Seldom is it a sandwich that prompts me to swear fealty to a barbecue joint. Generally the pivotal moment is a lightning bolt of pure, primal meat: smoky, fat-marbled brisket; a barky bit of pork rib; a joyous, well-spiced leap of link sausage.

And yet. My first bite of the Brisket & Blues sandwich at Tejas Chocolate Craftory in Tomball was all it took to make a believer of me. Everything from the sliced brisket pebbled with expertly rendered fat to the photogenically toasted brioche bun clicked into place, making the sum far greater than its individual parts.

Crumbles of blue cheese on smoked brisket? Why yes, that brings the salty funk that meets the sweet savor of sliced red onion and the sweet-tart pop of ripe cherry tomato. No sauce required.

And yet. A squeeze bottle of mole barbecue sauce on the condiment table had beckoned me to fill a plastic cuplet, and when I added just a smidge to my sandwich, the whole thing lit up into something else again - earthy, full, profound.

I basked on the front porch of the restored Tejas cottage in the early June heat, sipping a rustic Texas tempranillo, breathing in the scent of smoldering post oak, and enjoying the poinciana and lantana blooms in the dooryard garden.

More Information Tejas Chocolate Craftory Two stars 200 N. Elm, Tomball 832-761-0670 Hours: L&D 11 a.m.-6 p.m. (or sellout) Tuesdays-Fridays; 11 a.m.-5 p.m. (or sellout) Saturdays Credit cards: all major Prices: Brisket $19/lb.; pork ribs, sausage, pulled pork & pork belly $16/lb; turkey $15/lb; sandwiches $8-$10; sides $2.50; desserts $6 Must-orders: Brisket & Blues sandwich; sausage; pork ribs; brisket; cornbread pudding; carrot soufflé; lemonade Reservations: first come, first served Noise level: moderate Parking: city lot across the street, plus some street parking Website: tejaschocolate.com STAR RATINGS Four stars: superlative; can hold its own on a national stage. Three stars: excellent; one of the best restaurants in the city. Two Stars: very good; one of the best restaurants of its kind. One star: a good restaurant that we recommend. No stars: restaurant cannot be recommended.

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I had the porch to myself: It was days before Tejas Chocolate would be named the No. 6 barbecue joint on Texas Monthly's quadrennial list of the state's 50 best, an event that sets off a stampede of barbecue hounds to the top-ranked places. So lately the porch is often crowded, as a line extends out the door.

Tejas was a dark horse on this year's elite top 10. It opened in 2015 as an unlikely sounding outgrowth of co-founders Scott Moore Jr. and Michelle Holland's artisanal bean-to-bar chocolate business.

The couple were doing OK with the chocolate (I was a big fan of the striking single-origin bars available at farmers markets and in some area coffee shops), but they weren't really making enough money to live on.

They shopped around for a cafe location, found the charming old house on North Elm Street in Tomball's Old Town and decided the area could use some good barbecue. Moore's brother, Greg, who had been chef at the late Houston Italian restaurant Mangola's, joined the enterprise to head up the kitchen.

The trio's talents have meshed to make a unique spot for destination barbecue - and chocolate, too. Holland's spectacular truffles are on sale for $4 apiece in a front case, their lush ganache fillings flavored with the whiskeys, brandies and cordials with which she loves to experiment. Chocolate makes an appearance on the barbecue menu, too, both in a superior brioche bread pudding layered with melted pools of bittersweet chocolate and in the distinctive mole barbecue sauce.

You might have to ask for that sauce. It takes three days for Greg to make, using an earthen cazuela, no less. Scott calculates that with time and materials factored together, it costs about $175 a gallon. (No, he's not kidding.)

The crush of new customers over the past few weeks has interrupted mole production, but ask and you might get lucky. Texas Monthly's barbecue guru, Daniel Vaughn, was smitten by its chemistry with the meaty Tejas pork belly slabs.

I loved it on the USDA Prime brisket, with its blessedly simple salt-and-pepper rub; and on an expertly smoked chicken that was a Saturday special. Chicken is surprisingly difficult to smoke well, but Tejas manages to get tight, bouncy skin while preserving the necessary moisture inside. With its clear, restrained smoke note - a hallmark of Tejas' barbecue style - the chicken is great stuff.

So are the even snappier-skinned pork links Tejas buys from Ruffino Meats in Bryan. I confess that I'm burnt out on jalapeño sausage these days, so I sampled the regular and found it seething with juice and good, simple flavor. With a crescent of raw onion, a hank of white bread that you must ask for when you order and a squirt of the regular, nicely tart, tomato-based Tejas barbecue sauce, this is an optimal barbecue bite.

But then, so is the opulent fatty-side brisket all on its own, with its primal char and beautifully rendered fat. Or the tender shards of neatly trimmed pork rib that separate from the bone with just a prod. Or the well-brined slices of generously peppered pastrami on special each Thursday, to be savored solo or layered into a satisfying toasted-rye sandwich with house-made sauerkraut and Thousand Island dressing.

Those small, cheffy touches such as the sauerkraut and dressing are an important element of the Tejas Chocolate appeal. Greg Moore has brought his professional kitchen know-how to the highly personal ideas of Scott and Michelle, and the result is a whole raft of distinctive sides that round out the barbecue experience here.

There's crazy-good cornbread pudding based on a family recipe for turkey stuffing. A gentle potato salad flavored principally by green onion and smoothed out by satiny-textured mayonnaise. Square-cut hunks of carrot soufflé that taste like some strangely improved version of sweet potato pie. Want crisp-tender green beans or straightforward pintos? You got 'em.

Salads, too, including one based on the Brisket & Blues sandwich that started my crush on Tejas. Even the little details make me happy: the roster of regional craft beers available by the bottle or can; the lovely, not-too-sweet lemonade; the Sinatra-heavy "Rat Pack" rotation Scott schedules for Thursday's pastrami fest, just one of the idiosyncratic music themes that mark each day.

Scott is as obsessed with coffee beans as he and Michelle are with cacao beans, so there's even locally roasted coffee, should you choose. Tomball's District roasters plan to open a shop right down the back alley, where Michelle's expanded chocolate "craftory," as they call it, will eventually have a cafe.

New smokers are on order to sate the stepped-up demand. And it couldn't happen to nicer or more hospitable people. Watching Holland and the brothers Moore in action, I marveled at their familial engagement with guests and their infectious zeal for what they do.

They're full of ideas. I can't wait to taste where those ideas take them.