Salt Lick BBQ
I grew up in Texas. While this can have a lot of meaning for various people, what it means for me is that I love BBQ. Not just any BBQ, but specifically the intense blending of Carribean barbicoa and German influences that begat what I still consider the finest destiny of a cow on the planet: Texas BBQ. Unsullied by a complicated “rub” or cloying sauces, it is simply meat and smoke and time; perhaps a little bit of magic as well.
Texas is blessed with perhaps the largest number of just damned fine, and sometimes nearly religious—even for me—BBQ joints in the country. Texas Monthly even surveys them every few years and can’t limit it to less than 50. Heck, I’ve been to 4 of the top 5 that they list, and they’re all temples of BBQ. A trip home is just not a trip home to Austin without BBQ, whether it be Rudy’s, The Iron Works, or a afternoon drive out to Lockhart to partake of the mecca of BBQ: Smitty’s Market or Kreutz’s Market.
This time, unfortunately, time ran out and we were “forced” to turn to another old stand-by: The Salt Lick, which is about 30-45 minutes from my mom in Driftwood, TX. I was lucky enough to go with my sister, Kim, and a friend, Brettany, and we decided, after much contemplation, to partake of the “family style” meal, with a little extra chicken:
What’s that? Well, it’s brisket, sausage, pork ribs and smoked chicken. The sides are yummy smokey baked beans, cole slaw (mediocre this trip), real German potato salad, pickles, onion and a jalapeño—just in case. We refilled the plate, part of the family style tradition, once, but then that was enough. While normally they don’t let you take anything home if you order this way, the waitress was nice enough to let us pack up the little remaining that my sister thoughtfully saved for my brother-in-law.
That was my last evening in Austin, but all in all, not a bad way to end it. Sadly, even the best BBQ in DC, MD and VA is a pale imitation of what you can get in NC, much less TX.
This entry was posted at 7:48 pm on 8 June 2008 and is filed under food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the post-specific RSS 2.0 feed.
And the Salt Lick didn’t even make Texas Monthly’s top 50! Incredible.
I live right by Driftwood and go there for lunch all the time. Friday and Saturday nights the wait is unbearable (especially when you can SMELL it all the whole time), but weekday lunches the place is mostly empty because it is so out of the way for most people.
One scary thing about the Salt Lick – the calorie content of its sauce. Next time you are in Austin, go by a grocery store. You’ll see the Salt Lick sauce bottles right with all the other BBQ sauce bottles on the shelf, but while most sauce is in the neighborhood of 10 calories a serving, Salt Lick’s is around 150. Why? Oil-based versus tomatoe-based baby.
It’s a good thing I don’t really like sauce that much. I find it detracts from properly executed BBQ.
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Mmmmm. BBQ. Texas: Gimme some now.
Ummmm. BBQ NC: Whah happened?