Roadfood_ Revised Edition - Jane Stern [233]
Goode Co.’s fame is well deserved, especially for its brisket. This long-smoked meat is velvet-soft and radiant with essential beef flavor. It is so moist and delicious that sauce is superfluous, although Goode Co. does offer fairly spicy red stuff to pour on it if you wish. You can get this beef as part of a platter with superb, slightly sweet baked beans, potato salad, and jambalaya, or you can have it in a sandwich. While blah bread is de rigueur in most great barbecue parlors, Goode Co. offers a fantastic alternative: thick slices of fresh, soft jalapeño corn bread that makes a first-rate mitt for the smoky beef.
Other than brisket, the smoke-pit menu lists Czech sausage, pork sausage, lean pork ribs, ham, chicken, sweet water duck, spicy pork, turkey breast, and turkey sausage. The pecan pie served for dessert is legendary.
Mesquite, pecan, and oak wood are available by the bundle, in chunks or logs, for do-it-yourselfers to take home.
H&H Car Wash and Coffee Shop
701 E. Yandel Dr.
915–533–1144
El Paso, TX
BL | $
If you are hungry and your car is dusty from traveling Southwest roads, the place to go is the H&H Car Wash and Coffee Shop, where table seats in the little joint afford a view of your vehicle being scrubbed and dried. We prefer counter stools with a vista of chiles relleños getting battered and fried and huevos rancheros being topped with a curious buttery gravy flecked with onions and hot peppers. Artimisa, who has been a waitress here for years, frequently conjures up her own special salsa which capsicum addicts know to request. “It will hurt you,” warns proprietor Kenny Haddad, who offers curious visitors a few spoonfuls in a saucer. It is flecked with seeds and pod membrane (the hottest parts) and glistens seductively. Artemisa, who is normally a stern sort of person, broke into a broad grin when she watched us wipe the last of it up with warm tortillas, then wipe the beads of perspiration from our brow with napkins.
Not everything posted on H&H wall menu is four-alarm. You can eat ordinary eggs for breakfast or a hamburger for lunch (the café closes at 3:00 P.M.). Burritos are available seven ways: stuffed with chile relleños, egg and chorizo sausage, picadillo, red chile, green chile, carne picada, or beans. Specials include chicken mole, red and green enchiladas, and—always on Saturday—menudo, the tripe and hominy stew renowned for its power to cure a hangover.
Hospitality at the well-worn cook shop is enchanting. If you speak Spanish, so much the better: you will understand the nuances of the chatter. But if, like us, you are limited to English, you will still be part of the action. The day we first visited, many years ago, we were wearing ten-gallon hats, so we soon became known to one and all as the cowboys. “Vaqueros,” called a waitress as we headed out the door, “Vaya con dios.” With our car newly cleaned and the radio tuned to the rollicking Mexican polka rhythms of Tejano music, we vamoosed north along the Rio Grande.
Hill Country Cupboard
Hwy. 281
830–868–4625
Johnson City, TX
BLD | $
Like Diogenes searching for an honest man, we are forever on the lookout for the perfect chicken-fried steak. We’ve found many excellent ones (and too many mediocre ones); one of the finest anywhere is served at the Hill Country Cupboard. This big barn of a restaurant claims to serve the world’s best. Two sizes are available: regular and large, the latter as big as its plate. Neither requires a knife; a fork will crack through a golden brown crust that is rich and well-spiced, a perfect complement to the tender beef inside. Alongside the slab of crusty protein comes a great glob of skin-on mashed potatoes; and of course, thick white gravy blankets the whole shebang.
Beyond chicken-fried steak, Hill Country Cupboard has a full menu of southwest eats: barbecued beef, sausage, turkey, and ribs, catfish fillets, and grilled chicken with jalapeño cheese sauce. There are even salads, available topped