Feges BBQ in Greenway Plaza dishes up delicious smoky meats (including whole hog) and diverse sides to office-casual lunch crowds.

3 Greenway Plaza Ste C210, Concourse Level – The Hub, Houston, TX 77046
(832) 409-6188
Website

Breakfast 6:30AM–9:30AM / Lunch 11AM–3PM, Monday–Friday; Closed weekends

Occupying space in Greenway Plaza’s “Hub” food court, Feges BBQ (pronounced Fee-jis) immediately announces its serious intent. A black, hulking Oyler Pit for on-site cooking takes up a visible spot in the kitchen, and the menu lists whole hog as a regular option. Each weekday, workers descend en masse from multiple office towers for a lunchtime dose of country cooking in a setting so sterile and gleaming it recalls a set from 2001: A Space Odyssey. One of us has a day job in a building a walkable distance away, so we decided to meet at Feges’ 11AM opening time before the inevitable queue had a chance to form.

For a purveyor of traditional Texas barbecue, Feges bewilders plate lunchers with an array of internationally-inspired sides like Moroccan spiced carrots and Asian cucumbers, while their proteins and sauces branch out beyond the immediate Gulf Coast. Customers can tour the southern US by trying the boudin or whole hog pork, both offered regularly along with daily specials like smoked meat loaf. Sauces such as Alabama white and Carolina-style vinegar mustard also cross state lines; both can be found on Feges’ self-serve trimmings bar. To expand your flavor options, you can ladle or pinch the following:

• Pickled jalapeños (because Tejas)
• Pink pickled onions (a breath-saving upgrade from the usual raw offerings)
• Sweet pickle slices (all wrong in our opinion; cheap-o hamburger dill chips, please)
• Non-artisan white bread slices (to ensure that late-afternoon calorie coma)
• Sauces:
  • Vinegar mustard (twangy ‘n incredible on pork)
  • House-made pepper sauce (like the bottles of Texas Pete at the Lockhart BBQ joints, but better)
  • Alabama white sauce (much saltier and more acidic than versions further east; one of us loved it while the other longed for Alabama white sauce from Alabama)

One meat plate + 2 sides (brisket + dirty rice & collard greens; $12). Without specifying anything to the meat cutter, we ended up with fairly lean slices from the flat of the brisket. The beef had been rubbed generously with coarse black pepper before smoking, and it bore a discernible smoke ring and a nicely rendered fat cap. The smoke flavor satisfied but did not overpower the beefiness of the cut, which shone through. Despite a slightly dry appearance, the slices were reasonably moist and tender, but we still dabbed our bites into the sauces. Feges’ dirty rice had a suitable funk from chicken liver, while the collard greens offered a deep flavor of vinegar and bacon with a touch of non-cloying sugariness.

One meat plate + 2 sides (whole hog + macaroni salad & elote corn salad; $14). For an extra $2, you can select local heritage whole hog as the meat for your plate. The chopped pork raised the bar by several levels; it tasted incredible, as meat does when it comes from a well-bred animal who enjoyed a healthy and happy life. The tender meat tendrils tasted like high-definition pork and, as with the brisket, had the smoke level dialed in. A sprinkling of crunchy chicharrones (AKA pork rinds) added a welcomed textural contrast to the toothless meat, and the Carolina-style vinegar mustard sauce provided a lovely twang to the sweet, unctuous pork. Not mushy, the mac salad had a satisfying al dente texture and pulled off cool creaminess with elan. Also dressed just right, the corn in the elote salad bore visible grill marks and appeared freshly cut from the cob. Both sides were winners, but next time we’d replace one of the creamy sides with a vegetable in this combo.

Owners Patrick Feges and Erin Smith have created something miraculous in a corporate food court, especially with their whole hog barbecue and unconventional sides. Coming from Central Texas (and perhaps bringing with us an inflated sense of that region’s storied brisket juju), we were way too slow to pick up on what Houston is laying down in the smoked meats department. Based on this visit to Feges BBQ and another recent (non-reviewed) stop one of us made at the Pit Room, that was a big mistake, which will be lots of fun to rectify in the coming weeks. And one of us will be waddling back down Richmond to his desk, squinting in the bright Houston sun, much more often than he should.