Lunch at Stubbs BBQ or A Brush With Mediocrity So with all this talk of BBQ, Roberta and I made plans to check out Louie Mueller's in Taylor: it's relatively close, it's rated highly by almost everyone (including _Texas Monthly_)...we had to ask ourselves "how have we managed to _avoid_ eating there for so long?" Well, we found part of the answer: because we're not earlybirds. When I called and asked for directions at 12:45pm, the fellow on the other end asked me where I was coming from, I said "Austin", he said "forget it; on Saturdays we sell out at about 1 o'clock". *sigh* So we went to Stubbs (at 801 Red River) instead, it being another BBQ joint that we'd been meaning to try out for awhile. It's a nice-looking old place (in one corner is an award for "creative adaptation" they received for re-using an old building), and given the rather oppressive afternoon heat, we were happy to find that Stubbs is well air-conditioned. But the food is the important part. And, sad to say, while we like their BBQ sauce, the food at Stubbs isn't anything to get excited about. The menu is about what you'd expect at a BBQ joint: sausage, brisket, pork and beef ribs, and chicken, served as plates or sandwiches. One unusual feature is the large number of sides to choose from; I didn't count but there must be 12 or 15 of them. Roberta had the BBQ chicken with sides of potato salad and green beans. It was a nice-sized half chicken, but while the dark meat was tender and moist, the white meat was very dry. Overall, it didn't really have a good BBQ flavor and wasn't anything special. Ditto for the potato salad. The green beans, however, were really excellent, cooked in bacon grease and full of flavor. Ever the optimist, I had the "Stubbs Major": 3 meats (I chose sausage, beef ribs, and pork ribs) and 3 sides (fried okra, french fries, and cole slaw). I received a plate containing the sides plus a plate with 1 sausage link, 1 meager pork rib, and 1 short, dry beef rib. Is it so wrong of me, when I drop $8.50 on an item called the "Major", to expect a plate piled high with mountainous quantities of food? Instead I got a platter that had about a 1-to-3 ratio of food to exposed plate surface. Despite the meager quantity of food, I set about eating. The real standout was the sausage. Words fail me...how does one describe a really fine, plump, juicy grilled sausage? I wish there had been more. Likewise the pork rib was very good. I know it's a cliche to say that the meat was falling off the bone, but in this case it happened to be true. And no mean feat that, given that there wasn't a whole lot of meat there for gravity to pull on. The beef rib was, in a word, execrable. Or, in three words: short, dry, and tough. Also: overdone. I'd bet good money that no customer has ever seen a rib like this at the County Line. I gnawed some meat off of it, and when the counter girl stopped by to ask how everything was, I said "excuse me, but is this really a normal beef rib?" She looked embarrassed and said "Well, they're usually bigger. Sorry." Doubtless some of you reading this, in the wake of what has become known around my house as "the Delaware Subs Incident", expect that I now proceeded to grab the hapless woman by the hair, put my knee in her back, and force her to the floor where I banged her head into the tile repeatedly, all the while shouting "This *bang* rib *bang* sucks! *bang*..." :) Instead, when the girl came around again I asked for a word with the manager, who heard me out and immediately asked "would you like another beef rib?" A few minutes later a proper-sized rib appeared at the table. So I give Stubbs points for having a manager who wants to keep his customers happy. Although I should point out that it was the manager who served us our food in the first place; why wasn't he paying attention to what he brought out? I wish I could say that the replacement rib was lots better than the other, puny rib, but the truth is that, while nicely sized and not overcooked, this rib was also tough and on the dry side. My sides were, again, nothing special, except for the cole slaw, which was simply the most tasteless cole slaw I've ever tried to eat. All in all, it was a disappointing visit to Stubbs. While the green beans and sausage were outstanding, the rest of the meal was mediocre at best, and I doubt that we'll ever go back. As Roberta commented on the way home: "The Ironworks is only a few blocks further." Craig
Barbecue