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.

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 - 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.

Austin - Chuy's, Umlauf Sculpture Garden, Los Lonely Boys concert

This was an interesting day. We started the exploration at Chuy's (the site of the Bush girls problems). This is an old TexMex restaurant that is really busy. We had a 20 minute wait before getting in. The food was great, but the wait outside let us see some things we would not have otherwise.

This guy apparently lives in the gutter. He spent all his time popping up, singing, then ducking down under some kind of guard in the gutter.

The disparity in size between these two dogs just made us laugh.

After lunch we went over to the Umlauf Sculpture Gardens, a short drive down Barton Spring Road. Like some other Austin parks, this one had a focus on water. It started with this hillside cascade at the entrance to the site. The admission is $3.50 for adults here.

The water descends through pools and streams to a lily pond at the bottom of the site. This is quite a relaxing place, with lots of shade and places to sit and think. The sculpture is pervasive and yet not intrusive. It seems that a very thoughtful designer was part of the planning. Note here the lovers in the middle of the lilies.

The site has a fairly religious main focus. Here is a John the Baptist in bronze. Other sculptures range from a medallion to a crucifix to a Pieta.

The materials vary, with some cast stone also, as in this graceful mother and child piece.

The other focus seems to be whimsy. It started with this piece near the entrance.

It continued with a part of the garden that contained only animals. This was my favorite.

Then it continued with this diving boy, which paired whimsy with water at the edge of the lily pond.

I have always loved lilies.

And this lovely creature, too, with her new haircut.

We sat on the patio for a while just enjoying the breezes and views.

We ended the day at the Los Lonely Boys concert. This was one of the free concerts going on all summer in Zilker Park. It was a bit of an adventure. We took the bus down to the park. The traffic was so backed up that it took about an hour to go 3 minutes worth of bus ride. It gave us a chance to hear (without trying) that the large, pale lady in the next seats did not consider herself pale (rather "fair"). She also let us know that as she got older she got hornier, and that she had several people with whom she had "fun". And that she "trained" for the Austin Keep it Weird 5K race. Apparently it was hot here for that race (imagine).

So, the Los Lonely Boys are a fairly local, but well traveled, rock group. The crowd was pretty amazingly big. It was really a family thing. People brought coolers, chairs, blankets, beer, children, dogs (pretty much everything they had in the house). A certain amount of illicit substance was being smoked. The music was really good, but we sat so far away the music was a little indistinct. Good though, enough to get people boogying. I had a barbecued beef sandwich from Salt Lick. It was really good. We should visit.

Austin - Yesterday adventures

Saturday is the Austin Farmer's Market day. This is held in the middle of town (on 4th and Guadelupe - Republic Park). The focus is on organic food. Apparently there are a lot of small farms around Austin devoted to making good food.



































 The produce is top-notch.

There are also cheese and bread makers. We took the loaf closest to the camera home with us. It was very good, whole wheat, and well-baked (even bubbles, good crumb, sesame on top).

For kids and adults there is a bit of entertainment. Here are the finishers of Heat 1 of the zucchini races. This ends the age-old question: "Does a human get both feet off the ground when galloping?" Note the zucchini batons in hand.

There is quite a bit of music, too. These guys were playing a fine country blue-grass set.

This young lady was hawking something by walking up and down, but I did not catch exactly what it was. She was obliging for a picture. (She actually thanked me!)

There was a little something for every one. Here is a store with Chinese lettering on the boxes. We know not what is inside.

Then we were off to the Bob Bullock Museum and the Story of Texas. This is a terrific museum, with a couple of movie theaters. We saw the Star of Destiny, a story of the Texas spirit. The seats rumbled with the thunder and lightening, and we were misted during the Galveston Hurricane part of the presentation. Sam Houston (or the actor playing him) sounded suspiciously like George W. Bush.

In the middle of the atrium is this huge inlay with a variety of the historical features of Texas' history.

The building itself is quite a monument.

















It seems you can only get a decent picture of the Texas Capitol from the middle of a huge street. Careful!

For din we went to the Iron Works. This is Texas barbecue at its best. Iron Works is in a galvanized tin building that used to be a blacksmith shop. Some of the tools are still inside. The place is raw, simple, and makes outrageously good bar-b-que, Texas style. That means slooooow cooking, smoke, and really good quality meat. No fat and gristle here. They serve up a plate cheap, $7-9 with potato salad, beans, a slice of Texas sweet onion, some  bread, and all the jalapenos you can stand. Order at the counter, put it together with a Dos Equis or a Shiner Bock, and it's close to heaven. The meat is smoky, tender, darkened on the outside, and unsauced (unless you do it). Brisket, pork ribs, chicken, sausage, and more are available. Like much of Austin, this is close to the green belt. It is a couple of blocks from Town Lake/Lady Bird Lake/Lake Austin, and right next to Waller creek that winds alongside a walkway down through Austin to the lake. It is cool and shaded by the trees, some of which grow up through the porch roof.