Meat Market, Texas

Rating: 4.25
Opened: 1941
Pitmaster: Gerald Birkelbach, age 57 (since 1982)
Process: post-oak; indirect-heat pit
Pro tip: For an income history lesson, just remain quietly and watch the old-timers.

A welcome landmark on U.S. 290 between Austin and Houston is the boxy brick-building of City Meat marketplace, in Giddings. The red-painted indication reads “Bar-B-Q and Sausage”—sausage becoming certainly one of their particular areas. Walk through the primary space, using its high ceilings, two rows of tables covered in synthetic Christmas tablecloths (we last visited in late January), and aged cream-colored wall space, and in to the sooty straight back area, where you are able to order the famous backlinks (80 per cent beef, 20 percent chicken) straight from the gap. The stuffing is pleasantly coarse in that way which you just find in homemade sausage, in addition to casing has actually a good breeze. We could have held consuming these perfect backlinks all the time. We had been less thinking about the brisket, which cooks at a rather high heat on an indirect gap for just five and a half hours. Whilst the result is seductively smoky and has a flavorful salt, pepper, and cayenne rub, the meat it self ended up being somewhat difficult. The ribs, on the other hand, do beautifully under this treatment. They truly are superlative: ultra-tender, delectably sweet, and infused with post-oak smoke, similar to the definitely succulent chicken. As at any correct combined, black colored pepper can be used liberally, and not simply regarding meat. It punches within the tangy, sweet sauce (our favorites in Central Tx) and provides a pleasant kick to pinto beans too. Admirable attention has-been compensated to your stellar potato salad, a bold and mustardy twist on classic. Banana pudding is enjoyable adequate when you forgive the fact it appears to be like a meringue and it isn’t a pudding but a blob (with an oddly firm exterior shell) of ointment dessert.