Pecan Lodge
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When Mission: Impossible -The Final Reckoning was released in May, Tom Cruise visited movie theaters around the country in an effort to lure moviegoers to the actual movies.
What a fun moment it would be if he walked into the theater to see his old flame, Nicole Kidman, imploring everyone to go to the movies in her bedazzled grey pantsuit? Hate that ad? Well, there’s a Facebook group for that.
Back to Cruise: before visiting Dallas, he promised to check out our city’s lauded barbecue. Making good on that promise, Cruise strolled into Pecan Lodge – hair breezy, boyish grin full throttle and muscles popping – around 4 p.m. on May 22. He feasted on a table stacked with brisket, beef ribs and pulled pork, with sides such as mac and cheese, potato salad and collard greens. There was even a special sausage that Pecan Lodge made just for Cruise.
Tom Cruise was treated to a feast at Pecan Lodge.
Pecan Lodge
The restaurant reports that after lunch, Cruise stopped at every table in the restaurant, which remained open during his visit, and gracioulsy took photos. Cruise enjoyed his meal so much that before leaving, he asked owner and pitmaster Justin Fourton for to-go orders to bring to the rest of his crew to enjoy before the premiere.
Since then, Fourton and his team have been busy making the special Tom Cruise sausage and it’s now part of the regular menu. What’s in Tom Cruise’s sausage, you ask? Well, it has fire-roasted hatch chiles and queso Oxaca.
We stopped by recently to get a taste.
First, a pro tip about eating at Pecan Lodge: you can order the full menu at the bar. So when you walk in and see that silly long line, just go straight to the bar. Get a marg, or get a water, no one cares.
We like the loaded sweet potato there, so we ordered one of those and one sausage, then chatted about Cooper Flagg to some strangers for a bit.
The food came out within five minutes, the Tom Cruise sausage bursting with hope.
Pecan Lodge uses ground pork for its sausage, rendering a fatty – or some could say juicy – sausage. Small pools of grease collect in puddles just below delicate casing. You could slide your finger along it to move it around.
The casing of the sausage has a good snap, as all proper sausages should.
We used a fork to cut our first bite, not because we’re that delicate but it seemed like a safer choice than a what we thought might be a faucet of hot sausage grease. We were right. It was a the right call because what we also didn’t expect was so much cheese, which melded with the grease in an overly juice bite.
For the record, Justin Fourton is tall.
Pecan Lodge
The Tom Cruise sausage is tasty for sure – the roasted hatch chili and cooking process imbue a good amount of smokiness and bite – but the mouthfeel wasn’t there for us. The marriage of the grease and melted cheese created an unappetizing experience.
Perhaps it’s a case of one link stuffed with a bit more of the fatty sausage than others.
But know this if you want to try Tom Cruise’s sausage, you can.
And by all means, please end your meal with a Tumbleweed cookie, which is a kitchen sink of everything or banana pudding.
