Column: Meat Moot Smoking crosses Turkish with Texas for an intriguing take on barbecue

When chatting with food historian Adrian Miller about the Texas-style barbecue boom in suburban Chicago, he casually remarked that the style wasn’t just popular around the United States, but overseas as well.

“Texas barbecue is even big in the Middle East,” Miller said. “It’s just the ‘it’ barbecue right now.”

I remembered that exchange while visiting Meat Moot Smoking, a Turkish chain that recently opened its first domestic location in suburban Burbank. Considering it has 15 outlets scattered across the Middle East, there are definitely many influences from that region on the menu.

But Hasan Musleh, owner of the Burbank outlet, was honest about the Lone Star State’s influence. “It’s actually inspired by Texas-style, but we tweaked it with our spices,” Musleh said.

So what does Texas-style barbecue via the Middle East taste like? Certainly, unlike any smoked meat joint in the state.

Meat Moot is halal-certified, so you won’t find any pork, but you will find a range of beef, including the king of Texas-style barbecue, brisket. But you’ll also find gargantuan beef ribs and beef shank, along with plenty of lamb (shank, neck, ribs and shoulder). Like in Texas, all the meat is weighed and sliced to order, and then placed on a platter.

Musleh spent time in Turkey honing his cooking process, and he said each cut gets a special marinade before spending a long time in the smoker. “We smoke all the meat for at least 12 hours, and some cuts take up to 18 hours,” Musleh said.

But the concept also differs from your standard Texas-style barbecue joint in a number of ways.

Take the prices. Essentially, all the meat is $45 per pound, which sounds absurdly high, but that includes rice, roasted potatoes, mashed potatoes, a few salads, nonalcoholic drinks and, I kid you not, more than 10 different sauces. (More about this later.) It’s so much food, sharing one pound between two or more people is essentially required. (After my visits, Musleh did let me know the restaurant now offers a lunch option, where you can get a half-pound of brisket or a lamb shank with salad, rice and a drink for $20.)

Though you can order at your table from a server, it’s far more enjoyable to do so at the counter, where the employees prepare your order with the dramatic flair of another Turkish personality, Nusret Gökçe— better known to the world as Salt Bae. After ordering the lamb neck, I watched as a suavely dressed employee tossed coarse salt 3 feet in the air above the meat platter. While mostly unnecessary, you’d have to be deeply cynical not to enjoy the show.

Along with salt, the meat gets a sprinkle of black pepper, a drizzle of honey and a heavy dusting of a fascinating house-made medley of spices. I couldn’t convince Musleh to reveal the full blend to me, but there’s definitely some coriander, along with maybe some paprika and cumin. Regardless, the mix adds a wild complexity to each bite, distinguishing Meat Moot from other barbecue joints around Chicago.

While the brisket is impressively tender, the spice mix melds especially well with the lamb cuts. The lamb shank features a delicate aroma of smoke, and the meat shreds with the slightest touch of your fork. Even better, as long as you don’t mind the fat, is the extra luscious lamb neck. If only more local barbecue joints served that cut.

Not everything is available in one-pound servings. For example, if you want beef or lamb ribs, you’re going to have to spring for a few pounds. Fortunately, the servers are more than happy to help you figure out exactly how much meat your party needs.

Needless to say, the menu format doesn’t lend itself very well to solo dining, unless you’re planning to take home enough leftovers for a few more meals (which isn’t a terrible idea). Plus, it’s more fun with a group, where you can try multiple types of meat.

Though the meat is obviously the star of the show, each order comes with a nearly overwhelming number of sides. Instead of exhausting, the vegetables nicely round out the meaty meal.

Oddly, I’m not as big of a fan of the plethora of sauces. While hilarious when about a dozen tiny cups arrive at your table, most of them feel completely unnecessary, and some actually clash with the meat. Sure, it’s great to have a spicy garlic sauce, but do we need tartar sauce or American hot sauce? Instead, I wish the restaurant had one carefully balanced sauce that worked well with the spice rub.

But even with this small gripe, Meat Moot offers a fascinating spin on the smoked meat genre that has been offering more conformity than variety in the past few years.

Meat Moot Smoking, 7909 S. Harlem Ave., Burbank; 773-934-4866; meatmoot.com.tr

nkindelsperger@chicagotribune.com