You have to go to Cooper’s. It’s a true experience. Their huge smokers are outside. The pitmasters don’t look like butchers, rather like they’ve spent time on the range. The Texas of my imagination was found there. I went to City Market at about 6 in the morning and was also blown away. Unfortunately I only ordered a half pound to leave room for the Lockhart trio. Now I regret it a bit. After my long tour of the Austin/ Hill Country area, Cooper’s was my favorite by far. The meat, location, customers, and overall vibe cannot be matched.

Akavar- I am a jersey guy from Matawan that now lives in West Tn. Your trip info and pictures are outstanding.If you ever get down towards Memphis I can provide with a list of twenty top notch barbecue establishments within an hour of one another. They will be fantastic and will give you a taste of pork smoked just right. Where in Jersey are you from?

quote:

Originally posted by Akavar

Bushie –

I am also going to try to run over to Cooper’s in Llano

If you go to Cooper’s, you should also stop at a place right up the street, Inman’s Kitchen, to sample some of their fresh signature Smoked Turkey Sausage. It’s unique and delicious.

Akavar –

We have our route pretty well set. We head from Tampa up to the Gulf Coast, heading west on 10; turn north at Lafayette up through Shreveport; west on 20 into the Dallas/FW area; northwest from there through Wichita Falls; pick up 40 east of Amarillo and follow that on into Albuquerque. So far we know we will be stopping somewhere from Mobile to Biloxi; planning on lunch the next day in Lafayette; staying in Shreveport; planning on lunch in Fort Worth, probably Angelo’s or Massey’s. It’s the leg from Fort Worth up to Amarillo via Wichita Falls that I’m not finding much on. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I love home fries, sometimes called German potatoes, and those pictured at Schilo’s look pretty good. But you dismissed them. Were they really that ordinary?

Akavar, you are an inspiration. I’ve just signed up here although I’ve been a fan of the Sterns for years. I’m about to take off on a trip with my father from Tampa to Albuquerque and we’re planning our stops around roadfood. I was thinking of doing a trip log like yours and will probably start a new topic here – so far I haven’t found any good suggestions for one leg of our trip.

Thanks so much for the great posts and photos – I hope we have as much fun!

Akavar, if you swing up through Round Top to eat at Royer’s (which would be a great thing to do), stop in Brenham to tour the Blue Bell ice cream plant.

Also, since you’ll be near, I highly recommend driving up to Huntsville to eat BBQ at the New Zion Missionary Baptist Church. Trust me.

2601 Montgomery Rd
Huntsville, TX
(936) 295-2349

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”

I just wish I could find somewhere here in MI that didn’t pre-sauce the meat…

What great pictures! I’ll have to bug my friend Paul in Dallas for an invite so I can check out some of these places for myself or wait until Bushie hosts a Roadfood get together!

Alice