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Heh, I like things over rice.  I think one can get really really good BBQ in most states.  I had pretty decent real pulled pork in Scotland.

I mean, sure you can.  You can get really good Italian in Texas, too.

It's just the odds of a BBQ place outside of key BBQ-producing areas being good, are pretty low.  I had good BBQ in exactly one restaurant in California. So of course it's possible.  But I also had very bad BBQ in numerous restaurants in California.  So the frequency of occurrences of "good BBQ" in "bad BBQ states" is extremely low.  Odds are that any BBQ restaurant you try, outside of key BBQ producing areas, isn't going to be very good.  Shoot even here in Austin I'd say it's about 50-50 that you're going to get average BBQ if you don't know the right places to go.

Why did I keep eating bad BBQ in California, you might ask?  It's because my local colleagues kept on trying to impress me.  I was polite to them but finally just had to beg them to stop.

Fair enough.  It probably should reflect percentages rather than some absolute.  So, in Maine, 1% of BBQ places are "decent", meaning average for Texas.  Maybe it's 0.1%.

In Atlanta, it's probably about 25% in my experience that a place is "good" in my book, and probably 73% that it's "decent" or better.  We tried "Heirloom BBQ" recently which consistently gets ranked number uno here, but it was for me in the good category.

Oh yeah, for sure.  Totally agree on that.

Like I said, you can find good Italian in Austin.  But the percentage of good Italian restaurants in Austin, is much much lower than the percentage of good Italian restaurants in NY or Chicago.

Sometimes if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. 

Yeah, I do a dry rub and then finish with sauce. Family prefers 'em saucy. 

my brother better have something on the smoker wednesday

I've got almost 3 weeks off starting on Thursday, I'll probably do a brisket sometime Friday/Saturday before the Longhorns football game Saturday afternoon.  And if I'm doing a brisket then I might as well do some ribs, some sausage, and maybe a pork butt.  We're going camping after Christmas so having extra food won't be an issue...

There doesn't seem to be a high % of BBQ restaurants in Louisiana.  The ones there are, are usually pretty good, I think. 

But then, maybe I just know the ones everybody knows is good and so they talk about them more often and I don't know about other ones which aren't very good. 

Or maybe I just have a low threshold of acceptability for BBQ.  Dunno.  I've definitely had bad BBQ.

But not in Texas, that I recall.  To my point, most everywhere I went in Texas was on the advice of other people, so there might be other joints that aren't good I never tried.  

My wife told me a neighborhood restaurant in Paris doesn't last if it's not really good (out of the tourist district).  I've yet to have anything but very very good food in Paris away from tourists.  I recall being on a tour in Sorrento that the bus dropped us off next to a restaurant and told us that was the place to go.  We took a walk and found a very very good place away from the crowds.  I had spaghetti, I wanted something "simple" so I could taste the flavors, she had a small pizza.  Do we get anything that good in the States?  It's pretty rare I think, but can happen.  Maybe I can tell the diff.

The Indian places near us have Indians working in the kitchen and service staff.  The Japanese noodle place near us has Mexicans in the kitchen, they do a nice job.  I tip them special in December aside from the bill.  The Korean place has Koreans.  The Italian place I like a lot near us has Mexicans in the kitchen.  

Pasta da Pulcinella

The lady who owns it is Asian.  

The Mexican places all have .... Mexicans.