Lockhart Smokehouse, Plano outpost
This place is dear to my heart, partially
because the food is good, partially because
it's right on the train that goes near Lilli's
favorite hotel and more importantly the airport.
Also it's open pretty late.

We got our usual order, fatty brisket, no
sides, This was excellent but not so excellent
as it had been before: though the guy tried to
cut the slices from right where the fatty part
begins, he missed by just a little, so we got
some nice and moist and some not so moist. The
flavor, as usual, was great, nicely almost but
not quite oversmoked, nicely almost but not
quite oversalted. Most of it went down without
sauce, but one slice required the assistance
of a pretty good, fairly spicy tomato-based
one. I was still a bit peckish, so I got a
half pint of (!) green chile mac'n'cheese; this
was very, very spicy and very, very Velveetish;
I appreciated the former more than the latter.

The beer I ordered, a double bock from Wild Acre
called Billy Jenkins Birthday, was pretty nice,
bizarrely alcoholic at 9% with no hops to speak
of. Chocolate caramel flavor that didn't go with
the food, so I left it half finished and went for
Sip-n-Go, a supposedly German-style lager from the
same brewery, also negligibly hopped but made clean,
so it was okay to blunt the fire of the mac'n'cheese.
After I finished my food, I finished the bock.

Off to Le Meridien, accessible by light rail to the
bus. We got off at the appropriate station in the
gloaming, but Lilli immediately spotted a stop with
the right number on the sign! so we hopped the first
bus that came, only to find out presently that it was
going in the wrong direction. Half an hour wasted, we
arrived where we started. The bus then continued on
to our destination, arriving 20 minutes later. Oh,
well, live and learn. The hotel was impressed with
Lilli's eminence, so we were offered a big corner
suite, breakfast, and late checkout. The suite was
terrific, except that the (large) party directly
above had a monster noisy altercation that lasted
well into the night.

Breakfast in the morning was slightly nicer than the
usual, still not superdelicious, with cardboard bacon
and sponge sausages. Omelets made to order. The best
things were the fresh orange juice, the whole grapefruit,
and quite good chocolate, marzipan, and custard Danish.
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