since last i was here, but his son and his grandchildren carry on the tradition of making some of the best east texas style barbecue you can find around here. it s been a while, i believe last time i was here the grandfather was here back then. slim thug: well you re in the right place for some barbecue, man. burns barbecue. anthony: so, what do you do? ribs and brisket or uh slim thug: i do all of that. anthony: you do all of it, okay. slim thug: all of that. what is that? bone: moonshine. dukes of hazzard. bo s hos. [ laughter ] anthony: wow. i could drink a lot of that. okay, that s gonna work. a torpedo size baked potato filled with cheddar cheese and chopped barbecue beef and homemade link sausage. slow-cooked pork ribs. big ass beef ribs. and brisket. bone: whoa. okay, i got a baked potato. anthony: this baked potato is yours. bone: it s, it s marvelous. anthony: that thing is, like, gigantic. my mother always said, never eat anything bigger than your hea
anthony: it s a 90 minute drive south from houston to the town of palacios on the matagorda bay. and, like a lot of the communities down here, the principal industry is fishing, shrimp in particular. it s also where, beginning in the 1970s as the vietnam war ground to its ignominious conclusion, that thousands of vietnamese found new lives and a new home. to have remained would have meant, in most cases, arrest, imprisonment, reeducation camps, or worse. so all you want is shrimp at this point. doan: yeah. anthony: okay. vinh: i got two large several, uh, get shrimp and fish. but i got enough feed for the fish. anthony: the shrimp you take. vinh: yup, big shrimp. doan: big shrimp, big shrimp. vinh: the small we don t get shrimp. anthony: you don t want it. vinh: we don t want those. anthony: the shrimping has anthony: the shrimping has declined considerably since the
anthony: but you already speak how many languages? gertrude: in congo, principal, we have three languages. anthony: of course. gertrude: we have french, lingala, and munukutuba. anthony: so don t feel too bad. most americans struggle with one. it s okay. i m a refugee from drc. anthony: what did you do in kinshasa? i did electrician and construction too. anthony: and here? i was machine operator. after that, i decide to be farmer. it was my dream. my dream it was to get my own garden, and what i harvest, i need to cook. anthony: where are you cooking now? i work at the four seasons hotel. anthony: oh that s not a bad gig. yeah, yeah. anthony: how african will houston be in twenty years? a lot, right? gertrude: i want, all my
though, i ain t gonna lie. anthony: so, everybody, born here? slim thug: born and raised. anthony: the town changed at all? slim thug: a lot. anthony: yeah, in what way? slim thug: you know, it was like a big small town at first, and now it s becoming like a real city. you know. anthony: is that good or bad? bone: it depends on what you do. slim thug: good and bad, kinda. a lot of the stuff we was really into back in the day, these new kids or these people from out of town, they ain t into. even the music, like back in the day, houston was so independent, like i was selling so many records out of the trunk that i didn t want a major deal. anthony: is there a distinctive houston sound? slim thug: very. you know, the whole culture from the cars, to the sippin syrup and the music itself. anthony: first of all, what s sippin syrup? slim thug: syrup is, it s promethazine and codeine; it was a cough syrup, but then they mixed it with soda out here.
the point is, in many ways, typical in the way it is geared towards serving the immediate needs of its community. food for vietnamese and food for mexicans. yen, bryan, their kids jennifer and kimberly as well as cousin tv and his son, donny. all proud citizens of the united states of america, by the way. yen: you know, i really feel fortunate we live in this town and we have a lot of support. when we went to open this store, all my friends said, i want to have vietnamese food. i know that here you have to have mexican food. so i went and talked to the best mexican cook in town maricela. bryan:yeah, this is the, the chef right here. maricela: hi. yen: yeaanthony: the pho her