Ronnie Killen is competing in the “Come and Take It!” BBQ competition this weekend in Gonzales. In July, he cooked in the Moulton Jamboree Cook-off. His team is doing pretty good–they have taken a couple of overall medals. He bought a new pit from Klose which he is still breaking in.
No Ronnie Killen, the owner of Killen’s Steakhouse in Pearland, isn’t chucking it all and going on the cook-off circuit. Killen is improving his equipment and sharpening his Q skills for an upcoming restaurant venture he is calling Killen’s BBB (Barbecue, Burgers & Beer). The idea is to move the steakhouse to a new location in Pearland and return the current restaurant to its original purpose–it was a barbecue joint when he first took it over.
Killen invited me and a couple other of the usual suspects to his restaurant to sample the barbecue the other night. Here’s Eater Houston’s post and another one from culturemap. The consensus at my end of the table was that the baby back ribs were great and the brisket was excellent, but the housemade sausage stole the show. Here’s what J.C. Reid had to say about the links at 29.95.com:
But the stars of the show were the pork-and-beef links made in-house by Killen and staff. High-quality (no filler) pork and beef is ground to a perfect consistency (not too coarse, not too fine), embellished with garlic and other herbs and spices, stuffed into a snappy pork casing and smoked on the pit. These are what barbecue links should be: properly textured with a balanced fat content, well-seasoned and smoked, and a casing with good snap but easy to bite through.
Ronnie Killen is looking to go head to head with the Central Texas guys. And if he can turn out competition quality Q everyday, his new joint could be one of the state’s best. But the devil is in the details, if you know what I mean.
