Our BBQ pilgrimage concludes at Smitty's and Black's

For my regulars, excuse me as I wander WAY off topic for this week as I recount my BBQ pilgrimage to Lockhart, TX. I promise I'll return to my healthier ways quite soon!

Unfortunately for us (and for him) my pal Rudy had to jet back to Atlanta for work. In the spirit of our trip, we carried on without him, although he was with us in spirit.

For our second day of the pilgrimage, my buds and I went back to Lockhart with the mission of rounding out our trip with not one, but two destinations for lunch. The first of these was Smitty's Market, proclaimed the best barbecue place in the world in the article that inspired this whole crazy trip.

I can see why. The place is smack dab in the middle of historic Lockhart, and the soot-lined walls of the pit room are testament to decades of smoked beef and sausage. This place was considerably smaller than the cavernous Kreuz Market and much more authentic.

When ordering at these places even the simple menu can be daunting. What is a traveler to do? I figured out that the best thing to do is to watch the pits for a few minutes before ordering. Chances are that one of everything will be served before it's your turn so you'll get to see what looks good. At this stop, my buddies and I exchanged approving glances at the brisket and the beautiful pork ribs. Smitty's serves barbecued pork chops that were simply too huge to describe here. I wanted to get one but quickly realized I wasn't man enough to eat it. It'll have to wait for the next trip to Lockhart...

Now familiar with the routine, I hustled up to the counter and ordered up a pound of brisket, a pound of beef shoulder, 4 ribs and a single ring of sausage (the others opted out). This is a much more manageable quantity than the haul my hungry stomach thought it could eat the day before!

If you look around my huge cranium below, you'll spot the familiar chopping block. This massive block is so well seasoned with smokey barbecue fat that I'm sure they could slice it up and serve it for $15 a pound and have people lined up out the door to eat it!

With the benefit of much better lighting, I was able to snap a much better shot of our bounty. Notice the delicate smoke ring around the beef, the deep black-mahogany bark. Of course, there was no sauce on the ribs and no forks to be found! Oh, and we've now diversified into two varieties of Shiner beer and have broadened our horizons by adding crackers to the party.

Once my pre-meal photo session had past, we assaulted the stash of barbecue. Our first reaction was that the brisket, while still spectacular, just wasn't as good as the fare at Kreuz. It seemed a little too tough and didn't have the same bite as our previous day's brisket. Before I write another word, let me just say that this is a relative comparison, and I've read that on any given day each place could be slightly better than the other. This isn't an industrial monstrosity like the "BBQ" McRib. This is the real deal, and every batch is a little different.

That being said, my friend Mark and I dove into our shared link of sausage. Whoa nelly, this was the bee's knees! Any deficiency in our brisket was quickly forgotten as we swooned over our sausage. Perfect texture (ground and stuffed wonderfully), perfect flavor(real smoke, pork and pepper), and cooked just right! This has revolutionized my whole outlook on sausage. I am a changed man.

There was a similar reaction from the group concerning the pork ribs. I never new ribs could be so flavorful, so succulent. The meat was moist and just came right off the bone. I just wished we'd ordered more!

If Smitty's and Kreuz seem similar, that's because they're from the same genetic code. In what appears to be one of barbecue's great feuds, the two restaurants started as the Kreuz Market located in what is now Smitty's Market in downtown Lockhart. The exact details of the split are mostly relegated to the history books, but the result is two subtly but importantly distinctive and sensational restaurants located in close proximity. Tough for the Schmidt family, awesome for us!

Our final official stop on the pilgrimage was to Black's Barbecue, famous for it's longevity and for it's most famous fan, Lyndon Johnson. He reportedly was a huge fan of their sausage. Being completely stuffed from eating at Smitty's, our haul at Blacks was limited to a sampling of brisket, sausage and chicken.

Honestly, I still think preferred Kreuz's brisket and Smitty's sausage to their peers at Black's. Again I must say that these restaurants are giants in the world of Texas barbecue, and would compare favorably to any other joint on the planet. It's also not fair being last on our list because at that point my standards had been so ridiculously inflated that if Jesus himself saw fit to turn beef to barbecue, I'd probably wrinkle my nose at the result.

Perhaps I was also swayed by being in a separate room from the smokers. I missed the sensation of walking right into where everything happens.

Still, Black's was still my second favorite brisket and did feature very excellent barbecue chicken, which was curiously absent from the menus at our other two stops. In comparison, I have come to realize that my own creations are overseasoned and oversmoked. I think I'll dial it down a bit in the future.

We finished our meal, and sat back in our chairs quietly contemplating our two day feast. Just like that, our last mouthful of barbecue was consumed and we turned around and trekked home.

Next - In closing, a few comments...