Pop-Up Pick: watch football and eat real Texas barbecue on Dundas West

“If you’re going to master the craft, you’ve got to cook over wood.” That’s the rule for Nick Chen-Yin, the co-pitmaster behind Smoke Signals, a year-old Toronto pop-up specializing in Texas-style barbecue. He and partner Paul Keodprom began selling their slow-cooked beef briskets and ribs at the Junction Flea last year. They sold out every time, once even unloading 120 pounds of brisket in under three hours. The culinary enterprise has since become an obsession for Chen-yin, who learned his smoking techniques from friends in Austin and Houston. He massages briskets and ribs with a simple salt-and-pepper rub and nurses them for up to 14 hours in one of several wood smokers he built from scratch in his backyard. The results have earned the business lots of fans (and the hard-won approval of Chowhounders), plus a regular Sunday gig at The Derby, a new pub on Dundas West. The pair will be popping up there all winter, offering tailgate-appropriate food (brisket platters, potato salad, baked beans) to hungry football fans. The next instalment happens this Sunday, November 2.

Sun. Nov. 2, 1-8. The Derby, 1516 Dundas St. W., 416-901-5730, instagram.com