I love food. It's delicious, it keeps me alive, and it gives me the energy to keep all (three) of you who read my blog entertained with my boundless wit and charm. Because I love food and food always tastes better when someone else is cooking, I tend to gravitate toward dining out options when it comes time to stuff my face. Luckily, one year ago yesterday, I married someone whose views on this subject are very similar to my own.
To celebrate our anniversary, C and I took a trip to what has been officially named, by the Texas Legislature in 2003, as the BBQ Capital of Texas: Lockhart, Texas. (This is not a joke. Our elected representatives took time out of their busy schedule to discuss which one-horse-town most deserved this title. Thanks?) We decided that we wanted to do something different to celebrate the occasion, but since she's currently spending every waking hour studying for the bar exam, we needed to do something close to home. So, BBQ adventure it was.
It seems to me that a place must either have a whole lot of something or be really good at it to be named the "(blank) Capital of (wherever)". Since there are only four BBQ restaurants in Lockhart, I was fully expecting to have my socks knocked clean off.
Our plan was to order a small sampling at each of the four and then decide which was the best of the best. We set out in the early afternoon after fasting all morning, eager to eat our weight in smoked meats.
Upon reaching Lockhart, our adventure began at Black's. It's been owned and operated by the same family (the Black's, duh) since 1932. It was very good BBQ. We tried the brisket (of course), the turkey and some sausage. The meats all had a real nice smokey flavor and we ate much more than we probably should have at stop one of four.
As it turns out, it's good that we over-ate at the first stop since stop two was closed, (thanks for nothing, Smitty's) and stop three was out of brisket.
(insert my shocked, dismayed and disbelieving expression here)
I'm sorry...what? You ran out of brisket?!?!?!? At 7:00 pm on a Saturday? How the shit do you run out of f-ing brisket in the BBQ CAPITAL OF F-ING TEXAS before DINNER TIME?!?! Is there some sort of mesquite shortage that I haven't heard about? Are cows extinct in South Texas? How could you have possibly run out?
Maybe it's just really good and everyone got there super early and bought up the entire supply so that they could hoard it all for themselves. Maybe. But the bottom line is that we didn't stick around long enough to figure out how or why this happened. It happened and that was that. So, we left--quickly.
Being still fully stuffed with meats, we decided to venture to stop number four (fingers crossed that it was open and had food to buy), and get the food to go; that way we could sample it at our leisure.
We got to Chisholm Trail BBQ and the line was out the door for dine-in, which is usually a disheartening sight when you want to eat somewhere, but in this instance it was a great indicator that the place was open and serving food. The to-go line was empty, so we popped in, got some brisket and pork ribs and got the heck out in no time at all. Side note, the place smelled delicious.
Later that night, when the meat-sweats had subsided, we decided to take a little taste of the Chisholm Trail pork ribs (strictly for comparative purposes, of course).
Holy crap! They're delicious! They're salty and smokey; they taste a lot like bacon. It's incredible. The sauce is sweet, tangy, and a perfect compliment to the meats. OMG. We ended up eating most of our stash right there in the middle of the night, cold, straight out of the fridge, with our bare hands. Incredible. I'm not doing it justice, here, I know. You have to try it for yourself. The brisket is delicious, as well, but the ribs...I've been dreaming about the ribs...
So, in summation, there is really only one BBQ restaurant in the BBQ Capital of Texas and yet, the designation is somehow still very well deserved.
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