Roadfood_ Revised Edition - Jane Stern [240]
Southside Market
1212 Hwy. 290
512–281–4650
Elgin, TX
LD | $
In the geography of American barbecue, no town name is more sacred than Elgin (with a hard G, as in “gut”), known for hot beef sausages (known as “hot guts”) since the Southside Market opened in 1882. Elgin sausage is renowned throughout the west, and the old Market, a creaky, sawdust-floored store downtown, was a beacon for beef lovers through most of the twentieth century.
About ten years ago, the Southside Market moved from its original location to a huge, spanking clean, barn-size building on the outskirts of town. While the new place lacks the charm of a well-aged and charmingly dilapidated house of barbecue, it still has a working butcher shop on premises, and it still smokes sausage and beef brisket the old-fashioned way, in big iron pits over slow-smoldering post oak wood. Order your meat by the pound at the pit and carry it to a table.
The sausage is spectacular—vividly spiced, taut, and moist beyond description, but don’t ignore the sliced beef; it too is luscious and flavorful, needing no companion other than a few slices of white bread just to mop up its juices.
Threadgill’s
6416 N. Lamar Blvd.
512–451–5440
Austin, TX
LD | $
In the years we’ve been eating at Threadgill’s, portions have gotten noticeably smaller. Now one full meal is big enough to feed only two or three people. Despite downsizing, this boisterous culinary giant of a restaurant remains a bonanza for endless appetites, particularly for those of us smitten with southern and/or Texas cooking.
The menu features chicken-fried everything (steak, pork chops, even chicken) as well as a long list of vegetables, from virtuous (okra with tomatoes) to wicked (garlic cheese grits). Many hungry customers come to Threadgill’s to eat only vegetables, accompanied by big squares of warm corn bread. If you choose right, a meal of five vegetable selections is, in fact, every bit as satisfying as a few pounds of beef. Among the excellent choices from the regular list are the San Antonio squash casserole, turnip greens, and definitive crisp-fried okra.
As for entrees, we tend to pull out all stops and go for chicken-fried steak or an impossibly rich plate of fried chicken livers with cream gravy. Those of lighter appetite can choose a very handsome (albeit quite gigantic) Caesar salad piled with grilled chicken, and there are a couple of un-fried fish items. Bottom line: this is not a great place for meager appetites.
Aside from big, good food, Threadgill’s is worth visiting for its history (the Austin music scene started here; Janis Joplin used to be a waitress) and its Texas-to-the-max ambience. Although the original beer joint/gas station that Kenneth Threadgill opened in 1933 burned down twice and virtually none of it remains, the restaurant today has the feel of a genuine antique: creaky wood floors, wood-slat ceilings, and a devil-may-care floor plan that gives the impression that the sprawling space just kept growing through the years. The main decorative motif is beer signs.
Tom and Bingo’s
3006 34th St.
806–799–1514
Lubbock, TX
L | $
A wood-slat shack surrounded by a parking lot, Tom and Bingo’s serves heaps of tender, moist beef brisket in a bun. That’s the menu. Plus chips. And, of course pickles and onions and relish, if you’d like. Sauce is available, and it’s good, but hardly necessary to enhance the taste of this succulent meat. Seating is spare, along benches that line the walls.
Whole briskets are available if you order them in advance, and Meg Butler, who tipped us off to this place, reported that she and her husband shared four sandwiches at Tom and Bingo’s. They were so enthusiastic that they bought one to carry home. “Security screeners