Two years ago, the culinary team was on a Food Tour of Dallas. We hit some of the famous barbecue joints like Pecan Lodge, The Slow Bone, and Bone Daddy’s. The trip also included some of the great Tex-Mex places like Gabriela’s and Tacolicious. But, if you know Mendo, you know how crazy we are about smoked meat, especially…Brisket! Any Mendo Fan has followed our pursuit of making REAL PASTRAMI, not the manufactured, fake stuff that some of our favorite Jewish Delis pass off as authentic- but, the real, naturally smoked original Romanian Jewish style pastrami.
Our obsession with smoking brisket made us build one of the bigger smokehouses in Los Angeles. It also forces us to order smoked brisket- wherever we are- trust me wherever we are! Which leads us to our discovery of Flat Top Brisket.
Just before, catching our plane home to Los Angeles, we decided that we should hit up one more place, Maple & Motor. We got there in the middle of the lunch rush and we all wanted to just eat a burger- we were over BBQ! But, a couple of guys in front of us all ordered the Flat Top Brisket sandwich…so, as a nosy Angeleno foodie- I politely asked the Dallas gentleman what that was? He gregariously let me know that I had to order one- it was smoked brisket that gets caramelized on the flat top grill making the meat crispy and the smoked fatty edge even crispier! We ordered it, ate it, loved it and now are recreating the joyous and genius idea that we discovered from Maple & Motor – enjoy!