Finding The Best Barbecue In Los Angeles | Food Tours | Insider Food

L.A. barbecue today. We're starting here at Slab, and I'm really excited to do this one with you because I absolutely love the barbecue in L.A. I'm a barbecue head, right? Amazing barbecue all throughout the world, but L.A. specifically has some fantastic barbecue. Barbecue in the UK is very different. I think you guys would probably associate it more with grilling. Yeah. It's very much like something that you do probably in your back garden. I had a lot of barbecues when I was growing up in the summertime, but it was often like my dad just charring the hell out of some sausages. I think there's a fine line between grilling, which I think that is, and the craft of barbecue, which this is. A childhood of lack you had, but we're going to right the wrongs while you were raised today with four absolutely fantastic barbecue spots here in Los Angeles. Sounds good. We've got a lot of spots to hit, so I'm gonna try and pace myself. Yes, pace yourself. We're eating a lot today. So, like, if we wanted to get a baseline of barbecue menus, what are some things that we should order today? I definitely want to get the brisket and the ribs, mac and cheese, probably some slaw, and any other sides I want to throw in the mix. I mean, I've never really had brisket before. What? Proper brisket. I know, it's just not commonly eaten in the UK. Oh my god. I've never had some sides on the menu like cornbread, collard greens. I've heard a lot about. Are you ready to enlighten me on these things? Oh my god. I'm sure you'll be having all those at some point today. Wow. Oh my goodness. I think I'm about to, I think we're about to witness a religious experience. Hopefully. So, yeah. LA's barbecue scene has long been underground. A lot of the places we're going to today started as, like, Instagram-only pickup places. We had to DM them to get the food, and this place we're at today, Slab, started as Trudy's Underground Barbecue. Bert, the pit master, started it a while ago doing specifically Texas-style barbecue, which has an emphasis on beef brisket. They started cooking this meat today at 7 30 a.m. It's quarter to 12 now. Already, like, almost five hours. Yeah. Yeah. It's all these cuts of meat that are genuinely a little bit fattier, but when you cook them slow, all that fat melts, and then it's almost like this rich, buttery meat that's falling apart. It's gonna be insane. Thanks so much, buddy. I'm gonna turn this to meat towards you. All right. This is brisket. It is not similar to pastrami, but sort of has a little visual, visually similar in the way that's a big slab of meat that is slow-cooked for a long time. It's going to fall apart. Get ready. Here, house-made sausage, and of course the ribs. There's your collard greens. There's your mac and cheese. There's your slaw. The bread is kind of like an edible napkin. Sure. So you'll be using it to sop stuff up, sometimes to grab things, and yeah, I don't even know where to start. Where do you want to start? Man, I think if they're known for their brisket, maybe the brisket. Yeah, yeah. It's also gonna be one of my first experiences with brisket. Why don't you hit it first? Just kind of like cut a bit off the end. Yeah, yeah, go for it. And there is some sausage. I say cut, but like, I just kind of touch that with my fork, and it's like pulling apart. There you go. Didn't even need the knife there. That's incredible. I mean, yeah, just touching that with the fork, it just falls apart. Look how juicy that is. Cheers, my man. Amazing. It literally just falls apart on your fork. Right? Mm-hmm. You haven't had that before, right? That's probably the most tender mouthful of meat I've ever had. Very nice, very nice. All right. And of course, they make their own sausage here. We just moved out and do the meat lineup. So sausages, again, are very different in the UK. Mm-hmm. Oh, there's like cheese in that. No way. Cheesy sausage. Let me grab half of that for you. Thank you. Sausage in the UK, very different. I'd be expecting more like either a hot dog or like a kind of Cumberland on a grill, but... Get in there, buddy. This is very, very different. I mean, perfection, right? This is so fantastic. I mean, they're known for the ribs as well. Yeah. You want to like cut one or two off? I feel like... Actually, so I think with ribs, I don't necessarily want it to completely fall apart. I think I actually want a little bit of bite to a rib. Sure. And this one actually does seem to have a bit more of that. That hasn't just torn apart as easily as the rest has. I just think in general, you know, you're in for a good meal when you have kitchen roll on the table as well as a bunch of those like hand wipes. Kitchen rolls, paper towel. Wink. Man, I should get hired by Duolingo over here. All this translating. Ready? If I had to guess, it'd probably be the sweet barbecue sauce. No, not good. You've never had ribs this good? No, I don't think I have. That sauce is amazing. Yeah, and they have three sauces here on the table. You can have yourself two. I mean, I just had it without sauce and I would be happy to eat more of it without sauce because it was so nice. But yeah, I want to give these a try. You got a barbecue, spicy barbecue, and a Carolina Gold. Take your pick, buddy. What is Carolina? I think that's more of a mustardy sauce. Carolina Gold. Yeah. A teeny bit of that on there. Just squeezing to find out. Oh, yeah. Absolutely fabulous. Yeah, I think you're right, like a little bit of mustard heat to that. I want to try the spicy one. I would say, thank you, buddy. I would say, yeah, with, I mean, even the sauce is part of the art, right? Mm-hmm, because Of course, of course, the brisket comes without sauce. That's your choice. The ribs do come with the sauce. It's very easy because I think that like, because of course, barbecue sauce. You get it, you can get it like a McDonald's, right? I mean, it's everywhere, but like the, I guess the spectrum of what would be considered barbecue sauce is so vast. People take the barbecue sauce very seriously. So, you know, when it's on the table, it's also been very considered. Mm-hmm. Obviously, it's theirs and obviously, much like everything else, absolutely fantastic. Yeah, they're not just buying a sauce from the store. This is like, they've got their name on it. They've made these, curated these. That spicy one's delicious. It's like, oh, it's like fruity. Mm-hmm. Hey, man, smack of cheese ain't gonna eat itself. I'm also just eating more brisket because it's delicious. You gotta try everything. Okay, I'm just gonna use, do one of these. Carb on carb. It really is like a napkin, you're right. Oh my god, this mac and cheese. I forgot about how good this mac and cheese is. I think you're about to lose your mind. When have you had mac and cheese like that? Yeah, right? That's so buttery. Yeah, right? Yeah. That sauce almost just tastes like pure butter. How good is that? That's really good. It's rich, but yeah, creamy. I always find it's impressive when places are like batch cooking mac and cheese, but they manage to get the texture of the pasta like completely spot-on. Right. Because I feel like often if you are batch cooking it, it will stay out for too long. It'll go way too soggy and wet. Yeah, not here. This has still got some bite to it. It's perfect. There's really just nothing on this plate that has been bad. Yeah, right. I cannot get enough of this brisket. Isn't it great? It's a meat, perfect. Sausage, perfect. The ribs, which came with the sauce. Double perfect. The wood he uses for his barbecue is a white oak, which I know that in barbecue the wood that you use has an immense effect on the flavor of said barbecue. I mean, I've heard of other woods being used, like sometimes you see applewood smoked bacon on the menu somewhere. So yeah, I'm interested to see if other places that we hit today use different woods, if it imparts like a different type of smoky flavor onto it. But so far, white oak, delicious. I will say coming into this, my expectations were like sky-high because I love meat. I've seen a lot of American barbecue stuff online before and always wanted to try it. Honestly, it kind of lived up. This is delicious. Like, I don't think I've had meats with these flavors or textures before in my life. Yeah. And yeah, honestly, it's gonna be hard to go back to the UK and not have access to this. Yep, it sure is. So I want to call out one thing to you and to the viewers. We will not be stopping in any Korean barbecue places. That should be its own video. Yes. So this is going to be a non-Korean barbecue. But great news, we have so many more barbecue places to hit. Our jobs are so hard. I know. Ready to go? Let's go. So have you been enjoying spending most of your time being driven around? It's been an experience. Change of pace. Yeah. Spent more time in cars in the last few days than I have in like six months of living in London. It's interesting. I feel like you at least get to see a bunch of different parts of town, which is quite nice. Yeah. Even if it's just briefly through a car window. This is Blood So's Barbecue. All right, we're in the Fairfax, La Brea area of Los Angeles. And I want to take you here because this is award-winning barbecue. This place, they got a custom-built smoker. He's been smoking this brisket for like 14 hours. Come on now. That's a long time. Yes, it's a very long time. There are very few things I am willing to dedicate 14 hours of effort to. Yeah. So the fact he's doing that every day, that's pretty impressive. What is something you dedicate 14 hours to? A good video game. High praise. High praise to this man's livelihood. This is Kevin Blood So's Barbecue restaurant. He started in Compton in 2008. Now he's got two locations in LA and this guy, he knows his barbecue. He's so well known in the barbecue community. He is one of the judges on that Netflix barbecue show, which name I'm not gonna say, because they're not paying us to say it. I've actually seen that show. That was partly why I was so keen to try all the barbecue stuff today. The fact that we're eating Blood So's Barbecue makes me very excited. It's really funny for me to go from watching the Great British Bake Off to watching the American Barbecue Show. Why? It's just kind of like the two cultures encapsulated. I think in many ways, it's our personalities, Joe. I'm a Bake Off guy. You're the barbecue boy. Boy? And that's why we work. Yeah, that's why we work. Yeah, that's right. It's across the pond nature we have. We before have done videos about barbecue in LA and you know, the comments get a little spicy. They're like, LA doesn't have good barbecue. You got to go to blah-bitty-blah in this part of the country. Look, there's great barbecue everywhere and I think that like the LA barbecue scene is still like up and coming. It's still somewhat in its infancy. But there's an inventiveness to it that you're not seeing in a lot of the places and I think that it's fantastic. But to be fair, this is a Texas barbecue place. Texas barbecue with an LA spin. I guess there's other parts of the country that have been doing it for longer. Parts of the South have been doing this for a very very long time. Yes, but they have their own way of doing things. I guess the benefit of being like newer to the scene is that you can kind of cherry-pick like bits from each one. You'd be like, oh, they do that well in Carolina. They do that well in Texas. Take a bit of that, take a bit of that, create something kind of new from that. Yeah, absolutely. Once again, I know we're gonna be doing the brisket. We're gonna be doing the ribs. They also have something called hush puppies. You know what that is? I do not. No, I've never had those. We're gonna have them as a starter. They're really nice. Actually, I think I got it. I think we're ready. Hush puppies with a side of barbecue oil. Hush puppies are here? Hush puppies. It's like a cornmeal dough that's deep-fried and has a little sauce here. Okay. Grab one and dig in, buddy. Only Americans could take what is essentially a donut and turn it into a starter for your meal. It's a little more savory than a donut. A little barbecue aioli. So good. Yeah, really good. Like you said, it's more of like a cornmeal thing, right? Yeah. Get the flavor of it. I like it with the aioli, actually, because it's like a little bit chewy and bready. It needs the sauce. Oh, God. The only place, oddly enough, that these were common on the menu is at Wong John Silver's. Which I don't go to very often, but as a kid, I know I wanted to go. There's a kid for the hush puppies. Right. Yeah. Let's do it. Here we have your Vietnamese. All right, so we have your pork ribs, your rib tips, and your brisket. Gorgeous. Here we have your sides. This looks so good. Thank you so very much. My man, what do you think of this spread? How good does this look? This looks so good. I've got to say, the thing that's catching my eye the most is the ribs right now. Just the color of that bark on the outside is absurd. It looks so good. Yeah. A few visual differences. The brisket, I think the colors are slightly different on there. It's kind of less pinky, a little bit more cooked all the way through. Again, really nice crusty herb bark on the outside. I'm grabbing on. You going straight for a rib? I might have to join you. Here you go. Sorry I touched your food. This looks so good. It's falling off the bone. Again though, super tender, but it's holding its shape. I've bitten into that and it's left a distinct bite shape rather than just completely crumbling, which I really like. I think that texture for me with rib meat is what I want. Especially the rib tip. It's a lot more tender. There's more fattiness into it, so it's kind of falling apart. Also amazing. Can I draw your attention to the juice if you just give that a squeeze? Beautiful. A little cascade of deliciousness. Yeah. I mean, we're here for the brisket. We've got to try that. Yes. And I'm also going to try with a little bit of barbecue sauce. Yes, we've got two barbecues. That was mild and that one was hot, I think. Yes. I'm going to go with the mild first. Again, you don't need a knife, do you? No. I don't even know why they put the knife on the table. I guess for the sauce. Yes. I'm yet to try it. Buttery, rich, falls right apart. It's that slow cooking. You know, it's that 14 hours of care that makes this meat flavored so perfectly. The texture is amazing, right? Yes. I'm going to try a little bit. I mean, look at the mac and cheese over here. It's all like baked in. A baked top. The cheese on the top, man. Yes. That looks so appetizing. That's amazing. So good. You can really tell how great a barbecue place is by how much care they also put into the sides. Yes. Right? Because they could just focus on the meat all day and skip on the sides, but not this place. Incredible, right? That's some serious mac and cheese. Right? The cheese flavor actually comes through a lot more strongly here. Yep. Which I personally love. I feel like my body needs something green in me today because we're getting our fair share of protein. We're certainly getting our daily dose of brown. Oh, those are good. That ham. Even the greens got beaten up. The ham all up in there. You can't escape the meat in this place. I know you've never had cornbread before. Behold. Oh, yeah. Get some of that honey butter as well. It's like a sweet and savory combo. But it's like nice and crumbly, right? Okay. See how that texture pairs perfectly with something like a brisket or ribs? You okay? I am. I'm just trying to, like, in my mind, picture how that would go with the meat. It's very tasty. Yeah. Especially with that honey butter. Yeah. But to me, like, and I think maybe to the British palate, that is just kind of a dessert. Not in the USA. Because it is definitely quite sweet. Okay. But very nice. Yeah. Oh, wait. I'm going to try this hot sauce. I'm going to try a tiny bit. Two sauces on the table. The rub on this brisket is incredible. Next time you go in, just get definitely one of these, like, darker pieces that has, like, the rub in there. The flavor in there is out of control. Yeah. You can see why over, like, not even a decade, this has been, like, Bloodsucker has become, like, one of the major platers of barbecue. Right? I mean, this is incredible. I really can. Yeah. I mean, it's a popular spot. Yeah. So they've got to kind of pump this out in quite big quantities. But there's been no quality sacrifice. Right? Yeah. Which is really impressive. I wish I could eat like this every day, but, you know. I think we would both go to an early and meaty grave. Yeah. I'd like to think we could stay here and eat all this if we really just wanted to end the day here. Yeah. But we have a few more barbecue places I want to take you to. So, unfortunately, I've got to wrap it up and go. Yeah. This is staring me down. Might have to get this to go. But, hey. Definitely. Next spot? Let's go. I know you're full, but I figured we could have at least two more full barbecue meals before you head out. That's a pretty ridiculous idea. I know. Excuse us. We're chilling on the outdoor patio of Moo's Craft here in Lincoln Heights. This is a fantastic, fantastic barbecue place. Another underground barbecue pop-up here in L.A. that now has its own brick-and-mortar place. I believe they've been here for about four years. What I like about this place, it does have the Texas barbecue style, but they add their own California slash Mexican twist. Right? Okay. Right? Now that I tell you those things, you're like, yes. That will work, right? My interest has peaked. Yeah. I'm starting to almost hit the meat wall. Yeah. But that's kind of hooked me up a little bit. Nice. I'm excited to see what they come up with. Food and wine did a best barbecue in every state list in 2020, and Moo's was California's best. Okay. Right? It's got some pedigree. Let me tell you, buddy. It's also Michelin Bib Gourmand. They got one of those. So I had to take it here, right? Of course. This place is fantastic. Fantastic. So what are we going to be ordering? I guess a similar spread to the last place. You know we're getting the brisket. You know we're getting the ribs. They got house specialty sausages. Want to try? And I can choose. Swap. You know, the tasty stuff. The usual. Yeah. Usual sausage. I'm so stoked for you to try this place. This is going to be really great. Yes. Oh, man. Oh, yeah. So I kind of bought it. What you ordered. Sure, that's fine. Okay. There we go. Joe, I thought you were just going to order us like some ribs. I feel like I wanted you to try a little bit of everything. Okay. So we went ahead and got obviously the ribs, the brisket, sausages. Also did a Frito pie down there. We got some slaw. We got mac and cheese. Threw in a burger there. A full house of bread here. And these glazed pork belly. And we got some pulled pork over here. Oh, man. I mean, what did I tell you? This place. They've hooked us up, I'll be honest. This looks ridiculous. I don't even know where to start. Do you want to start with the brisket here? Man, that sounds good. Yeah, let's do it. I don't know how I'm going to attack it. Oh, yeah. Look at the color on that. That's beautiful. Again, just like no knife needed. That just fell apart. Even though the brisket we had today. What did I tell you? Bro. I know. We got to get this to go. This is so good. I barely had to chew. Yep. That just like dissolved. Look at how juicy these are. All right, I'm ribbing it. These ribs are huge as well. Man. Oh. That's crazy. The bark and the sort of seasoning on the outside is so evenly distributed. It's great, right? Mm-hmm. And I think the consistency of the rib, it's tender enough that you can just barely bite into it, but it's firm enough to where it stays on the bone. Mm-hmm. Right? Yeah. So we got a few different sausages here. This one I wanted to highlight, this beautiful green one. It is a Oaxacan queso poblano sausage. Right. Right? Talking about the Mexican influence that they've put on the barbecue here. Put that in your mouth now. That's right there. I need a piece of this. Trust me. I love Oaxaca as a cheese. But the poblano, oh my God. Oh my God. A little bit of heat to that maybe? Mm-hmm. With these sausages, are these also kind of like low and slow cooked, like smoked? I mean, I would think almost certainly, yeah. I mean, I don't know exactly how to cook sauce, but I think everything here is cooked. Right? I'm sorry, I can't think straight. What did you just ask me? How good is this? I know we're here to compare the main event things, but I do want to try some of these. This pork belly over here looks crazy. I think they said they put some Korean sauce on this. Yeah. A glaze. The sesame and the scallions. It mentions it has a Korean flavor, a Korean glaze to it. So we're getting Korean flavors. We're getting Mexican flavors. And of course, we're getting the Texas barbecue. Korea showed up. I didn't know that was coming. How great is that? You know? And obviously, they're doing their own thing. It's this great blend of like paying tribute to great barbecue, but also they feel free to experiment, I guess. Yeah. And how great is this? So good. I think when you do the basics that well, you kind of earn enough clout to be able to try stuff out. And the stuff they're trying out is fantastic. It's fantastic. Like that poblano sausage. Man. Absolutely incredible. That's sensational. Yeah. I mean, hey. I mean, they've got a mac and cheese over here, so. A little mac and cheese. I mean, we've got it. A little crispy bread crumbs. I'm going to put it down over here. I'm going to try it over here. I've got the crispy bread crumbs. This is kind of ridiculous. It's so hard to exercise restraint. Perfect with the crunch. You know, we've been talking about texture on mac and cheese all day. It's the first one that's brought the crunch. Right? It's really good. Yeah? It's so crispy. Yeah. Cheesy as well. I've got to say, I don't want to forget about the sauces here. We've reached a level where my stomach is saying no, but my taste buds are saying yes. The sauce. Oh my god, the sauce. You need to try the sauce. It's also like juicy. You barely even need the sauce. Yeah. I want to make it real clear. Sometimes standard barbecue uses the sauce to hide a not so great cut of meat or whatever they make. Every place I've been here today, including Moo's, clearly the meat is incredible, but the sauce elevates it to just next level. You're going to flip on that sauce. I'm predicting flippage. Oh, it's mustardy. Oh yeah. That's what's good too. Oh man. I want to catch you in the back of the throat a bit. I mean, what can be said about this meal that has not already been said by Michelin Bib Gourmands, boys. Any final thoughts on Moo's before we head out? I mean, I think we've already kind of said it. Pretty much everything on this plate has been perfected, I think. It's clear the amount of... Sorry, it's so good. I would happily eat more of this, but I think we need to save some for the crew. I know. And save some for our cholesterol sake. All right. Ready? I am. Let's go. Let's do it. I've eaten so much meat, I'm delirious. But I've got my fourth wind, so let's go. All right, man. Last place we're hitting today, this is Gus's. Sure. This is maybe the oldest barbecue restaurant in Los Angeles. Been running since 1946. Okay. That's almost 80 years? That's very long. That's quite a while. I feel like whenever history is mentioned in the U.S. and the U.K., I have to remember that America isn't that old. So, for you guys, this is pretty historic. Yeah, that is pretty old. For us, that's just like, eh, fine. All right. This has been on every best barbecue in L.A. list that I've found. Like, consistently on every single list. Sometimes number one. So I have a feeling that this barbecue is going to be ridiculous. A lot of the places we've gone to are mostly Texas barbecue-based, but here they do barbecue that's influenced from, like, Memphis to the Carolinas. So it's going to be a little bit different than what we've had so far today. Sure. But again, they're kind of like picking different barbecues from around the country and making it their own. They're kind of California-style. Yeah. All the meats here are hand-trimmed, marinated overnight. Come on. Overnight, get those juices in there. I think the more barbecue that we eat, the more I'm learning that, like, time really is the currency here. The meat here is smoked for almost 14 hours. This is four. Imagine this plus 10 more for this many. That many hours. Look at that. That's a lot. We've talked a little bit about wood today. They're doing the pecan wood here. Okay. Right? Love the nuts. Now we're trying the wood. We've had a lot of, like, white oak smoked stuff today, which we've been reliably informed is like a Texas thing. So I guess maybe, yeah, looking a little bit further afield. I'm interested to see if we can taste any difference in the kind of, like, smoky flavors that we're getting. Yeah. I'm kind of hitting a meat wall. Yeah. As it were. But I think we should order the classics again. So, like, the ribs. Yep. The brisket. Yeah. Anything else here? The cast-iron cornbread, if we can. And we're definitely getting the chicken, which they're known for here, according to the guy who took our order. I was very specific, and I just said just a very small plate. I don't want a lot of food. Hey. Yes. Okay. Bring it in. Yes. Oh, yeah. Thank you. Thank you, sir. What do we got here? I know. We got cornbread here for you. Uh-huh. Table-side cornbread. Love this. Get a little show, huh? Thank you. Doing a fantastic job. Thank you. Oh, finally, some more food. Bring it on in. Let's go. Awesome. Thank you so very much. Enjoy. Thank you. Yeah. Oh, you know what? I think we're going to need a box. Yeah, for me. You're carrying me out of here, man. All right. So, we got the brisket. We got the mashed potatoes. Collard greens. Creamed corn. One gigantic rib. Slaw. Some sort of beans. Fried chicken's supposed to be ridiculous. I mean, it's not so bad. What do you think? Not so bad. All right. Yeah. This is a lot of food. Yeah. I'm going to do my best to... We'll sample a bit of everything. Persevere. It's a sample. It's a sampling. So, I think we start with the brisket. This brisket right here. As one of our baselines. Ooh. Now, notice that they sauced the brisket for us. We haven't had a sauced brisket yet, have we? We have not, no. It's always come kind of as it is. You got it? There you go. Cheers, man. All right. Really tender. Fantastic flavor. And, you know, whatever sauce they put on there, it's really great. Chicken sauce is. We have options. Yeah. Now, we talked before about other styles of barbecue. Memphis. Kansas City. Missouri. Carolina. Both north and south. There we go. Just the whole thing. That brisket is fantastic. It's very good. That's really good. I can tell that, yeah. The bark on that. Delicious. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Seasoning blend. Whatever they're putting in there is doing it for me. Yeah. I'm eyeing these ribs. These ribs look legit. Saucy ribs. We're going back to the kind of like slab style. They come pre-sauced. Yeah. Cut myself off. A couple of these. You start down there. I'll start down here. We'll meet in the middle. Okay. Lady and the Tramp. This thing. I barely had to actually cut that. That just kind of like. Yeah, I know. It just came away. Look at the falling apart, dude. This is so good. The color on that, man. It's like pink like all the way through. These might be perfect ribs. These ribs are perfect. How good are these? Mm-hmm. Mm. Falling apart. It's worse than the ribs. Wow. With that thick layer of seasoning, you get like almost like a kind of crispy outer layer, and then everything on the inside is just like butter smooth. Butter is a great way to put it. Yeah. As I'm looking at everything that's done, it's not a surprise this place has been here for 80 years because everything here is just absolutely phenomenal. You can tell that these are the ribs they've been making the whole time. They're so good. I mean, first time fried chicken has showed up. They said that's one of their most popular things. Want to try? Want to try a little bite? We'll give it a go. Jeez, you went straight through that. Oh, wow. Here. A little bit of the gravy. Let me get a bit of that. This has got like the most shattering crust on it. I'll try it with your. We've got to do a fried chicken episode and come back here. This is so good. He wasn't kidding, man. This fried chicken is incredible. Right? That batter is so crispy. Yeah. Shatteringly crisp. Oh, man, I love this. I love this so much. I think we need to attempt to eat some of this quite frankly absurd beef rib. How does one eat a rib like that? Switch to plates. I don't want you to fall. Just look at the size of that, man. I don't think I can do it. I'm sorry, man. I'm sorry I have to tap out. I'm starting to feel it. I'm starting to feel the day. Can you just like get a little bite off of that, do you think? I'm going to carve myself up a little piece. When it compares to the regular ribs, the regular ribs are fantastic. But those are pork and this is beef, right? Yes, correct. That's really good. Weirdly, like, taste-wise, it's actually really close to a pork rib. Yes. I think it goes to show that a lot of what you're tasting with this is the smoke, the seasoning, and the sauce. Yeah. Because I think it's pretty similar on that and these. So you actually end up with, like, pretty similar flavor. I want to make sure that we are very clear that that big boy rib is a special. You do it on the weekends. Yeah, the price is nice. Fifty bucks for that rib that you could easily feed your whole family with. Oh, the cornbread. How's the cornbread? Cornbread's good. I like it. Yeah. Still not convinced that is something that should be served with mains. Still to a British palate, too sweet dessert, but very tasty. As much as my body is telling me to stop eating, there's still a couple of things I want to try. So are these, like, your version of baked beans? Pretty much. Okay. Yes. What can I expect? I think it's going to be more barbecue-flavored than it is, like, sweet tomato-flavored. Sure. Get in there. Because in the UK, yeah, like a Heinz baked bean, for example. See, look at that. I think I see some meat in there, too, right? Maybe, actually. Yeah. Some kind of, like, ground meat going on. Go in there. I feel like even with the collard greens, the beans, barbecue places are finding a way to get meat into, like, every aspect of your dish. Yeah, I mean, like, if you don't eat meat, don't come here. How's it compare to your baked beans? Yeah, very different. Yeah, definitely not having those in the morning on toast. No. If that's what Americans think beans are, I'm not surprised that you think beans on toast is weird. Yeah. I mean, they're pretty good. It's quite like a sweet barbecue sauce. Slightly maybe, like, soupier than beans are in the UK as well. Okay. But nice. I also like the kind of variety of beans in there. There's, like, some black beans, some kidney beans. Yeah. I think of all the places I've been to today, this place is doing classics the best. Really? Yeah. This to me is, like, classic American barbecuing. They're really hitting it. All the other places I've been to, also great for their own reasons, but they also kind of, like, honed in on a few things that are just killing it. But, I mean, well, that was great stuff, man. This is so fantastic. I'm impressed with the size of this restaurant. It's busy in here. It's popping off. Yeah. And it's only, uh, it's five. Yeah. Just because they are churning this out in quantity, they've definitely not sacrificed some quality. That's okay. That bears repeating. I mean, this place is packed. Mm-hmm. They're firing at all cylinders. Yeah. This quality is top-notch. 100%. Very impressive. Yeah. Okay. So, we have to have a conversation now. Yes, we do. About our favorite places. Yes. You're going to four fantastic barbecue places today? We did. Every place has been amazing. Every place, A+. Starting up a slab, I mean, that brisket, incredible, amazing sides. Absolutely loved everything they put on the plate. Great, great place to start, right? After that, when the blood soaks, I mean, come on. The ribs were great. The ribs were so fantastic. Excellent texture, good amount of bite to them. The color and the flavor that they got on there was absurd. Yeah. Really, really good. Yeah. Blood soaks the bark on that brisket. Good Lord. Fantastic, right? It was so good. Then we went to Moo's. Kind of doing a twist on their traditions. Yeah. I think Moo's, for me, was just kind of across the board good. Yeah. Obviously, the ribs and the brisket smashed it. Probably both my favorite that we've had today, but also that sausage, the chili cheese sausage, phenomenal. Loved to see that they were doing Mexican and California-inspired flavors, which I don't think a lot of other people are. Starting at that caliber, we had the sausage. It was a religious experience. Everything they put on the tray was absolutely incredible, right? Real great. Really loved it. And now we're here at Gus's. Institution. This is the classic. We've been eating all day, and I'm just like, I want to keep going. And this brisket, I think it's a home run. The bark is fantastic. Those ribs, oh my God. And the fried chicken. It's the only fried chicken we've had today. And I mean this. If we did a fried chicken episode, we're absolutely coming here. Oh my God. So every place here, A plus. Fantastic. Yep. I'm going to say, and this is for me, it could have been Gus's. Yep. This is the number two. Okay. This is number two for me. I absolutely love this place. But my number one, I got to give it to Moo's, because not only is everything there incredible, but that little bit of inventiveness, that little bit of like the Mexican California flavors that they added to that, I just think that elevated them to the highest. So Moo's is number one, but Gus's is a close second for me personally. What do you think? I will say that all four of these places have been amazing. I would happily recommend any of these to anyone visiting L.A. So if one of them is in your neighborhood when you were here, go there. You will not be disappointed. However, coming in, I actually think Slab was my number two, but I think Moo's is my number one. Nice. I think they have my favorite brisket of the day. The texture on that was unbelievable. The bark, the smoke, sensational. The ribs were perfect consistency, perfect texture for me. A little bit of chew, kind of falling off the bone, but not quite. And again, delicious flavors. But also, man, just all the extras. The way they're putting their own spin on classics, that Puebla sausage, sensational. Oh, my God. Going to be thinking about that one for a while. But like I say, these have all been great, and I really do feel like I've learned an awful lot about American barbecue today. American barbecue, how do we do? What do you think? You guys kind of killing it. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Kind of killing it. So what do you say to people who say L.A. doesn't have good barbecue? I would tell them to come here and taste it. Have they had these four places? Because if not, taste it. Don't knock it until you've tried it. I'm going to be sad when I go home and do not have easy access to this kind of brisket. Nope. These kind of ribs. Yeah, I might have to start my own barbecue spot. I mean. Someone's got to do it. Right, someone's got to do it, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you want to get in the picture with us? Yeah, I would love to. He would be like so jazzed. There you go. Awesome. What are you guys going to do? We just got done with Gus's. We're doing a barbecue episode, so we went to Gus's. Yeah, yeah. That's awesome.