Southside Market - Elgin

There is a school of thought, born somewhere in the southeast, the barbecue sauce should be made with vinegar. The graduates of this school further gum up the situation by using even more vinegar to baste their meat while they cook it. I'm fairly sure the people who make the barbecue at Southside Market in Elgin are graduates of this school.

It's not that this style of barbecuing is bad, because it isn't. In fact, the Kid would certainly rather eat vinegar-y barbecue every day from this one till the end of time than have to suffer through a big ol' plate of chinese food. But, still, the sauce is unexpected and it can be offputting.

That said, Southside Market is a respectable, if not fantastic barbecue joint. For a relatively small amount of money I was served a four-meat plate which featured two kinds of ribs, sausage and brisket. The sides were okay, the white bread delicious. I should note that I was unable to finish all the meat and ended up eating a good portion of it the next day for lunch. The meat tasted better the next day. I'm guessing because I didn't take any of the sauce home with me.

There are two major barbecue places in Elgin. Southside Market is the first one you come to when approaching the town from Austin. The second one is Meyers and the Kid is kind of ashamed to admit he's never eaten there so I have nothing to compare Southside to. Both places do a pretty brisk retail business and you can find their wares in most Central Texas grocery stores, so I have tasted the sauce from Meyers and I'm happy to report there's no vinegar there.

Finally, I was a little disappointed to find Southside completely cobbler free. They do have an ice cream bar featuring Blue Bell, but no cobbler to put it on. I'm not sure what the deal is lately, but I've noticed more and more barbecue restaurants without cobbler. As far as I'm concerned this is a crime. If you're serving barbecue you have to serve cobbler. To have one and not the other is like salt without pepper, fall without football or the Kid without the 'cue.

Harmons Bar-B-Q - Cibolo

There is something about pork, that when done right, will make it melt in your mouth. You get the feeling you're no longer consuming regular meat, but instead, tasting something that is usually reserved for those kinds of people you know exist, but who you don't actually know. This is the kind of pork they give you at Harmons.

I can honestly say the pork they serve there is the finest I have ever tasted. Tender and juicy, it made me regret I'd ordered the 3-meat combo and hadn't just asked for a giant plate of this delicious ambrosia. After finishing my generous portion I was a bit disappointed to see my nearly untouched brisket and sausage staring back at me.

This is not to say the brisket and sausage weren't top notch because they were. The brisket was better than the sausage. It too was juicy, although not as succulent as the pork. I also got a bit more fat than I was looking for, but it was easy enough to work around it. As for the sausage it was good. I believe a recurring theme of barbecue eating is that the sausage is almost always the safest bet. I don't recall ever having terrible sausage, but at the same time I can count on one hand the times I have encountered truly memorable sausage.

As for the sides, Harmon's offerings were better than most. I had some potato salad which was fine, but the true highlight was their creamed corn. I realize most creamed corn is pretty much the same - save the kind that comes in a can, that stuff's awful - but Harmon's jazzes theirs up a bit with large bits of cracked pepper. As with the pork, I liked what I tasted and I wished I could have tasted a lot more.

There are folks out there who will tell you really good barbecue does not need any sauce. In fact, I know of restaurants that won't even give you any, figuring putting sauce on the meat they spend days cooking is kind of an insult. Well I've never really understood this point of view. I love BBQ sauce almost as much as the meat. That all changed at Harmons. I ate most of their pork shoulder sauceless, thus I feel I'm in a bad position to give the sauce a fair verdict. I will say that from what I remember it made a nice compliment to the meal.

Harmon's is located in Cibolo, close to Schertz about 20 miles north of San Antonio and maybe 20 miles south of New Braunfels. If you decide to go and start to get the feeling you're getting lost on your way there, don't sweat it, you're probably closer than you think. The old building is located across from a cow pasture in what is one of the two or three buildings that make up 'downtown' Cibolo. It might be out of the way, but it's worth the trip. Believe me, the pigs probably won't thank you, but your taste buds will!

Burnet County Bar-B-Que - Burnet

Okay, there's something I should cop to right away - I love BBQ. I'm guessing you already figured that out, but I figured I should restate the fact before I begin with what's going to get a bit ugly. In fact I like BBQ so much I will pretty much eat it in any form. Even when it's bad, it's still pretty good, thus I can usually swallow what's given me, wash it down with some sweet tea and happily head home. That was not the case at Burnet County Bar-B-Que.

Something that caught my eye as soon as I walked in the restaurant was a sign that read (and I'll paraphrase a bit here) 'we might not have the best BBQ in Texas, but we are friendly.' This sign could not have been more correct. The people behind the counter where friendly, so much so we actually had a little conversation. I would have gladly traded our friendly banter for a decent plate of meat served with little more than a 'harumph' as it was slammed on the table in front of me.

You see, Burnet County Bar-B-Que's food was just plain bad. The Brisket was incredibly tough. In fact it was probably tougher than the first brisket I ever tried to cook myself and that thing was a disaster. To top it off, at least half of my portion was pure fat. I chewed on the meat I was able to cut away from the fat for a few minutes before spitting it out into my napkin.

As I arrived for dinner they were out of ribs, so I was forced to take a 2-meat plate, my other selection being their sausage. The sausage was passable, but (as I said before) it's really hard to screw up sausage. The sauce, on the other hand was a different story. I'm fairly sure it was nothing more than ketchup with a few spices thrown in. It had little flavor and certainly did not leave me wanting more. To make matters worse, half the potatoes in my potato salad were undercooked and the cole slaw was possibly the worst thing on my plate. It tasted like slaw mix that had been soaked in water. Needless to say, after one bite, I did not dare go near that again.

Burnet County Bar-B-Que did have an inordinate number of deserts. I counted 11 on the menu although not one of them was a cobbler. However, my experience with my dinner was enough to stop me from even thinking about desert so I beat a hasty retreat out of there and headed home.

It was really a shame the food here was not better because the place really looked like it should have good BBQ. It's in an old building which looks like it might fall down on you at any time and the walls are stained with smoke. Unfortunately that's not the case. Because the folks who ran the place were so nice I'd like to recommend this spot to you, but there's no way I can do that. In fact, my advice to you if you find yourself in Burnet in need of a good meal, is to head to Storms. You won't be getting any BBQ, but you will get yourself a nice hamburger and save yourself the trouble of trying to chew that brisket.

The legend of the Barbecue Kid

If you grew up in Dallas in the late 1970s then you probably already know the story of the BBQ Kid. A media star by the time he was 8, it was rumored that the Kid's own baptism was catered by Martin's Barbecue in Bryan.

The Kid disappeared sometime after his 10th birthday, gone to parts unknown, most folks figured he was gone for good.

The truth of the matter is the Kid was ripped from the bosom of his mother Texas, forced to move to a strange land called Oregon where it rained a lot and BBQ was nothing more than cooking hamburgers on a grill.

So the Kid grew and he waited, waited for his chance to return. Return to the land of his birth and reconnect with the wonders of the world's finest food.

Almost 30 years later the Kid has indeed resurfaced, ribs in hand, the sauce still smeared across his face and on his t-shirt, just as it was on those oh-so popular billboards. He has returned for one reason and one reason only - to stop the bad and promote the good - meat that is.

The Kid will not be stopped this time. By the time he is done every corner of the state that has a place which deigns to call itself a 'Barbecue' restaurant will be investigated and the Kid's report will be published here.

So let the cry go out to all who claim to be cooking the best brisket in the land. The Kid has returned, hungry and ready to find out just who really can live up to such a bold claim.

It's been a long time.

Let the eating begin.