DALLAS — Keith Lee’s DFW food tour has officially begun.

The TikTok-famous food critic has touched down in North Texas and posted back-to-back reviews on two restaurants: Terry Black’s Barbecue and Thunderbird Pies.

In the words of his catchphrase, he got ’em, he tried ’em, and rated them 1-10.

Remember, Lee’s trip around DFW will be different from his previous food tours. This time, he’s splitting his restaurant picks into three categories:

1. Places with good food and good customer service, but needs more marketing
2. Popular local spots voted on by DFW locals
3. Restaurants with diverse backgrounds

Thunderbird Pies, a Detroit-style pizza place in East Dallas, was the first review Lee posted Sunday.

Lee said Thunderbird fits Category 1 of his tour; he said it was highly recommended to him and it likely wasn’t well-known due to marketing. (For the record: The owners of Cane Rosso and Zoli’s Pizza, both well-known North Texas pizzerias with no shortage of local and social marketing, also own Thunderbird. But we’re just passing along what Lee said.)

For transparency’s sake, here’s the Yelp page for Thunderbird to give you an idea of what other people have to say.

Lee and his family spent $139.12 on his order, which he said was easy to order online. Here were his ratings on each dish:

The fried brussels sprouts are topped with bacon marmalade, sweety drop peppers, and balsamic reduction.

Lee said the toppings were good, but the sprouts were too greasy for his liking and he couldn’t taste them that well.

Lee liked the wings themselves for the “pizza shop wing” standards, in his words.

For the ranch, he said the banana pepper twist made it more tangy, but not in the best way.

The Goat pizza is Thunderbird’s Pizza of the Month for January 2024. It has a brick cheese blend with pepperoni, hot soppressata, brisket, goat cheese, and jalapeño pesto.

Lee said he’s a big fan of Detroit-style pizza, which has its sauce on top. 

He noted that the Goat didn’t have regular sauce, so if the pesto was meant to replace the sauce, he thought there should be more.

The Budd pizza is a regular dish for Thunderbird. On top of the brick cheese blend, it has caramelized cheese crust and tomato sauce on top.

Lee liked cheesy crust, but he said the sauce’s onion flavor was too strong for his taste.

“Everybody’s palette is different, so other people might like the onions. I’m just not a huge fan of it,” he said.

The original Connie pizza just has double pepperoni cups and tomato sauce. The bacon was Lee’s request.

Lee said the Connie was his favorite meal from Thunderbird. He said the presentation looked good and he liked the sauce-to-cheese ratio.

The bacon he added overpowered the pizza, in his opinion. It balanced out the sauce, but he said people who aren’t pork fans may not like the bacon.

Terry Black’s is a popular barbecue spot in Dallas with two other locations in Texas. Here’s their Yelp page to get a sense of what people think.

Terry Black’s fits Category 2 of Keith Lee’s tour. He said the restaurant won the first poll on his Instagram story with over 10,000 votes.

He also said he’s gotten mixed reviews about the place, but the poll has spoken.

Lee said he and his family spent $191.03 on the to-go order. He also said he didn’t like how the to-go orders were only available online and that those orders had a $75 minimum.

Lee said the Original Sausage was high quality, had a good snap and was nicely smoked.

Lee admitted that he spat out the cheese sausage off camera. He said the taste of the cheese and grease, and the taste of the meat itself was too overpowering for him.

The turkey was moist, high-quality and could work really well on a sandwich, according to Lee.

The brisket was Lee’s highlight from his review. He liked the smokiness and the peppery flavor.

“I could be wrong, but it tastes like mesquite wood. And if it’s not mesquite wood, whatever wood they used was really strong, and I’m a fan,” Lee said.

He then tried the brisket with Terry Black’s barbecue sauce. He preferred the brisket on its own.

Lee had to go back to order a rack of ribs. For $100, he said he got 13 ribs.

With that being said, he said the ribs were so good, he would’ve been mad if he left without trying them.

“Is it expensive? Yes. It barbecue expensive? Yes. But this is personally the highest rating for me,” he said. 

In Lee’s words, “The cornbread was just cornbread, and it was on the drier side.”

Lee’s family bought a quart size of mac and cheese, which he said was the smallest size they could get.

And he admitted that he wasn’t a fan.

“It just taste like a salty, wet noodle,” he said. “Excuse my description, but that’s just my personal opinion.”

So North Texas is off to a rough start with Keith Lee’s food tour, but there’s still time to turn it around.

Lee’s been posting polls on his Instagram stories for popular eateries to check out.

For less popular spots, Lee says you can tag or message him on social media. You can also send him an email.