House Park BBQ
Chris and I made our way to House Park BBQ on Friday. It’s taken us a while to get there because we never remember to have cash on us and it’s only at lunch. So we planned ahead a little and made sure that we had both things in order.
Photos by Ray Pierce - click on the images to go to the Flickr set
The building looks like it’s been there forever. When we rolled up, you could smell the smoke coming off of the pit. That’s always a great smell to me. There is quite a lot of paraphernalia on the walls that’s been there a long while and has absorbed the the smoke. Most of it has a smokey yellow patina to it. The stove behind the counter looks as if it had been there since the 1920′s.
The day we were there, they had the combo plate on special, so that we indulged in it. I grabbed the brisket and sausage, while Chris grabbed the brisket and pork loin. The brisket had a great flavor and was pretty tender. It was a very lean brisket though. If there wasn’t sauce ladled over it, it would have been pretty dry. The sausage was a good grind, but it lacked in flavor. There was nothing about it, that would make me long for it. Chris’ pork loin was tender and moist, but lacked flavor as well. The plates come with mustard potato salad, large cut coleslaw, and pinto beans. The potato salad was good, it had some peppers in it that gave it a good flavor. I’m not a cole slaw fan to begin with, so I won’t even try to review it. The beans were good, I think they were cooked with some of the BBQ sauce to give them a little different flavor. The BBQ sauce itself was a little thin, but wasn’t fully stained so there was some of the puree that a bit chunky. It had a good flavor, and worked well to cover up the dryness of the brisket.
Franklin BBQ’s new menu item
I met up with Chris, Evie, and Douglas Bowman for brunch BBQ at Franklin’s today. The crowd was just as I was anticipating. Snaking from the front door, down the access ramp, and the length of the building anticipating its opening. Luckily Chris had save me a spot in line (I’m sorry to those behind me, I don’t like it anymore than you.)
There was a nice couple (Bruce and his wife) from Lago Vista in line behind us, who also happen to be readers of the site. Chris had told them about our attempts to find the best BBQ in Texas. I talked with them quite a bit while we worked our way through the line. They had driven in just for this, and were about to make some BBQ deliveries to their kids on the way back out. How awesome would that be to have Franklin’s BBQ delivered to you instead of waiting in line?
Photos by Ray Pierce - click on the images to go to the Flickr set
One of the things that Chris and I noticed was that Franklin’s had added a wax paper addition to their menu for Turkey. That’s a great addition to their menu. While Aaron was cutting, I chatted with him a bit about the new operation there. He said that while they had three smokers now, they were really only using two fully. He said that they did it by changing the scheduling of when the meat was done. He said that they try to get their briskets done by 4:00am, and then put on the ribs. By doing that they doubled the amount of ribs they were able to serve compared to the old location. He also said that they’ve been able double all of their other meat production from the old trailer location. He also mentioned that they were up to about 30 briskets a day now. That seems like a lot, but with the kind of lines you see there, it only delays the sell out until about 1:00pm.
The brisket this time seemed to have a thicker bark on it. It may have been the cut, but I liked it. The slices that I had seemed to have a cavity that a lot of the rub had gotten into. So that flavor permeated the brisket a lot. Think of it like an injection into the meat. You can see some of it in the pictures. And like always, the meat was really tender and only needs a fork to eat it.
As for the turkey, it’s only been being served since Friday. So three days in to the new menu item, and it looks and tastes really good. He said that he’s still working on it and is making tweaks to it. It was quite moist when I first got it, but it dried out a bit towards the end of my meal. Not sure that there’s anything you can do about though. It carried a great flavor and the rub on the outside wasn’t over powering. There were a few bites that were a bit salty, but that’s to be expected. It’s something that I’ll order again I guarantee. Let’s hope that Aaron gets in dialed in to perfection before my next trip.
Great job again!
Stubb’s ‘cue and Gogol Bordello
Stubb’s Bar-B-Q
801 Red River
Austin, TX
78702
http://stubbsaustin.com/
Some friends (Andy and Colette) bought me a ticket to the Gogol Bordello show at Stubb’s BBQ. They’ve raved about eating their ‘cue prior and during the concerts they’ve gone to. I now know why, it’s just a great lead in for the music. What’s better than hanging with your friends, grabbing some great food, and listening to some good music. One of these days I’ll make it down there for the Gospel Brunch.
I grew up in the Lubbock area and have had Stubb’s BBQ there and here in Austin. In all my trips, I’ve never actually had as good of BBQ there as I did this trip. Most of my other trips had left me wanting for better brisket, but I was totally satisfied with this. One the 2 meat plate that I ordered, the meat had a deep smoke flavor. Both the brisket and the turkey was moist, and the brisket was super tender to top it off. One of the things that I love, is when restaurants actually serve sweet tea. They had it and had it in big glasses which was even better.
The Serrano Cheese Spinach was really good, it was just a bit too spicy to actually finish it is all. When it hurts to eat something, I tend not to finish it. So if you are into spice, I would highly recommend it. The potato salad was a good chunky potato version, and I easily finished it off. I followed that up with some Pecan Pie a la mode. It wasn’t nearly as good as I was hoping for, it didn’t have a lot of flavor, it was too thin, and not enough pecans. Everyone else thought that their banana pudding was good, so I would probably recommend that instead (even though I can’t stand banana’s).
I ate so much I was pretty miserable most of the concert. Poor me, right? I wasn’t able to keep up with the pace of Gogol Bordello, but it was a really fun show. Not heard a lot of their music, but it was quite entertaining. This experience will make me come back to Stubb’s for some more ‘cue and concerts for sure.
