Traveling the Texas Barbeque Trail Pt. 3

City Market, Luling.

We went from farm team to the major league when we entering the Hill Country where the BBQ is never considered as anything with less than total seriousness. Because of pollution considerations, most smoke houses remain out in the country away from the city where the pitmasters can practice their craft without any restrictions.

We started with the City Market in the blink-you-will-miss-it town of Luling. There didn’t seem to be anybody around (we were waiting for the tumble weed to come through the main street) until we entered through the door for City Market.

The dining area is just a no-frill bare room with tables and chairs arranged cafeteria style. The smokehouse for this place is in a completely enclosed separate room at the back of the dining area. We ordered our meats inside the smokehouse at the counter where everything is carved to order and cost by the weight. .

We paid for the meats in the smokehouse. Everything is put on butcher paper and I was shown the proper way to carry it out back to the dining room.

Pork ribs, moist brisket, sausage.

All other business is conducted over the counter at the other end of the dining room. Drinks, utensils, sauces, etc. are handled here. We did not take the offer for slices of white bread in the smokehouse but a local at the counter insisted that we should have cheese with our meats. Never dismiss good advice from a local. Along with a small block of cheese, we also picked up some very nice sweet pickles and dill pickles for cutting the grease from the meat.

We spent no time digging into the meats. The brisket was moist, tender, and with just the right amount of fat on it. We took the advice to “eat it with the cheese…” as the local said to us. We had no idea what the cheese was but it was very yellow.

There was a nice crispy crust on the ribs with a well balanced flavor of spice and slight sweetness. Under the crust was some extremely moist and tender meat with a delicious smoky pink ring just underneath the surface.

The sauce was more yellowish in color than the traditional. It had a honey mustard hint with a slight touch of molasses but luckily it did not have that super sweet taste.

  

The meat came off the bone cleanly with just a slight pull.

This sausage was awesome! The juice from the meat just exploded in the mouth as soon as you bit through the excellent crispy skin. We loved the meat which had that mouth filling coarse texture of a typical Texas sausage.

  

Didn’t take us that long to polish off our lunch!
 

 

Luling is also famous for the annual watermelon thump in the summer. It even has its own watermelon seed spitting “Splitway”. If you really want to know, the current record is 68 feet 9 1/8 inches.