My Texas BBQ Crawl Pic Heavy and full of HIstory

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ecto1

Master of the Pit
Original poster
OTBS Member
Feb 22, 2010
2,131
28
Spring, Tx
My kids are up visiting family and the wife and I were sitting at the house.  We are coming up on 10 years married so she suggested we take a little get away and go on a trip.  Then she suggested we hit up some of the historic Texas BBQ joints in the Hill Country and like always I knew I married the right woman.  We live in Spring, TX and that is a suburb of Houston and while Houston has a very thriving BBQ scene I have never done the Central Texas German meat markets that are famous.  We hopped in the car and went on a drive and before too long we came upon our first destination.

First Stop Lockhart Texas the self proclaimed BBQ capital of Texas.  This small town of a few thousand has 4 major BBQ restaurants three of them have been on the Texas Monthly to 50 in Texas list.

Black's BBQ








The Brisket here was the best part of the meal.  The beef rib had good flavor but was a little tough in my opinion.  The sausage was course ground and had a great snap to the casing it was full of fat like I like but the recipe was simple and in my opinion needed just a little more flavor.  As you can see from the photo it ate pretty durn good.

Next in Lockhart we went to Smitty's


This place was like walking into a smoke museum.  The smell was awesome as well as the atmosphere.  I felt like I walked back in time 50 years if not more.  We only had sausage and beans because we had just had a full meal but the were both real good. 



The walls were literally seasoned like the inside of a BBQ Pit.





From there we went into Austin TX to enjoy the evening and watch the bats leave for the night. (Look Up Bats Austin)

The next morning we woke up and went to the one place that had been on my mind the whole weekend.  This is the one place I have always wanted to go.  City Market in Luling TX.


It is off the main drag in this one horse town.









The food was great but what really stood out here was the pork ribs there were plain and simple salt and pepper just like the brisket but there were done to perfection.


We liked it....

We spent one more night heading to San Antonio to eat some great Mexican food and the 3.5 pound Cinnamon Roll.



Then the next morning we headed home but not before stopping in Elgin to try some Sausage at...


and at


On the way home we saw the coolest thing on the highway...well not cool but it smelled great.

 
Oh....that was great!  Looks like it was fun and tasty all the way!

Thanks for showing that to us!

Kat
 
ECTO1, thanks for posting your trip.    This is something I have been wanting to do, but I think I will wait until October and cooler weather before I try it.     Thanks Again!
 
ECTO1, thanks for posting your trip.    This is something I have been wanting to do, but I think I will wait until October and cooler weather before I try it.     Thanks Again!
We had a blast went to Gruene for one afternoon went to a food park in Austin it was great.
 
Ive been to most of those places growing up spending some summers in La Grange, Tx.. my gramps always loved a goodQ place. And beinf a restaurantier himself.. he knew the good places to go... thabks for making me wanna take another trip. Would be nice to take the motorcycles down through hill country and make all those stops when its cooler weather. Two birds with one stone.. ;)
Mike
 
well tex-mex,

   you are one step closer to becoming a Texan! Since you are in Spring, check out Corkscrew BBQ small place but worth the trip (they made top 50 of best bbq joints june 2013 Texas monthly) No hill country is complete without the obvious winners (Franklin BBQ, Salt Lick, Kreuz market, Snows. I believe Tx monthly hit up (I think) 648 BBQ joints in Texas alone. Great pics, really showcases Texas BBQ tradition and lets everyone know Texas BBQ is the BEST! maybe I will see you at the TMBBQ fest 2013. 
 
I
well tex-mex,

   you are one step closer to becoming a Texan! Since you are in Spring, check out Corkscrew BBQ small place but worth the trip (they made top 50 of best bbq joints june 2013 Texas monthly) No hill country is complete without the obvious winners (Franklin BBQ, Salt Lick, Kreuz market, Snows. I believe Tx monthly hit up (I think) 648 BBQ joints in Texas alone. Great pics, really showcases Texas BBQ tradition and lets everyone know Texas BBQ is the BEST! maybe I will see you at the TMBBQ fest 2013. 

I will make sure to let my 6th Generation Texas Born Children we are almost there. As far as Corkscrew I have met Nichole and Will the owners and they are great people who put out a real good product. We are members of the same foodie group in the Woodlands. We have done Salt Lick and it was OK. I have had a ton if TX BBQ and agree this state is a great state for BBQ. I also prefer TX BBQ comps as they showcase the meat over the salad. But who am I to judge as an almost Texan. J/K
 
yea salt lick is ok, your right on that one their mustard based sauce is nothing to write home about and snows sauce vinegar based is not worth wasting time over unless your from Georgia or Carolina and are home sick (one of two sauces is really good though) I personally have been to over 300 different BBQ restaurants in Texas alone which isn't bad for only being 30 years old. TM fest should be a blast just waiting on tickets to go on sale! 
 
It is just too darn bad I live so far from Texas.  No smoke shacks around here, although one or two good burger joint exist. But your weekend trip does look fantastic.

canadian-flag-15.gif
 
Last edited:
It is just too darn bad I live so far from Texas.  No smoke shacks around here, although one or two good burger joint exist. But your weekend trip does look fantastic.

:canadian-flag-15:

Don't come visit in the summer you might melt.
 
Don't come visit in the summer you might melt.
True story... this week is brutal already and only suppose to get hotter! Yuck!
Sorry boys, I drove truck for a living.  I have been in minus 64 degrees in St Cloud Minnesota and 128 degrees in the shade with humidity level of 98 somewhere south and little west of New Orleans, way down there on 3011.  Mind you, I do not recall those temps being in the same years, as my long distance trucking carrier lasted over 20 years then local for the other 12 or 13.  So any temperature Texas gets, I think I can handle.  Even up here, in the past few weeks we have hit near 110 degrees if you count the Humidex in
 
[SIZE=12pt]Sorry boys, I drove truck for a living.  I have been in minus 64 degrees in[/SIZE] [SIZE=12pt]St Cloud[/SIZE] [SIZE=12pt]Minnesota[/SIZE] [SIZE=12pt]and 128 degrees in the shade with humidity level of 98 somewhere south and little west of[/SIZE] [SIZE=12pt]New Orleans[/SIZE][SIZE=12pt], way down there on 3011.  Mind you, I do not recall those temps being in the same years, as my long distance trucking carrier lasted over 20 years then local for the other 12 or 13.  So any temperature[/SIZE] [SIZE=12pt]Texas[/SIZE] [SIZE=12pt]gets, I think I can handle.  Even up here, in the past few weeks we have hit near 110 degrees if you count the Humidex in[/SIZE]

You got me beat the hottest I have seen is 118 no humidity and the coldest is around -13 up in the mountains of Korea.
 
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