I recently wrote up five Texas barbecue places from the Hill Country. (Scroll to the end of the page.) Vera’s offers another face of Texas barbecue spots, the Rio Grande Valley. I’ve had one blog post (here), and that from the far reaches of the Valley, a place celebrated in song and story. Unlike the Hill Country, the Valley serves delicacies the like of which … Continue reading Vera’s Backyard Bar-B-Que, Brownsville, Texas
After our extraordinary breakfast at Valentina’s Tex Mex, Nancy and I headed back to Houston to see Anne Rain, Hunter, and Isabelle. Along the way, Nancy and I stopped and had a walk in Stephen F. Austin State Park. The modest admission was waived for Veterans Day Weekend (you’re quite welcome for my service, such as it was), the weather was beautiful, and the trails … Continue reading Pinkerton’s Barbecue, Houston, Texas
After our meal at Terry Black’s, I wasn’t about to miss Daniel Vaughn’s breakfast recommendation, Valentina’s Tex Mex Barbecue. The two places are very different in externals. Terry Black’s is a “city” barbecue place, right in the heart of Austin, the 11th largest city in the US and moving up. Valentina’s is barely in or just outside the city limits, in an area that’s rapidly … Continue reading Valentina’s Tex Mex Barbecue, Austin, Texas
Before I set off for Austin, I shot an email to Daniel Vaughn, the barbecue guru with Texas Monthly and the genius behind the Texas Monthly quadrennial 50 Best issue, and THE authority on all things brisket. Since we’d be there on a Game Day, I wanted to know where we could actually get into a great barbecue place without too awful long a wait, … Continue reading Terry Black’s Barbecue, Austin, Texas
After our magnificent lunch at the City Market in Luling and fulfilling Nancy’s burning desire to go to Smitty’s, we drove on to Austin. As I mentioned here, one of our goals in our trip to Texas was to complete our 10K — this one actually was 11K — state capital walk in Austin. It was state capital #42 in our quest to do all … Continue reading Sandy’s Old Fashioned Hamburgers, Austin, Texas
After a truly great lunch at the City Market in Luling, Nancy and I headed north toward Austin. She’d mentioned several times our visit to Smitty’s back in 2010 when I spent a term as a visiting professor at Baylor Law School. Back then Smitty’s was one of the top places in Lockhart, the epicenter of Texas barbecue, just up the road from Luling. Smitty’s … Continue reading Smitty’s Market, Lockhart, Texas
The morning after our wonderful dinner at Rainbow Lodge, Nancy and I rose with the roosters, ready to set out toward Austin to complete our 42nd state capital 10k “volksmarch.” We’d gained an hour by the time zone change, and we’d just left Daylight Savings Time, so getting up early was not a problem. The problem was that I wanted to stop for lunch along … Continue reading The Original City Market, Luling, Texas
Nancy and I had three great purposes in going to Texas: to see Anne Rain and Hunter’s daughter, Isabelle (and, of course, Anne Rain and Hunter), to do one of our 10k state capital “Volksmarches,” and to see Henry Berry, Nancy’s grand-nephew, a senior at UT-Austin. Those are the goals that “we” had. I had a not-so-secret agenda of eating a lot of Texas barbecue. … Continue reading Rainbow Lodge, Houston, Texas
Daniel Vaughn’s quinquennial list of the Top 50 Barbecue Places in Texas is now out, and there are dramatic changes. You can see the list here. The Top 50 list has been one of the if not the most reliable “Best” lists around. I relied heavily on it when I spent a term teaching at Baylor Law School, a position that left me plenty of … Continue reading The Texas Monthly Top 50 List is Out: Big Changes!
I saw this on The Smoke Sheet and The ‘Cue Sheet, two invaluable barbecue resources. A whole lot of barbecue places in Texas — and in other states — are closed on Monday. That’s a big problem because most Texans eat on Monday as well as other days of the week. Indeed, I have yet to meet one who doesn’t. And on Mondays people tend … Continue reading Barbecue in Texas on a Monday
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