November 2019 | SMITHSONIAN.COM 63and their expansion of the classic barbecue menu, is
entirely in keeping with the cuisine’s recent trajecto-
ry. In some instances—as with the Mexican-inspired
rise of smoked meat tacos—the outside infl uences
have already grown so commonplace as to be nearly
invisible.ON OUR TOUR OF ALIEF, we stopped in a Vietnam-
ese restaurant that had once been a high school
hangout for the Blood Bros. Hoang ordered in Viet-
namese, and the table soon fi lled with steaming
dishes. One was banh bot chien, a plate-sized omelet
topped with crispy rice cakes and fried scallions and
a thin, pungent soy sauce.“We should do a special like this,” said Terry.
“We could smoke the egg. Make it like a quiche,”
said Hoang.
“Or like a pizza,” added Robin.
“Something to experiment with,” said Hoang, al-
most to himself. “Always an experiment... ”
Still, it’s notable that on Blood Bros’ opening day
last December, its menu was all but indistinguish-
able from that of any other modern Texas barbecue
joint. The Bros say that was a deliberate decision.
“We didn’t want to get niched,” Hoang explains. “We
don’t want it to be ‘Oh, those are the Asian guys.’ We
wanted to do the Trinity so well that nobody could
say anything about it.”
It’s a debate among the three: Just how “Asian”
do they want their barbecue to be? The Bros’ break-
throughs have been a source of great pride in the
Vietnamese and Chinese communities. They have
been asked to cater an annual gathering for the
Asian Pacifi c American Advocates, an infl uential
national organization. Customers routinely ask for
selfi es and autographs.
On a practical level, too, one thing about the
barbecue boom is that it has produced an awful lot
of barbecue—three other restaurants within two
blocks of Blood Bros, just for starters. Pit masters
of every ethnicity and background must always be
on the lookout for variations that will make them
stand out in a crowded fi eld.
Still, Robin says, “We don’t want to be a novelty.”
They have added their distinctively Asian items
slowly. A sensational Vietnamese banh mi —stuff ed
with pickled vegetables, chicken liver pâté and
Hoang’s smoked turkey breast. That loamy, tingling
Thai green curry boudin, which is a profound trib-
ute to both Southeast Asia and Cajun Country. A
frequent special of fried rice made with leftover nug-
gets of smoky brisket. “It’s not really Chinese. It’s not
Vietnamese. It’s just fried rice,” says Robin.
Customers often approach the Blood Bros, boast-
ing that they can detect lemongrass or Sichuan pep-
percorn or Chinese fi ve-spice powder in Hoang’s
barbecue rub. (It consists simply of salt, pepper and
cayenne.) Or they’ll swear up and down that there
is sriracha in the house barbecue sauce. (There
isn’t.) “I’m like, ‘I don’t know what’s going on with
your palate, but there’s none of that in there,’” says
Robin. “What you’re tasting is your preconceived
notions.”
And what could be more American, after all, than
all of these negotiations—between what makes you
the same and what sets you apart, between what
your community expects and what your heart de-
sires, between the self of your birth and the self of
the world you grew up in. Barbecue, to say it again, is
great American food. It is also great immigrant food.
But of course, that is exactly the same thing.A lucky cat
statuette next to
the cash register
at Blood Bros
BBQ. The cat,
a familiar sight
at Asian-owned
businesses, is
meant to wel-
come customers.