning. By itself, delicious. But what you did inside of the sandwich, the poblano and the pickles, the acid, the onion, smoked cheddar's dynamite, you're really going to the next level. You got these layer after layer of flavor. It's kind of like a party going on. You come into the barbecue, judge, and you just made a real good case for yourself. It's true. Brisket sandwich. It's lean and tender, rich from the fat, not too fatty. Poblano and the cheese all mix it all together. They make it delicious. So I'm here in Phoenix, Arizona, right off Highway 51 and about five minutes from downtown, kind of an industrial park area, and there's a lot of cars moving by really fast. Now, if there's ever been a time I've told you to slow down and take a look around, it's now. I had a couple of triple-D chefs call me and say, you got to check this joint out. This is Tacos Chihuahua. Tres al pastor tacos here. I've had hundreds of tacos at Tacos Chihuahua. This reminds me of the kind of good street food that you get down in Mexico. His husband and wife team, Armando Hernandez and Nadia Olguin, are introducing the people of Arizona to flavors from their home state of Chihuahua. What is Chihuahuan food? How would you describe it? Smoky, spicy. Chihuahua is landlocked, so it has a lot to do with proteins, a lot of flour. Barbacoa tacos, order up! I'm having the two tacos of barbacoa. It's really tender, a lot of bold flavors. Everybody's got their own barbacoa. What makes this so good? We use beef cheek. These cheeks, by the way. These right here, not the other cheeks. Anaheim chiles. Tomates. Tomates. A little bit of cebolla, garlic, bay leaves, black pepper. Salt. Then we're going to put it in the smoker overnight. Typically when people are making barbacoa in Chihuahua, are they doing it in smokers? No, underground. So you're kind of doing your adaptation. All right, what do we do next? We're making the salsa. We'll have toasted tomato, chile de arbol. Well, that's a bunch of chile de arbol. Do you like spicy? Come on. Yeah? Have these been toasted off? Yes. Garlic. Salt and water. That's not bad at all. We are making our homemade corn tortillas. I'm going to add some water. You don't want them too wet. You don't want them too dry. When it doesn't stick to your fingers, that's when... Then we're good to go, OK? Small balls. All right, so we cook them on the plancha, and you're making these to order each time? To order, yeah. Barbacoa is ready. Oh, yeah. Gorgeous. Break it up. Very simple, very delicious. Add a little bit of cilantro, white onion, limes. You want salsa? Come on. There you go. Yeah, I want salsa. It's a real chihuahua style, huh? Yeah. No lettuce and cheese. No, none of that. I love Mexico. The Mexican culture really celebrates life. The appreciation for food is so important. When I taste this, I'm not just eating a great taco, I'm tasting culture. I'm tasting the hard work of you and your husband. You're getting that cheek meat, it's got nice fat, it's very unctuous, perfectly made tortilla, just the right amount of the onion and the cilantro. That's real deal. Congrats. Thank you.