Smokin’ Hot: 17 Top Barbecue Joints in Rhode Island

TACO Time

Chef Jake Rojas brings Mexican-style barbecue, barbacoa, to Tallulah’s Taqueria.

Rhode Island Monthly: So you have left the tweezer food days at Tallulah on Thames behind to focus on Tallulah’s Taqueria?

Jake Rojas: I never thought I’d be doing that, but I feel so fortunate to have fallen into it. For so long, I had this notion that food had to be high-end in order for it to be great or viable, but I was always wanting tacos or something simple, and now we are filling that void.

People don’t always think of Mexican food as barbecue, but that’s what barbacoa is — a different type of barbecue. How did you get into it?
I grew up in El Paso, which is the far west tip of Texas. It borders Mexico and New Mexico, and southwest Texas food is based around barbacoa-style cooking using agave leaves and doing the traditional hole in the ground barbacoa-style. You take a whole beef head and cook it for twenty-four hours for special occasions like birthday parties.

Photography by Angel Tucker.

Tell us about your background cooking Texas-style brisket. How did you get into it?
When I was growing up, there was always a smoker around. My father had a smoker on wheels, and we used to do the state and county fairs. It was called Smoking J’s Barbecue. My mom’s side of the family is Polish, and my dad is Mexican. We would do these fairs for fun and some extra cash. When I was a kid, I tended the fire with my dad at night and I got this thing for barbecue at a young age. It doesn’t matter where you live in Texas, there’s always some type of barbecue around.

How do you define barbecue?
In Texas, you have so many variations of barbecue. Barbecue is very controversial, because everyone has their own ideology of what it is from where they are from. I think barbecue is dry-rubbed brisket with a vinegar-based sauce. Course ground black pepper and kosher salt is the typical starting base, and whether it’s paprika, coriander or cumin that’s added to the spice blend, it’s usually pretty simple.

How do you bring your Mexican culture into barbecue?
We use a smoker to cook our barbacoa and that is pretty untraditional for most Mexican food restaurants. When I found a barbecue place for lease, and there was a smoker
already here, the light went off that this is perfect. The carnitas and barbacoa are all cooked in the smoker. I have always been adamant about the meat setting us apart from other taco places. That’s why we don’t do ground beef, that’s why we do beef tongue, staying true to the Texas roots of cooking.

What cut is barbacoa and how long do you cook it for?
We use beef chuck, and it is about a nine- to eleven-hour cook, slow and low at 250 degrees in the smoker with oak. We put it in roasting pans overnight with Mexican oregano and guajillo chilis and we cover them and it braises right in the smoker.

If someone doesn’t have a high-end smoker, what do you recommend?
You can use an offset Weber smoker. Barbecue is all about the time. To smoke a good piece of meat, you have to invest half your day to it, honestly. There are these new grills out — I just bought one — it’s called a Traeger. It’s an electric pellet-fed smoker. You dump the pellets in it, you put your meat in it, you turn it on and set your temperature and it does everything for you.

How many grills/smokers do you own?
I probably have five different apparatuses that I use at home. I have a gas grill when I just need to grill a couple burgers really quickly. I have an offset smoker, a Traeger, a Big Green Egg and I have a La Caja China. It’s a big box and you put the whole animal or meat inside the box and you build the fire on top of it. We are planning different events throughout the summer at Tallulah’s to use our smokers and outdoor dining area. Tallulah’s Taqueria, 146 Ives St., Providence, 272-8226; The Shack at Dutch Harbor, 252 Narragansett Ave., Jamestown, tallulahstaqueria.com –J.C.

BBQ Glossary

Pellicle
A thin skin, cuticle, membrane or film that forms on the exterior of meat that’s crucial to good brisket.

Smoke Ring
This pink to red colored ring on the outermost layer of smoked meat is the holy grail of barbecue, as it is only achieved by cooking low and slow.

Bark
Brown crunchy crust that forms on the surface of barbecue meats dusted with a spice rub.

Burnt Ends
The edges of beef brisket that are trimmed off and sometimes discarded but are often the most tasty bits of blackened fat-marbled meat.

Offset Smoker
Smokes food in a long horizontal chamber attached to a firebox on one side that burns the wood. The smoker usually features levels of shelving for smoking multiple briskets, pork shoulders and racks of ribs.

North Carolina-Style
Eastern North Carolina barbecue specializes in smoking whole hogs, served chopped with a vinegar-based sauce, while western North Carolina focuses on pork shoulder with a tomato-based sauce.

South Carolina-Style
Whole hog barbecue served with a mustard- and tomato-based sauce, nicknamed Carolina Gold.

Texas-Style
Beef brisket is Texas barbecue’s spirit animal, dry-rubbed and smoked with post oak until a blackened bark forms on the outside. Pork ribs and spicy ground beef sausage round out the mix. In Southern Texas, smokers are loaded with mesquite wood, which is more common in the area.

Kansas City-Style
This is the familiar sticky sweet barbecue style that includes a molasses- and tomato-based slather
on ribs. Wood is most often hickory, and the area
is also famous for burnt ends.

Memphis-Style
Memphis style is all about the pork, whether it’s the pulled variety or wet or dry ribs. Wet is slathered with sauce before smoking while dry is rubbed with salt, pepper and spices and served without sauce.

Alabama-Style
Chopped pork or chicken sandwiches are the hallmark of this style, but what really sets it apart is the white barbecue sauce made from mayonnaise, vinegar, lemon juice, black pepper and sometimes horseradish.