A challenger to Salt Lick - the crowd rules

Take a short (45 minute) ride down 183 from Austin to Lockhart and you can have the "best" barbecue in Texas. This is where the venerable Black's (aka Blackie's) exists. Lockhart is home to three of the most-mentioned barbecue restaurants in Texas (Blackie's, Smittie's, and the Kreuz Market). Chisholm Trail also is in Lockhart.

Black's advertises itself as open 8 days a week. This hyperbole seems a bit out of joint with the extremely careful description as the "Oldest major BBQ house in Texas continuously owned by the same family".

We had ribs, brisket, garlic sausage, and jalapeno cheese sausage, along with a variety of sides. My personal opinion was that they did a great job. The rest of the party of four maintained that Salt Lick still wins, and is closer to Austin to boot. The others found fault with the sausage (too "grainy", a quality I like because it means that the contents are meat, not cereal or fat). They also thought that Salt Lick's brisket was better, because it had a better smoke penetration. I really liked Black's dark crust on the brisket, but thought that it was a little dried out. All in all, good and worth the trip, but maybe not the best. The quest goes on!

The experience is quite a bit different than Salt Lick, as well. The inside of Black's is a down-home family dining room, rather than a bunk-house sort of thing. The tables are covered with plain cloths. The walls have a series of steer and deer horns. You help yourself to "fixins", then order meat by the pound (brisket, pork, turkey, etc.) or portion (sausage).

Black's was deserted on an early Monday evening. Lockhart was, as well. The town is kind of picturesque, though. There is a beautiful court house building right in a main square.

The other streets are wide with occasionally significant buildings. This is a view back toward Black's along Main Street. Lots of diagonal parking here. Very hard to imagine a traffic jam. Sometimes it must be hard to imagine another car!

Back to Austin, fully stuffed and arguing about the qualities of barbecue.

McKinney Falls State Park, Texas

This is another of Texas' spectacular limestone falls parks. This one has two falls. We visited the lower falls first. The approach is a limestone plain, full of evidence that it has been part of the flow at times. It is multi-level, with lots of little scoops where water swirled and eroded the stone.

As you get closer to the falls, the river starts to make itself evident. It is quite beautiful, even in a dry spell. Apparently it takes just a couple of inches of rain to make it spectacular.

The river is alive with wildlife. Here is a turtle condo. Plenty are in the water, as well.

There is not much flow right now, so you begin to see little trickles in the deeper channels. They turn out to be all the falls you get.

The pools live on, though. This is the pool below the lower "falls".

There were a few people there, but not too many.

At the upper falls there is a shallow pool at the top.

The same kind of rivulets make all the falls there is here, too.

There is more wear in the limestone, though. There are a couple of spots where people can climb right up from the water through the holes.

Both pools are lined with gorgeous cypresses. We saw these before at Hamilton Pool.

We made a brief stop at the visitor center, where we met a couple volunteering at the park. They turned out to be itinerant RV'ers. It has been their custom for six years to stop off in various parks and volunteer in return for camping there. They stay a couple of months or longer, moving on when the urge hits. The volunteer work is not burdensome, about 20 hours a week each. Since they have a Golden Age Passport, they have many places where they camp inexpensively. They told us about an organization called Escapees. This group helps RV people to get their mail. They also run a few camping spots.

Austin - Last day blues

Well, it had to come (the last day of our time with H and D in Austin). Still, it was a very good. We started off at 1PM or so, driving over to the Alamo Draft House on the south end of Lamar. This is a new take on theaters, at least for me (I don't go to see movies very much). The ADH is a theater that serves meals and/or refreshments with the movies. As in, draft beer, nacho chips and queso, or a full-out meal. We hadn't had lunch so we had a meal. It was pretty good. The only changes necessary are an added shelf in front of the row of seats (for the food) and a space behind each row to allow waiters to come through unobtrusively to take orders and serve. Amazingly, it worked quite well. Even payments by credit card seem fairly smooth. Go figure!

Later that night we had dinner at Wink, up on northern Lamar in the middle of town. I was still so stuffed from lunch that I couldn't eat very much. Maybe that was good; the food is quite expensive, and the portions are realistic in a very French way. This is a small restaurant run by people who care about their food. Everything was delicious and the presentations were also lovely. This dinner was a little bittersweet - it was the last night of a very entertaining and busy vacation with H and D.

After dinner we went to see another phenomenon in Austin - Mrs. Johnson's Bakery. This is on Airport Boulevard just to the west of 45th Street (north Austin). At 8 or 9PM they start baking donuts and don't stop until morning. When the red "Donut" light is on (underneath the main sign), the donuts are ready.

There is a drive-through that had several cars in line when we were there. Donuts, you say, so what about donuts? Well, I don't usually like glazed donuts, and I almost never buy donuts. But a taste will change your mind; these are like a taste of a sweet cloud. They are the lightest I have ever tasted! Wow!


















Here is a look at the goods. There is lots of variety from which to choose, more than shows here. We bought a half dozen, but could not eat them. So we were supposed to have some in the morning. We completely forgot until we were almost to Houston, headed east. Oh, no!

Here are some of the cutters that cut them from the dough. The holes are on the other roller (not shown here). This is the first time I have seen the cutters. This is clearly a big production operation. The people are really nice and give out extras for tasting.

Austin - Things are slowing down

We're reaching the end of our visit here. We'll continue along the Gulf Coast over to Florida next. We have had a great time seeing the sights and testing the restaurants of Austin with H and D.

Yesterday we visited Shady Grove, a restaurant "styled after the architecture made popular by the State Parks built in th 40's." This is a low, limestone building with a patio that is its focus.

Most people sit out on the patio, in the shade of a huge live oak. Dappled sunlight and a breeze offset the heat.

There is a bit of old, strange decor here, to go along with the memories of the early days of the restaurants. On the website you can see a picture of the "hippy trailer", an AirStream that you can use to wait for your service.

Lunch was pretty good. Nothing unusual on the menu except maybe for the green chili fries. This turned out to be really good; it was kind of plain looking, but very tasty.

There is a lot of good local beer in Austin. This place is in keeping, with several local brews on tap. After we finished, we took a little drive through the neighborhoods looking at condos, etc., for sale. Real estate is not particularly a bargain here, unless you consider the city, its parks, restaurants, music, and liveliness!

Austin - And she gives it back nicely

E's leftovers included a burnt end and couple of sausage slices. She very graciously suggested that I have the rest for lunch, topped with cole slaw. That's the sweet, selfless, paragon of virtue that I have known for lo, these many years!

All is forgiven; I'm glad I didn't "fork" you last night.

Austin - A Zilker Park Day

Today has been a Zilker Park day. We headed over before lunch to a bit of grilling, which to H and D always mean charcoal grilling.

But first, a bunch of piggage from the former users had to be cleaned up (ick).

Then, under the excellent hand of D, the burgers were perfectly done.

After which the hand of H adorned each lovely burger with cheese.

They went down pretty much instantaneously, to be followed by roasted corn.

Then over to the pool (spring-fed, always 68F) to cool off and enjoy the shade of a huge live oak tree.

And some loafing in the water. It was really nice.

Austin - Kerbey Lane Cafe and Symphony on the Green

Lunch at the Kerbey Lane Cafe was pretty good. This is a kind of a diner, but not in the sense of the rest of the nation. The food is kind of southwestern. We had a 25 minute wait or so before getting a table. The placed was pretty packed. Apparently there are 4 of these, all open 24-7. It's a pretty good franchise.

This was such a big lunch that we had a small picnic for dinner while waiting for the Symphony on the Green to start. This is a summer institution where the Austin Symphony plays each week for free in the open air. This week was a brass quintet with a selection of baroque and classical short pieces. The harmony was wonderful. The shortness of the pieces and the explanations by the quintet members kept the crowd in touch. The setting was the Long Center for the Performing Arts, south of Town Lake.


















Our picnic included the goat cheese from yesterday's farmer's market, along with fresh fruit.


















Some had Hooters to Go, from down the street.

As usual, the crowd included dogs.


















The quintet members played trumpet, cornet, French horn, trombone, and tuba, as well as this (some strange name I forgot - oops, H remembered it is a cornetto).

The story of the night was the kids. First one, then another, then more kids found themselves drawn to this surface. They all danced, wiggled, strutted, giggled, and generally had a good time.

The kids were gorgeous!

As the evening drew on, the light became slanted and rosy, making the kids even more beautiful. What a future Austin has!

Austin - Farmer's market, Nature Center, The Velveeta Room

We tried out the Sunset Valley farmer's market today. This is in a big stadium parking lot south of town. This place had a lot of variety, but somehow the energy was missing. There were plenty of people, but no joy. Personally, I think the missing ingredient is music. We bought nothing here, even though the food looked quite good.

Then we went back to the Austin farmer's market. The difference was striking. Even though there were no races going on, the vibe was much better. You could see it in peoples faces. There was music, including this guy promoting golocalaustin.com.

We went back to the bread booth and on to a goat cheese booth. The quality is really good. People clearly care about what they produce and sell.

There are lots of kids and babies around. Here is one safe in her Dad's arms.

Here are the prize orchids of the day. I can't believe anyone would let go of these. They are beautiful!

Then we were off on a hike to the Nature Center. This is a really nice facility, much more involved and bigger than we had imagined.

There are really lots of things to do. There is even a camp and daycare on the site.

There are some wild animals caged here, including this coyote. Some are donated. There is a pretty good collection, but it is always sad to me to see animals with their movement constricted.

 There are trails, exhibit buildings, and several outdoor play/learning areas. This is one devoted to teaching kids about paleontology. Apparently there are some items in the limestone around Austin? There are shaded gravel/sand pits with shovels and tools so the kids can experience digging for fossils.

Again there are a series of water features, starting with this pool and water fall, then cascading down a stream into another pool.

My favorite lilies are here, too.

From the nature center we hiked over to the Zilker Pool to have a soda and cool off. Then it was back up the Barton Springs path, dragging our old asses.

Around 9PM or so we went over to the Velveeta Room, a local comedy club. After a couple of starting acts we got to hear Mario DeGeorgio. He is a New Jersey guy transplanted to Austin. We were lucky to hear him, as he tours a lot. This guy is terrific. He is obviously very bright, and mixes a lot into his act. There is lots of subtlety, word play, and repetition. As we left, we bought his book and howdied him. Apparently his parents live close to us. H tells us that he left NJ in disgust. He told us he is really happy here in Austin.

Austin - Lamberts and Atash at the Bob Bullock

Lamberts is an upscale barbecue restaurant. That said, the food, music, and decor all support this place beautifully.

The inside appears to be an old warehouse. It is open to a 2 story ceiling, with a staircase leading to a mezzanine level. The place is comfortable, with appointments that are elegant without being overstated. The mirrors allow even the chair side guests a view of the inner workings of the kitchen.

Here is the banquette extending down the whole restaurant. We had a 6PM reservation, so the place had not yet filled. At 7 it went kind of crazy. A live band started playing upstairs, and people streamed in, filling all the tables. When we asked for a reservation it was either 6PM or 9PM. This is a popular place!

Again, no food porn. The food was really good. Everyone had some sort of barbecue, though the restaurant also offers grilled meat items. The sides were beautifully prepared, fresh, and delicious (haricot vert with almonds and butter, and asparagus). Lamberts offers local and foreign beers on tap. All were great. This was a really enjoyable dinner. Texas barbecue is always good, but this was very special.

After dinner we went over to the Bob Bullock Museum again, to see Atash, a strangely populated band. The focus is on middle eastern music, but the group is composed of white, black, East Indian, and middle eastern people. There are fiddles, a string bass, a pot drum, a regular percussionist, a sitar, and more. The music is really engaging.

















The crowd was mixed, with lots of families, students, and dogs (as usual). The crowd really got into the music. Several people got up and danced in a middle eastern manner.

Children danced and wiggled all night long. They would run away and play with the new puppy, then circle back to check in with their Mom or Dad.

















Then the obligatory picture of the Capitol from the middle of the street with E admonishing me not to get run over. It's really an impressive building and deserves pictures.