BBQ News

Massive BBQ festival with top pitmasters to hit Arlington stadium in fall

All the BBQ will be served at Q BBQ Fest.

Photo by Joey Garcia

A massive barbecue festival featuring a mountain of meat is coming to town: The Q BBQ Fest will stop at AT&T Stadium for a weekend from October 6-8, featuring noteworthy BBQ pitmasters hauling 30,000 pounds of brisket, chicken, pulled pork, and ribs.

The Q BBQ Fest is a weekend-long celebration of award-winning cuisine, local music, BBQ tutorials & demonstrations, plus games and activities.

The family-friendly festival also hosts events in other cities including Kansas City and Denver. They're all held at NFL stadiums, bringing pitmasters from throughout the country to dish out smoked meats. Who those pitmasters will be at the Arlington event, they do not say; the 2023 lineup is still "TBA." In 2022, it included names such as Mike Perez (Loro) and Brandon Hurtado (Hurtado Barbecue).

Molson Coors Field Marketing manager Paul Stiff says in a statement that "earlier this summer, we released our very own beer-infused charcoal for backyard pitmasters across the country. Now, we’re excited to switch gears and give Dallas-Fort Worth locals a chance to try the best in barbecue from all 50 states at the Miller Lite House."

The event is produced in partnership with Dallas Cowboys and Miller Lite by Eximius Productions, who started the festival in their hometown St. Louis. It came to Dallas for the first time in 2022.

"We launched Q BBQ Fest in 2015, and knew we’d build something special in the BBQ Capital of the World," says owner/CEO Brian Wahby. "“We love smoking meat and putting smiles on people’s faces."

Tickets include General Admission, VIP, and Kids' tickets, and prices have climbed not inconsiderably since last year.

GA: Three hours all you can eat with drinks available for purchase, starting at $69
VIP: Four hours all you can eat and drink, VIP-only pitmasters and exclusive lounge areas: starting at $139
Kid’s ticket all you can eat: $35, ages 13 to 20. (Children 13 and under enter free.)

Tickets go on sale August 4 and can be purchased at QBBQDallas.com and seatgeek.com.

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Ice Cream News

Kwality Ice Cream shop to bring creamy exotic desserts to Frisco

Kwality

Kwality Ice Cream

An ice cream chain with an Indian flair is dipping into Dallas-Fort Worth: Called Kwality Ice Cream, it's a concept founded in New Jersey that specializes in traditional Indian ice cream and cold drinks, and it's opening a location in Frisco, at 13089 Main St. #500, in a new shopping center.

According to franchisee Raju Vikey, the shop will open sometime in 2025. It joins two DFW locations already open: Irving at 8600 N. Macarthur Blvd., and Euless, at 1060 N. Main St. at Harwood Crossing shopping center, which opened in April.

Kwality Ice Cream was founded by food scientist Dr. Kanti Parekh and his son Anand, in New Jersey in 2003. It has expanded with 38 locations in 14 states including Pennsylvania, Florida, and Texas, where there are three locations in Houston and one in Austin.

“The idea was to create a South Asian-specific ice cream, which is more known for fruits and nuts,” Anand says. “As a Ph.D. in food and nutrition, my father’s background and expertise were in flavor. He used that to create very unique flavors and top notes to give a really good mouth feel and experience.”

They have close to 50 ice cream flavors with classics like cookies & cream, chocolate supreme, and butter pecan; but South Asian and Indian flavors dominate the menu with exotic options like green guava, lychee, and Nuttie Tuttie Fruitee, a berry-flavored ice cream with nuts and candied fruit.

There is also kulfi, a frozen dessert that's like ice cream but with less added air so it has a stiffer, creamier texture. It's served in slices and comes in popular Indian flavors like pistachio, mango, and rose.

Other novel frozen treats include cassata, an ice cream cake with three flavors of ice cream layered over sponge cake.

As with many Asian desserts, they're often less sweet than American-style confections. Wild inventions include the mawa rabdi cup, with ice cream, rice noodles, basil seeds, and rose syrup, topped with nuts and candied fruit; and Thandai ice cream, a staple at Indian festivals, consisting of almonds, fennel seeds, poppy seeds, watermelon seeds, rose petals, pepper, cardamom, saffron, milk, and sugar.

Rabdi is like a pudding, believed to have originated during the 1600s. Kwality makes it following the traditional method of slow-cooking milk until it thickens and reduces, enhancing its sweetness and creaminess, then adding ingredients like cardamom, saffron, and pistachios.

Pints of ice cream and frozen desserts range from $8-$11, and cassata ice cream cake slices are $7.

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