Lockhart, The Barbecue Capital of Texas

BBQ Plate at Chisholm Trail

I didn't think I'd ever been to Lockhart, but driving through, I get a mysterious sense of déjà-vu. Curious. Anyway, as I'm positive it's my first time eating barbecue in Lockhart, my first taste comes at Chisholm Trail. My mouth started watering even before we arrived at the restaurant. This air in this town just smells of smokehouse barbecue.

I ordered the 3-meat combo platter. You get your choice of three sides, sausage, sliced beef, and your choice of either pork or beef ribs. For the sides, I chose mac-and-cheese, potato salad, and fried squash. The potato salad was blah, mac-and-cheese was okay, but the fried squash was a nice departure from your usual BBQ sides. I also slurped down many a glass of their yummy sweet tea.

Now to the most important part: the meat. The sliced beef was very tender, but also seemed to be very fatty. I know that fat=moisture, but I have had moist sliced beef with considerably less amounts of fat. For the ribs, I chose pork since beef ribs are the norm in Texas. Pork ribs are a bit more meaty than the beef, and these had a nice smoke ring. Overall, good. The sausage, I hated. As soon as I sliced into it, it just completely fell apart, crumbled onto the plate. I may not know much about barbecue, but I know sausage doesn't do that. It's almost as if the casings were stuffed with cooked, crumbled sausage that had nothing to bind it together.

Dessert was peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream. The cobbler was so hot, the ice cream was soup by the time it reached our table. Probably had to do with the fact that they used soft-serve ice cream. The cobbler was okay. I preferred the crisp, flaky crust to the actual peaches, which were on the tart side. We've not had a good peach season in Central Texas because of the drought. But they probably used canned peaches anyway.

Lockhart Barbecue, Take 1: Mediocre. Fried squash and sweet tea were more of a standout than the meat. Salt Lick (my favorite in Austin thus far) 1, Lockhart 0.