My mom was in town for the weekend, and for some reason she wanted to go to Texas Land & Cattle for dinner. I hadn't been there in a long time, so we saddled up and drove on over.
It was a little chilly outside, so I appreciated that the hostess seated us next to the crackling fireplace. The longhorn head mounted on the wall above us added to the ambiance. Their Sunday night dinner hour wasn't exceptionally busy, which made it all the more frustrating when our waitress took almost 10 minutes to bring out my soda. Sigh.
I wasn't really in the mood for steak (which is a weird thing for me to even say), so I thought this might be a good opportunity to see how their ribs matched up to the rest of Dallas. I ordered a half-rack of Baby Back Ribs and substituted steak fries for the usual shoestring fries. My entree also came with a wedge salad to start.
There isn't really much to say about the wedge salad except...it's a wedge salad. I don't know if the blue cheese dressing was made in house or not, but it tasted good regardless. I was also glad to find plenty of actual blue cheese crumbles in the dressing. But I didn't come here for salad, so I quickly cast it aside in favor of my ribs.
I don't usually expect too much from restaurant barbecue, but the ribs actually had much more of a charred crust than I was anticipating. The meat was nice and tender, and it was very easy to cut it clean off the bone. I could taste a slight hint of smokiness, which was also surprising. The barbecue sauce was pleasantly sweet, but could certainly benefit from some more spice and maybe a little heat too. The steak fries were decent, but I'm sure they started off frozen.
The baby back ribs at Texas Land & Cattle by no means qualify as five-star Texas barbecue, but they definitely rallied my taste buds much more than I initially expected. In fact, I'd go so far as to say they may have been some of the best ribs I've had in Dallas outside of an actual barbecue joint. They may be known for their steak more than anything else, but Texas Land & Cattle also offers up some surprisingly tasty ribs.
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Texas Land & Cattle
3130 Lemmon Ave.
Dallas, TX 75204
(214) 526-4664
http://www.texaslandandcattle.com
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