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May 8, 2011
At a Texas barbecue joint,
you normally pick up a tray at the counter and order meat from one person and sides from another.
The person doling out the meat removes it from the smoker and carves it himself. It is sold by the pound—often brisket and pork ribs and sausage and beef ribs and chicken and, in some places, clod (beef shoulder). The carver serves it on some variety of butcher paper. If, despite having worked with smoke in his eyes for many years, he is of a generous nature, as the carvers at Mueller’s are known to be, he might slice off a piece of a brisket’s darkened outside—what would be called in Kansas City a burnt end—and, before you’ve ordered anything, place it on your tray as a small gesture. (Given the quality of Mueller’s brisket, it is a gesture that can make a traveller feel immensely pleased about being back in Texas.) A couple of slices of packaged white bread are also included. Usually, the only way to have a brisket sandwich in central Texas is to make your own. -- Dept. of Gastronomy: By Meat Alone
Posted by Vanderleun at May 8, 2011 10:17 AM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.
Your Say
Best barbecue joints in Texas.
Coopers in Llano Texas.
Makeska's in El Campo, Texas.
Worse barbecue joints in Texas, all in Galveston County.
Posted by: Cilla Mitchell, Galveston Texas at May 8, 2011 2:18 PM
I live near Taylor, Texas, home of Mueller'S BBQ. I've had good and bad there but usually avoid the place because it is, well, filthy and fly ridden. The whole place is covered with a decades old patina of thick grease, so thick the reviews cut out of old papers and tacked on the wall are illegible. Ancient business cards adorn a bulletin board; put a match to them and they would explode in a ball of grease fire. The chopping block must be an original. It is hollow in the middle, extreme concavity, from generations of use. Actually, I think a little bit of funk is chic; I look for it and avoid franchises at all costs, but this place truly tests the limits. Last time I went there I took a brother and his family. The meat was so tough it must have been from a hundred year old cow and boiled for thirty minutes and smoked for ten. He returned the favor my next visit by taking me to a place in Amarillo that passed out fly-swatters to the patrons.
Posted by: John Hinds at May 8, 2011 2:56 PM
I know nothing of barbecue, save for my Kansas City heritage. We just don't do bbq well in Lancaster PA. There was a great joint years back, called Smoky Joe's, where you could sit on a picnic table and watch the caged bears, as you sucked the meat and fat off'n the bones. And what a sauce. Their absence is still painfully felt.
I suppose the closest thing we have to barbecue in these parts is the cheese steak. Philadelphia gets all the noise and hype, but there's a difference between a cheese steak and a Philly cheese steak. I once ate a Philly cheese steak in Philly, only to be sorely disappointed with the outcome.
First off, they served it to me on a soft white sub roll. With MAYO!~and then, horrors...Cheez Wiz.
I was unable to eat that hideous concoction. Arby's does it much better with the rubber meat and fake cheese sauce than this 'notable' cheese steak hangout did.
Nope. Lemme tell ya: Two Cousins makes the best cheese steaks: 12" hard Italian long roll, crusty, chewy, with a home made pizza sauce. The meat is thinly sliced rib-eye. Flash fried on a flat top grill with onions and mushrooms. The cheese is smoked provolone. No wiz. Never.
Yep. Lancaster is where to come for cheese steaks.
Posted by: Jewel at May 8, 2011 9:46 PM
Excellent article, even if it was written by a K.C. pooftah whose lifetime experience with barbecue is eating that ketchupy mess they serve up there. Seriously, though, it was nice to read about real Texas food here on the site. I've been to many of the joints listed in the annual Texas Monthly survey, though not at Snow's. Among them, I've found Kreuz Market in Lockhart to be most suited to my palate. (Kreuz is pronounced "crites", BTW. My favorite barbecue joint is David's, in Arlington.)
Remember, folks: real barbecue (that is, Texas barbecue) is about MEAT, not sauce. If you want sauce, Kansas City welcomes you -- or Georgia, God forbid. That stuff they cook up down east can be tasty, but whatever it is, it sure the hell isn't barbecue.
Posted by: B Lewis at May 8, 2011 10:40 PM
Mr. Lewis Suh, them's fightin' words. The Carolinas make their BBQ differently, but they're renown for "The BBQ" and it's pork.
Posted by: Peccable at May 9, 2011 4:08 AM
That's true about no good BBQ in Galveston, but a freshly caught and sauted in butter speckled trout is worth fishing for, which we did nearly every morning prior to tuning in the Watergate hearings in the summer of 1973. My favorite, close-by BBQ joint is in Belton, Schoepf's Old Time Pit BBQ, and they'll throw in my favorite cut, the burnt end of a brisket.
Posted by: MizzE at May 9, 2011 12:38 PM