Photos by Ray Pierce - click on the images to go to the Flickr set

Chris´ plate

More Brisket and Sausage

Brisket and Sausage

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.

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.

I went with my friend Andy to pick up some Railroad BBQ for dinner this past Thursday. He’s talked about this place before, but I’ve not had the opportunity to go down there until now. We were just getting a to go order to feed everyone before we watch Tron: Legacy at this house.

When you drive up, you know this isn’t a large operation just because there wasn’t much parking available. Although the parking that was there was completely filled. It’s just a simple corrugated tin building with the kitchen on one end and the dining area on the other. Once we got inside we quickly found out what was filling the parking lot. There was about 20 people playing various instruments and singing in what appeared to be a regular jam session. Oddest thing was that they weren’t playing very loud at all, you could carry on conversation at normal levels. That just struck me as odd.

We ordered a pound of pretty much everything and quart of potato salad and banana pudding. The lady taking our order said it would be a while and gave us a couple of free drinks, that were very much appreciated.

Once we got our order back home we dug in. The brisket had a good smoke ring on it, and a good mesquite smoke flavor. The meat wasn’t as tender as I would have liked to see, but it wasn’t tough. You still needed a knife to cut through it though. The turkey had an awesome smoke flavor and was really moist. I think it was my favorite part of the meal. The sausage links that we got came in two’s. The blend was fine enough for me and it had a good casing on it. The sauce they served had a lot of smoke flavor to it, but it reminded me more of store bought KC Masterpiece or Kraft, as it was quite thick.

The potato salad was pretty good. It was chunky, and a bit sweeter than I was expecting. Still quite good. As for the banana pudding, I heard that it was good. I don’t like banana’s so I didn’t try it.

All in all it was solid barbeque, I wouldn’t turn it down if it were offered to me.

As for the food, the group didn’t want to splurge on the all you can eat plate ($18.95) when you can could accomplish the same goal with the 3-Meat plate ($11.95). I can’t blame them for that, that seems to be a hefty up charge for just about the same thing. Something that I was a little disappointed in was the bread, it was just plain white bread from a store. That was always one of the more enjoyable things from the other location.

I ordered Brisket, Sausage, and Turkey this trip. I hadn’t ever had the turkey in my recollection, so I gave it a shot. It was the highlight of the meal. It was moist, and there was a generous portion of it on the plate. The sausage was just as good as always. Fine ground and awesome with the Salt Lick BBQ sauce. The biggest disappointment of the night was the brisket. It didn’t have a very smokey flavor, the bark on the outside didn’t taste of anything, and it was wasn’t very tender. Now I know that I comparing it to some of the best brisket in the world now, but that’s where the bar is. It was pretty just standard fare brisket. The BBQ sauce as always was great and lifted up a floundering brisket to make the meal pretty enjoyable.

The service we got was a little spotty though. The waiter never brought refills, even though we asked twice. They sold out of both the black berry and peach cobblers before we could order dessert, so we ended up skipping that all together.

All in all this experience was good, but not great. It feels more like your neighborhood BBQ joint rather than an award winning drive out of your way to go to it joint.

I believe that we are going to be meeting up with the BBQ Snob (Daniel Vaughn) himself from Full Custom Gospel BBQ as well as several other BBQ bloggers. The tentative plan is to hit Louie Mueller’s around 10-10:30ish to grab a brunch. Then hit the Taylor International Barbeque Cookoff after we are done there.

I’ll be stopping by no matter what the others are doing. Hope to see you all there.

After reading up on Franklin BBQ on several of the BBQ blogs that I follow (Man Up Texas BBQ, Full Custom Gospel BBQ, and Urban Spoon) I felt that I needed to give it a try. It’s been a Talk of the Town topic on Urban Spoon for a while now. Some of the Eats BBQ crew had it on their wish list, and it was only about 10 minutes from our offices in downtown Austin. So we Mike, Chris, Justin, and Ray (me) loaded up and ventured over.

When we arrived around 11:45am there was already around a 15 person deep line. That’s a really good sign in my book. It took us around 15-20 minutes to get through the queue. Not too fast, but not too slow either. They’ve done the best that they can to provide shade and fans with misters to keep people cool. Of course there’s a gap between the awning and the ordering area, but the line sort of just broke apart there to keep everyone in the shade.

Franklin BBQ has a pretty tight little setup. They serve the food out of a convert travel trailer, the smoker is on a trailer behind that with a roof and is screened in. They use the old empty filling station next to it for their bathrooms. One of the more memorable signage’s I’ve seen is the The Franklin BBQ logo, it has a very vintage unique look to it. They even have an iron version of it on the smoker trailer. The picnic tables either have an awning or umbrella over them to provide as much shade as possible. They also have mister fans going, but it’s still all outside.

So on to the food. We decided to pool our money and just order a tasting of everything that they had. Here’s the order:

1 lb Moist Brisket
1/2 lb Lean Brisket
1/2 lb Pulled Pork
8 Pork Ribs
side of potato salad
side of beans
side of coleslaw
1 Key Lime Tart
1 Lemon Chess Tart
1 Pecan Tart
4 drinks

For 4 people it ended up $62. Not bad at $15.50 a piece, but not exactly cheap either.

Photos by Ray Pierce - click on the images to go to the Flickr set

The line at 11:45

Franklin Barbecue

The Setup

Franklin Barbecue´s Pit Trailer.

Ordering area

The meat pile

Succulent ribs

Brisket crust

Pulled pork

Brisket and Ribs

The tarts

The line up

Soon to be transparent table

Two meat plate at Franklin BBQ

My selection at Franklin BBQ today

I started off with the pork ribs. They were difficult to get on to my butcher paper because they were so tender. The meat was separating from the bone just picking it up. There was a light rub on the them that was black pepper based but had a saltiness about it. It wasn’t overly peppery as some other place do, but it was just the right amount. There was a great flavor with just the meat alone, but it was even better with the vinegary bbq sauce that they had. They were some of the best ribs that I’ve had in a long while.

Next I delved into heaven the brisket. I know that the words that I write here won’t do it justice, but I’ll try. Aaron Franklin served us, and he was quite generous with his cuts. There was about an inch of fat on the top of the brisket and due to that he gave us a little more than what we had ordered. That fat translated into one of the most moist and tender piece of brisket that I’ve ever had. There was a great flavored, nice and thick peppery bark on the outside of the brisket. It was one of those things that you know that he’s worked on for years to get it just right. The flavor by itself was tremendous. But then you add the dark bbq sauce (think coffee and molasses infused bbq sauce) that they have to it, and it just makes it that much better. I believe that it was smoked over oak, which gave it a bit of a different flavor than your typical mesquite.

The pulled pork was beyond tender. It was served more in the manner of how chopped brisket would be. It was really finely separated into small strands of meat. It had a definite salty flavor to it, but once you added a little bit of sauce it countered it quite well. It would make a great sandwich, but we didn’t eat it as such. To me this was probably the weakest of the meats that we had, and it was still outstanding.

The intention was to get some sausage as well, but we apparently were overwhelmed by the little tasting tidbits they were handing out at the window and forgot to order it. We’ll try it next time.

As for the sides, they were fairly forgettable. The beans had a good flavor, but they are beans. They are what they are. The potato salad was overly mustard flavored, not bad, but forgettable. The coleslaw was more or less just red cabbage with little flavor to it. If you are coming here for the sides, your priorities are all wrong anyway. Stick to the meat.

As a treat to finish off the meal we had one of each of the tarts that they had from Cake and Spoon. We tried Key Lime, Lemon chess, and Texas Pecan tarts. One of the great things about them is that they are all homemade crusts. The Key Lime tart and graham cracker crust we delish and my favorite of the day. The Lemon Chess tart was a close second. The pecan was good, but the other two out shown it. Their website doesn’t list those tarts on their website, so they may be special for Franklin BBQ.

All in all this set a new level for the bar. We’ve went on several hour plus trips to get BBQ that wasn’t as good as Franklin’s. It was probably the best BBQ that I’ve had, but I’ve only been here once. Consistency is part of the game as well so when I go back I’m just hoping that I don’t have to go back on my words. If you are in Austin area, try this place out. You won’t be disappointed.

View on Flickr

Eric and Andy

IMG_0292

IMG_0291

Carrie

Briket and Sausage Plate

I lived outside of Manor, TX for about 7 years, so I was quite familiar with Meyer’s. I’ve eaten there a half dozen times for more. I’ve got a preference to it over the other establishment in Elgin that we’ll review later.

The restaurant is just off of HWY 290 on the South side of the road in the middle of town. Once you get inside, they have a collection of taxidermied wild game. Elk, Deer, Fish, etc. They also have some old equipment used to make sausage on display in the entry area. You also have sausage/meat counter that you can buy sausage by the pound to take home. The ceiling of the meat counter room is lined with all of the competition and awards that Meyer’s has won over the years. Quite an impressive amount.

It’s really hard to compare different places unless you order similar things at each place. So I ordered Brisket and Garlic Pork Sausage this trip with Potato Salad and Pinto Beans. Pretty standard fare so that I can compare apples to apples. Just wish I had a bigger stomach to try every thing everywhere we go. The Brisket was tender and had a good smoke ring on it. It was dry though, but it still maintained a good flavor. All I had to do was use some of the vinegary Hot Sauce they had on the tables to add some moisture back. They also had two other kinds of BBQ that were a more traditional thickness and flavor.

The sausage was served as two links together. This was by far the best sausage that we’ve had on our tour. It had a really good consistency and texture. It was nice and juicy just like it’s supposed to be. You didn’t get an overwhelming garlic flavor like I was afraid we might. It was really good on it’s own, but a combo of the thick BBQ sauce and the vinegary sauce we quite nice on it.

I tried some of Carrie’s pork ribs and they were quite tasty as well. They had great flavor and weren’t tough. Then again it’s hard to make a prok rib tough.

The potato salad and pinto beans were just so so. Not bad, but nothing to write home about. They are pretty much what you would expect at a Texas BBQ joint.

All in all I think the Brisket and sides missed the mark today, but the sausage and the vinegary hot sauce were right on.

At a SXSW Recovery party the Sunday following SXSW, I was introduced to Brett by our mutual friend Joe. He’s the owner of the The Shed BBQ. Joe mentioned that I ran the EatsBBQ.com website and reviewed BBQ joints. After a few pleasantries and the exchange of a few ideas on what makes BBQ great, he asked me to come by and check out the The Shed on their Grand Opening. This was my first invite to try a BBQ place since I’ve been working on EatsBBQ.com, so I had to take up the offer. So Thursday after our softball game, Mike and I headed up there. It was dark and I didn’t have my camera handy to take pictures, sorry. This location is the first in Texas for the Shed, they are mainly based in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Florida.

The Shed is pretty much what it’s namesake implies, it’s a mobile BBQ Trailer and Smoker. It’s newly built, but with it’s corrugated tin exterior and general setup they are really trying to invoke “the shed” look. It’s located in the parking lot of Rabbit’s Lounge on 6th and Chicon. Their menu is a bit limited, as they only serve BBQ sandwiches it seems right now. Pulled Pork, Pulled Brisket, and Chicken. The have a plate combination that comes with 2 sides. You have a choice of Macaroni Salad, Potato Salad, Baked Beans, and Coleslaw. I was told that this is Mississippi style BBQ, which I can say that I’m not totally familiar with.

I tried the Pulled Pork Sandwich, which was recommended as “what we are known for”, with Potato Salad and Baked Beans. I mean that’s about a classic of a combination as you can have. The first observation I had was that the sandwich was stacked full of meat. Big thumbs up! I like that they are trying to give you your money’s worth. As Mike pointed out, the buns were your run of the mill buns. He pointed out that it would have been nice to have a kolache style bun for sandwich, which I totally agreed with. The pulled pork was very tender and moist, as it should be. None of the dry stringy stuff here. I didn’t get a strong sense of a smoke flavor from it, which was a little disappointing. The meat was topped with a really sweet BBQ Sauce, sort of a brown sugar/molassesy flavor. It worked really well with the Pulled Pork. I’m didn’t have a chance to try it, but I think it would probably overpower the brisket, as it was a really strong flavor.

The baked beans were quite good as well. You don’t typically see baked beans in this area served with BBQ. Being a fan of baked beans in general I thought it worked. They definitely had some of the BBQ sauce mixed in, so they had a really sweet taste to them.

Brett brought out a sampling of the coleslaw for Mike and I to try. I just want to preface this by saying, I’m not a coleslaw fan. It was sort of forgettable to me. It had a bit of a sweet and peppery flavor to me, but all in all it was just coleslaw.

I also sampled some of Mike’s Macaroni Salad. It’s another thing that you don’t see offered at BBQ places in this area. It was pretty good, and will require some more research to really make a judgment on it. I mean it was one bite, not enough to really make an opinion on. Mike seemed to really like it though.

The highlight of the meal and biggest surprise was the Potato Salad. It was should have been billed at Loaded Baked Potato Salad on the whiteboard out front. The first bite had a strange delicious flavor to it that I wasn’t expecting. After asking Brett about it, it was Sour Cream. That’s when he spilled the beans about what it was. The bacon bits really accented it well, I mean who doesn’t like bacon. It was dark while we were eating, so I couldn’t tell if had chives or cheese in it (I would assume so, but I could be mistaken), but it wasn’t enough for me to taste. I think this side is a must when you come here.

The prices were a little more expensive than I would have anticipated for a sandwich, but still a good value given the amount of food you get. It was all that I could do to get it all down. This is good little spot to get some BBQ sandwiches, grab a few beers at Rabbit’s Lounge, and enjoy it with your friends.

After hearing about Snow’s BBQ and subsequently reading about it in Texas Monthly the EatsBBQ crew decided we were going to put Texas Monthly’s claim of Best BBQ in Texas 2009 to the test. That is a pretty lofty claim given the level of BBQ in Texas, much less Central Texas. So we loaded up, gathered a few friends to join us and start on our romp.

Photos by Ray Pierce - click on the images to go to the Flickr set

Eats BBQ Crew

The Pit

The Pit

Andy and Colette

Nathan

Mike

Mike

The Bowmans

BBQ

BBQ Plate

Pork Loin

Pork Loin and sausage

Snow´s BBQ

Snow’s is in Lexington, TX. It’s not exactly on your way anywhere and isn’t on a major road. It’s only open on Saturday’s, and it starts selling BBQ at 8am. The stay open until they sell out. From what I’ve read on several blogs and articles was that you needed to be there before 10am to make sure you got what you drove for. So this little gem has eluded a lot of people for a long time because of the location, quantity, and time. Texas Monthly really put the bright spot light on this little joint. The demand for Snow’s BBQ has skyrocketed since the article I’ve read, but I’ve also read that they increased their output as well.

Today we got to Lexington around 9:45am. It took us a little over an hour to get there from 183/290 E area (outskirts of Austin). It was a very rainy and cold day, so that works for us and against us. The rain and cold keeps the crowds away, but there’s not much seating inside of Snow’s. It’s only got 6 picnic style tables indoors with the other seating outside. Luckily we got two tables next to one another inside by pure chance.

As we usually do we try to get a sampling of all the fare that is offered. I ordered the Pork and Pork Ribs, Mike ordered the brisket and sausage plate, and Nathan ordered the same as Mike. They had already sold out of the creamed corn by time we got there, but they still had potato salad. They have the typical condiments, BBQ sauce, onions, pickles, and bread available for everyone. They also have free pinto beans. For drinks they had Sweet and Unsweet Tea, Water, and canned soft drinks.

So on to the tasting!

I started with the pork ribs. They were very moist and had a very smokey flavor. They were very tender, but not to the point where you could just pluck the bone out. In hindsight, this was probably my favorite of the meal. Only got 3 ribs and gave the smallest one to Mike of course.

Then I tried the pork butt. It was quite good. It had a great flavor and a good smoke ring. It was however a bit dry. Not to the point of overcooked by any means. Nothing that a little BBQ sauce couldn’t cure. I shared a little with friends, but I devoured most of it myself.

I tried some of Mike’s brisket, and the same solid flavor and smoke ring was there. But it was a bit dry as well, although Mike claims that it wasn’t dry when he started on his plate. Read his review about it. The meat itself was still extremely tender. Later in the meal Nathan let me have some of his since his had a bit more fat on it. It was better, but still drier than I would have wanted. When our friends Andy and Colette showed up the brisket they got looked much more moist than what I had sampled, but unfortunately I was reaching my food intake limit by then. So this may have just been the piece of brisket we were sampling from. It happens and you can’t predict it.

The sausage was a homemade sausage. It didn’t have a huge amount of fat in it which worked pretty well for it. Because of that the sausage wasn’t very greasy. On the other hand it felt like the meats wasn’t bound together and solid. I liked it’s flavor, but I was a bit annoyed trying to cut it

The BBQ sauce was a sweet and tangy blend. One of the guys commented that it was like a sweet and sour sauce for egg rolls. It definitely had some of those characteristics, but not in a bad way. I found that it grew on me the longer I sat there and ate. You have to have a good BBQ sauce to go with your smoked meat in my opinion. I really think that it complemented the flavor of the meats and allowed the smoke flavor to come through and didn’t over power it.

The free pinto beans were quite tasty. Not as peppery as some, but enough you could taste. It was a good contrast to the meats.

All in all I think Snow’s is a great BBQ place. All smoked BBQ has fallen to off days in the smoker, and I think that have happened to us today. It’s just the nature of the beast for dryness to set in the longer something sits. I think if we came back another day, it would have different moisture in the meats and maybe a totally different opinion. Personally, I don’t think it lived up to the Best BBQ in Texas title, but it’s definitely in the conversation. I’m willing to give it another shot on another day.

I would recommend any BBQ lovers to come and try Snow’s and take in the experience. Just be prepared to get up early, drive, and stand in a line to get it. You will be rewarded with some top notch BBQ.