Clark's Outpost - Tioga, TX

Posted By Michael Stern on June 18, 2008 1:53 PM

Clark’s Outpost, a good hour north of Dallas, is a Lone Star legend patronized by local horse breeders, city folk hungry for a country meal, flamboyant high rollers who arrive by helicopter in the field across the road, and good-food pilgrims from all over the U.S. in search of Texas on a plate.

Clark’s fame is built on beef. Briskets are put into smokers over smoldering green hickory or pecan wood, where they bask in the pungent smoke at 175 degrees for a few hours, then are turned down to a superslow 150 degrees to cook for three days more. Nothing is put onto the beef as it cooks – no seasonings, no sauces, no marinade. The result is beef and smoke laced together in exquisite harmony that words cannot convey. Rimmed with a crust of smoky black, each slice is so supple that the gentlest fork pressure separates a mouthful. The warm barbecue sauce, supplied on the side in Grolsch beer bottles, is dark, spicy, and provocatively sweet.

Pork ribs are another Clark’s treasure. Neither tenderized nor marinated, they are rubbed with a seasoning mix and cooked until they are soft enough that the chef can easily poke his finger into the meat between the bones. Rib dinners arrive at the table severed into individual bones, each one lean and smoke-flavored, glistening with its own juice but also begging for some of that good sauce.

Clark’s offers country-style side dishes that include crisp-fried okra, jalapeno-spiked black-eyed peas and a marvelous oddity, French fried corn-on-the-cob. Lengths of corn, unbattered and unadorned, are dipped in hot oil about a minute or so, just long enough for the kernels to cook and begin to caramelize. The result is corn that is quite soft with a mere veil of a crust, and is astoundingly sweet. Each piece is served with blacksmith’s nails stuck in its ends to serve as holders.

Despite success and renown, Clark’s is deliciously rustic. Located in a town that is little more than a farmland crossroads, it is a small agglomeration of joined-together wood buildings surrounded by a gravel parking lot and stacks of wood for the smoker, with the flags of Texas and the U.S. flying above.

Overall Rating

brisket

ribs

BBQ Sauce

Beef and Ribs

Beef and Sausage

fried corn

Fried Cheese Balls

Tamales

Fried Okra

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Posted By Twinwillow on December 22, 2010 7:04 PM

I love Clark's Outpost. I knew Warren Clark, the founder of Clark's Outpost from when he first opened the joint so many years ago. He was a swell guy. He left the corporate world of American Airlines to follow his dream. He died a relatively young man and he's still missed to this day.

His BBQ might not have stood up to the stuff served in Central Texas but, it was good enough to bring out a crowd from Dallas every weekend. And Warren was always there to put a smile on your face.

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Posted By Robert Schinlder on October 28, 2010 9:52 AM

I visited Clark's last week and it was definitely worth the trip. One item on their menu which isn't mentioned here is the "lamb fries", which were delicious. The brisket was a bit dry for my taste, but the ribs were good and the pies were impressive indeed.

Overall Rating

Pie

Tamales

brisket

ribs

BBQ Sauce

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