Day 8 – Eating in and around San Antonio
Miles: 150
Roadfood: San Antonio – Olmos Pharmacy, Schilo’s Deli, Belmont – Goss’s Barbecue, Luling – City Market

I started the day feeling very full from the last few days. Nevertheless I found my way to Olmos Pharmacy in San Antonio for breakfast. This truly a great place to eat. Betty claims that her pancakes are the best in town and she has a certificate to prove it.

These cakes are light and fluffy but have such a very crisp crust. I found this out when I rolled the top one up to put a pat of butter in the middle of my short stack. The top cake actually cracked rather than roll up like most cakes would have. These were very tasty pancakes – and about 10" across.

As you can see from the photo the bacon is as long as the cakes are wide. And this is some thick bacon. And wide. At home, the only place I can find bacon anywhere near this wide as at my local Amish market. And then it is not this large. The bacon was done a bit more than I like, but it was still very tasty.

My mid morning snack was at Goss’s barbecue in Belmont. They were truly surprised to see someone from New Jersey visit them so early in the morning. Goss’s has been in the same building on the same spot for 90 years. It is dark and cool inside. One gets the feeling of what it was like to live in Texas before electricity and air conditioning. The dining room is air conditioned, but is very dark because there are no windows that look directly outside. This must have been a great place to get away from the bright Texas sun during the middle of the work day.

The sliced brisket was good, and I opted to have it with a little barbecue sauce. Goss’s serves a thin but tangy sauce that is an excellent compliment to the meat. Having gone with the sauce, I opted for the side of pinto beans. These beans are slow cooked with salt pork. As you eat the beans the soft little bits of salt pork exude a wonderfully rich flavor as you chew them.

I found one thing at Goss’s that I could not find at any of the other barbecues or restaurants that I have visited here in Texas. They have 8 oz. bottles of Dr. Pepper. These are bottles locally in Texas with cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup. No matter what the bottler says about using syrup instead of corn, the sugar makes a difference.

I arrived at Goss’s very early and am not sure if I got the best they have to offer. The barbecue was good, but not up to the standards I have experienced in the last few days. I would recommend them, but I do want to go back and try them again during a meal period.

Next it was up the road about 20 miles to Luling for the City Market.

I was still stuffed from yesterday and my two meals already this morning. I know, I know, don’t eat it all. I don’t – but I guess I still eat too much. So to kill a little time and hopefully make room for more food I walked up and down the main drag for a while. I discovered that Luling was founded as a railroad town in the 1870s and had a reputation as a wild town. Gradually law and order prevailed and Luling became a respectable place to live. It is still on a main railrod line and several trains went through while I was there.

Next, in 1922, oil was discovered in the area and Luling was the center of an oil boom. At one time there were over 150 oil wells within the city limits. I noticed that there was one still pumping less than half a block from City Market.

What can I say about City Market that has not been said before. If this is not the best barbecue I will find on the trip, I can’t wait to find out what will be. All of the pitmasters,21,203894.037,1,7586,66.239.79.2
203930,203894,203894,2006-05-23 19:10:52,RE: NJ to TX In Search of TX BBQ”