Heading to Disney to meet the family, we were coming in a day ahead of everyone else. I checked my list and found this entry from Texas Monthly’s “United States of Texas Barbecue”, back in September, 2024:

”The smell of fat dripping onto coals was in the air when I pulled up to Smokemade Meats + Eats. Beautifully charred half chickens were coming off the direct-heat pit just before opening time, and next to the pit was an offset smoker full of briskets for the following day. Inside, as owner Tyler Brunache, who started the joint as a pop-up in 2021, manned the cutting block, Brunache confirmed that Goldee’s Barbecue had influenced his freshly baked white bread, golden barbecue sauce, and spectacular sides of pork hash on rice and creamy cheese grits. The half chicken tastes as good as it looks. The bark on the pork ribs glistens from a sweet glaze, and the casing on the beefy hot-gut sausage is plenty snappy. Savory collard greens and pinto beans studded with brisket are pure comfort. Freshly baked dessert options abound, as at many barbecue joints, but since I was in Florida, I had to get the key lime pie, its tangy filling balanced by the sweet, buttery graham cracker crust. Pro tip: Buy a loaf of the house-made white bread to take home.”

I knew that we’d be making a stop at some point, during our week in the land of Mickey. So on Sunday afternoon, before check-in, we hauled our camper through a series of neighbor hoods before parking in a strip mall, down the street.

We arrived around 1:30, and they were already sold out of a few things. Of the meats that they did they have, we ordered most of them. A platter with:

Pulled pork

Lean brisket

A beef rib (that weighed out at a pound and 3/4s)

Slaw, mac-n-cheese (topped with chopped brisket) and cheesecake.

They only had lean brisket (I much prefer the fatty side – but this made my bride much happier), but check out the bark on that brisket and on and the rib!

The meats were exceptional. No sauce was necessary on anything, but they had several to choose from. The pork was far from dry, and that’s a challenge when you get pork this smokey, to keep in the moisture and so full of taste.

The rib bone was picked clean and, for the record, that piece of brisket was cleared before we left. Sadly, key lime pie was one of the things of which they were sold out, so we had to “make do” with the goat cheese cheesecake. It was devoured as well. This is the happiest place on earth.