Back to Taylor for Louie Mueller, where when we arrived
midafternoon one day they were out of pork ribs and had
only one beef rib left (that would be about 40-50 bucks),
so we just got a pound of moist brisket. The bark is as
I remembered, very salty, very peppery, very dark, and
the meat is rich and tender and about as good as any.
As they offer no wine, and I felt like laying off for a
while, Lilli had a Mexican Coke for domestic prices,
and I had not-too-sweet sweet tea. The original original
sauce was less sweet than Taylor Cafe, less salty than at
Stiles Switch, less brothy than John Mueller's, where it
can be drunk as soup, which is fine, because they give you
a pint of it at the upstart's establishment. Not much to
be said about the experience, except that it was extremely
satisfying. Taylor is a wonderful little city.

P.S. This was so good that we got a half pound of fatty
to go, which reheated on the defrost cycle in the hotel
nuker set for half the weight was just about as good as
it had originally been.
--

It was a tough decision among Mayham's or Heart of Texas in
Hutto, or Brotherton's in Pflugerville, but it turned out the
first two were out of business. We decided to get a light
sustenance at the hotel and head down there.

I deliberately underate of the unappetizing Hampton offerings
in anticipation of a delicious meal back in civilization.
An hour after breakfast, such as it was, we found Brotherton's
Black Iron in a grotty-looking strip mall. It was only 95 out,
and people were eating in front - it turns out that inside
was full. The line went pretty fast, and in 15 min we had a
four-meat plate with pinto beans and green chili mac 'n'
cheese. No wine, so I asked the counter lady if we could BYO,
and she said no, but then somebody overrode her and said yes.
So I waited around for a table (the end of a long table
opened up soon, as it was half-past lunch), and sent Lilli
out to the car for a bottle of Rodney Strong Merlot and an
opener. The wine, with its fruit and smoke notes, went really
well with the food, better even than my Shiner Bock.

Our four-meat plate was double moist brisket, boudin, and
two ribs. The beef was both double portion and double moist -
up with Taylor Cafe, a touch below Louie Mueller, and miles
ahead of Stiles Switch. Juicy, tender, just enough fat (on
the low side for me), a deep salty smoky bark, wonderful
beefy flavor. The rub for the ribs was sugar heavy, but the
meat itself was just about perfect. I have a feeling that
the pitmaster, John Brotherton, had closely studied both
Louie Mueller and Vencil Mares, and learned from both.
Boudin was an oddity - in a word, terrible, lots of bland
underseasoned ground pork, a bit of rice, maybe a touch of
liver. It had been cooked by smoking, not a surprise, rather
than the normal steaming. The pintos were chili spiced,
pretty good, but the mac 'n' cheese was totally bland.
Luckily, a pickle bar had jalapenos, and these elevated the
mac 'n' cheese to pretty good and the boudin to acceptable.
I'd say that the brisket and ribs were worthy of the
eminent competition in these parts, and the other things
were a little bland but fixable. The sauce was a thickened
tomato, sweetish, maybe a notch above KC sauces, maybe not.

--
So Liberty Barbecue is a joint venture of the Brotherton
guy and some Round Rock entrepreneur (read high-tech mogul);
it's in downtown Round Rock and so just 2 miles from our
hotel, so why not? Well, Lilli kept making wrong turns, and
it turned out to be over 5 miles away given several U-turns.

When we arrived, happy hour was in full swing with its $3
drafts and $5 frozen margaritas. The temperature was up to
98 or 99, so we took advantage of the 70 inside and some booze.
Lilli's frozen margarita was very frozen despite being very
high in alcohol - I wonder how they do that, probably a 0F
holding pen. I got a 512 pecan porter, an eminent local
product that was just about perfect except for the fact that
it wasn't on happy hour (something that nobody told me, so
I paid $2.50 extra when I could have had yet another Shiner
Bock). The menu was familiar - in fact identical to the one
at Brotherton's except that there the bulk prices were by
the pound and here they were by the quarter. Same rates.

We got brisket and two ribs, no sides. The brisket was not
quite so moist and tender here, but the bark and smoke ring
were the same. The ribs were tenderer, meatier, and saltier.
Pretty comparable, and Lilli attributed both these phenomena
to individual animal variations. The sauce was the same.

Help at both places was friendly and got a decent tip.
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