Food Porn: Texas Edition

One of my New Year's resolutions this year was to "get out of town" in some capacity each quarter. It didn't need to be a big trip, but it would require an overnight stay somewhere that was not my home base of Washington, DC. My first quarterly trip for 2014 took me to Austin, TX, to visit my cousins and visit a warmer climate, having been stuck in what seemed like an endless DC winter. I was cutting it close in getting to my first quarterly destination, reaching Austin during the last week of March. My cousins had asked me in advance what I wanted to do during my trip and my requirements were quite simple. I wanted to eat good BBQ and hear some good live music. We accomplished both of these tasks during my 3-day trip, but for the purposes of this blog, I'll talk about
the BBQ. Because it was definitely the Boss.

I had received a lot of recommendations of where to go in Austin and the surrounding area to get BBQ. Everyone has their opinion, but after consulting with friends and my family there, we decided to hit the road to Lockhart, TX, about a 45-minute drive north of Austin. But during the previous night's planning and preparation for the BBQ excursion, I realized that between the three of us, we couldn't decide on where to go. So we elected to do a BBQ crawl of the three main BBQ joints in Lockhart. We were on a tight time frame, needing to complete this crawl in about 3 1/2 hours since we needed to get back to Austin, to watch my Dayton Flyers play in the Elite 8. Challenge accepted.

Our first stop was to Smitty's with the giant fire pits (shown above). There was a bit of a wait here so I got to inhale that smoky meaty goodness for a solid 30 minutes before having the opportunity to purchase our BBQ. Recognizing that this was going to be a marathon, not a sprint, we devised a plan to divide and conquer, tasting 2-3 types of meat in each location, but definitely brisket in each place. For this first stop, we elected for 1/3 pound of brisket, hot sausages, and beef ribs. We didn't bother with sides, save for the bread and
pickles, but we did decided to try the National Beer of Texas: Lone Star. Here I got to channel my inner True Detective, attempt to solve the riddles on the bottlecap, and wash down this tasty BBQ. Amazing. But I'll leave my formal BBQ ranking for the end of this post!

Next stop was Black's, one of the BBQ institutions in the town, and from what I understand, one of the originals. Fortunately the line wasn't too long, but just long enough for us to digest a bit from the first place. For some reason, I felt like I needed more than just meat here, opting to grab some mac and cheese as well to wash it all down. Here we elected for another 1/3 pound of brisket as well as some baby back ribs. There were some FrankenRibs that we elected not to purchase (pictured here) because again, we knew that we still had one more place to visit. A marathon, not a sprint, boys. At this point we started joking about the meat cramps and feeling like we permanently had a rib wedged near our ribs. But we were 2/3 of the way through our crawl. Not the time to cramp up!

Our last stop was Kreuz Market, home to what my cousin has deemed "the best damn pork chop" he's ever tasted. So clearly we needed to order that in addition to more brisket. Because we needed to try brisket in each location in order to come up with formal rankings. My cousin wasn't joking about the pork chop. Un-freaking-believable. The rub was solid and the meat cooked to tender perfection. Between the three of us, we managed to eat about 2/3 of the pork chop as well as all the brisket, but we sure were full!

And we did this all with time to spare! We were able to drive back to Austin, drop off the small amount of leftovers at the house, and then head to the bar to watch my basketball team. Sadly, the Flyers did not win, but all-in-all the day was a win.

And now for the formal rankings.

This was extremely difficult because even though we elected to get brisket at each location, the first was a lean brisket (the horror, I know!) while the other two were fatty to medium-fatty. Having said that, I felt that best cooked part of the brisket we had at Kreuz (one end was a bit over done) was the most flavorful. As for the ribs, I loved the rub on the ribs we had at Smitty's. My cousin Joe preferred the baby back ribs at Black's, and don't get me wrong, they were great. But there was just something about the smokiness of the Smitty rib.

I could go on and on about this BBQ for another few paragraphs, or talk about all the awesome breakfast tacos I had while I was there, but my stomach may just burst. So I'm going to go for a run now in solidarity. Because God knows I can't eat like that every weekend. Truly an awesome time with two awesome cousins in a very awesome city. Thanks, boys!