THE STAMPEDE TO BUFFALO'S BBQ

I had been wanting to try Buffalo's BBQ since I started this blog but it's only open during the week for 7 hours, or until the meat is gone, and is about a two hour drive from where I live.

While I make several trips a year to the Tulsa area. They usually fall on a weekend and Donny Teel, the owner of Buffalo's BBQ, is usually somewhere competing in a BBQ competition or teaching aspiring BBQ pitmasters how to compete.

I had also been wanting to see two of my favorite bands play live for a few years so when it was announced that Lucero and Drive-By Truckers would be sharing the stage at Cain's Ballroom on a Wednesday evening. Well I put two and one together and decided to cross all three off my bucket list.

The easiest way to find Buffalo's BBQ in the small town of Sperry Oklahoma is to either roll down your window and follow your nose to the smell of smoky goodness or look for the Daylight Donuts and you'll find the trailer parked there.

If you see these two gentlemen standing there waiting for their food. Be ready to roll them for it because they had ordered the last of the Oklahoma Tenderloin (bologna) so I had to feel the sting of the words at the bottom of Buffalo's sign.

You may have seen me use the term Oklahoma Tenderloin on my Facebook Page, or even on this blog. I have seen other food writers credit Donny Teel as the coiner of that name for smoked bologna because while it's not totally unique to Oklahoma it does seem to be very popular with Oklahoma Q-eaters.

Since those two gentlemen in the picture abover had stolen all of the Oklahoma Tenderloin from me on purpose. I had to make the quick decision to go with chopped beef, pork, and spareribs as the protiens on my 3 meat combo.

It also comes with two sides and white bread. I chose potato salad and cole slaw since I was going to be in close proximity with a lot of other Lucero and Drive-By Truckers fans in a few hours and didn't want to risk eating the beans.

The chopped beef is finely chopped and I think just lightly sauced. It was hard to tell whether it was the sauce that had dripped from the ribs or not. I'm not usually a fan of chopped, folded, spindled, & mutilated meat but this was really good and I think would have still had a good texture had it been less finely chopped.

I did have texture issues with some of the pork but I was also there at a non-peak time of the day and I usually try to hit Q-raunts at peak hours. If I can't hit them at a peak hour I'm a lot more forgiving when it comes to texture issues because as a BBQ cook myself. I understand the difficulty in holding BBQ. Add to that fact that this pork tasted great and I can totally overlook the texture issue.

For those of you that have never had the opportunity to taste competition BBQ. These ribs, while not presented like competition Q, are probably the closest you will have the opportunity to taste short of becoming a certified judge.

The texture on these ribs was perfect and the flavor was slightly sweet with a very slight hint of heat. I could have easily taken down a whole slab of them without stopping to take a breath between bites.

Something else to note about this picture of the ribs. If you look back at the picture of the pork and beef. It is all hidden under those ribs. So you definitely get your moneys worth for a 3 meat combo.

My Q-wife went with a sliced brisket sandwich and you can see how massive of a sandwich it is.

I ate part of it and like the pork I did find some texture issues with the brisket, and you can see in the picture where it had shredded a little, but like the pork, I'm sure it had been held for a little while and I fault that more to the time of day I was there and just like the pork the flavor was great.

The potato salad and cole slaw I had both appeared to be house made. I loved the potato salad. The cole slaw was good but a little creamier than I prefer personally.

Plenty of others have written about how good Buffalo's BBQ is before me and I can confirm that what they've said is correct and I'll gladly give out my second 3 Hour Award to Buffalo's BBQ. The first one was given to another Tulsa area competitor Burn Co BBQ.