A Message to You, Rudy's

My man came home the other day, gushing. He had finally found the Barbecue he'd been looking for, he told me. You see, we moved to Austin, TX last week and had visited a few months before, and we'd been told we'd feast on nothing but mind-blowingly awesome barbecue that entire time. Alas, such awesome barbecue was not had until he was taken by his co-workers to a little place called Rudy's "Country Store" & Bar-B-Q. He was skeptical at first - how awesome is the barbecue going to be at a place that looks more like a gas station with a Kwik-E-Mart than a restaurant?

So awesome, apparently.

He took me out the next night to our local Rudy's, on Research Blvd. just off the 183. My first impressions from the outside were the same as his - the hell kind of barbecue am I going to get at a gas station? Road kill? I did find the sign out front claiming to be "the Worst Barbecue in Texas" absolutely hilarious. I stepped inside and it reminded me of home - well, at least a very specific aspect of it. There's a counter where you order your food, and a line leading up to it, with coolers along the way to grab your cold sides and drinks. The rest of the building is lined with picnic tables. It reminded me of this little pie place out in the middle of nowhere, Northern California. Or maybe the pie place is supposed to be reminiscent of this. Whatever, I'm from Northern California, so I'm reminded of the pie place.

When we got up to the counter, my man told our server that it was my first time here - he asked me where I was from, and wished me a hearty welcome that the rest of the staff up front joined in on. Then, I was served a sampler of some of the different meats they serve there. I had a nibble of their dry brisket, extra-moist brisket, smoked turkey and creamed corn. The turkey had a very rich flavor, but I was in the mood for cow. I actually am considering ordering one of their whole smoked turkeys for Thanksgiving, to save me the trouble of cooking one myself, if that gives you an idea of how much I liked it.

Now, the dry brisket was very tasty, and packed a stronger punch than the moist brisket, but I found out the intended eating format is a sandwich, and I thought the dry might make things too dry for that application. However, for those of you who are on a low-carb diet, I'd go with the dry and skip the bread. The meat here is priced by the half-pound (and that's weighed as it's served to you, so after cooking), but you can get any amount you want, so long as it measures on their scales.

All in all, I ended up with the extra-moist brisket and a side of creamed corn, while my man got more of the brisket and a side of coleslaw. Your meat is wrapped in butcher's paper and placed in a soda flat along with your sides and drinks, with more pieces of butcher paper and a healthy helping of white bread. Your paper serves as a plate to make your sandwiches on, and it's got a very picnic-y feel to it. At your table is Rudy's "Sause", a barbecue sauce that's a bit sweet with just enough kick to tingle. You can grab onions and pickles from a condiment stand off to the side to augment your sandwich with, and while I used onions in my sandwiches, they weren't needed in the slightest.

The extra-moist brisket is, of course, wet and flavorful, and works well with a small amount of "Sause" and onions in the sandwich, though all of the meats I tried were strong enough that no such augmentation would be required to make them enjoyable. The creamed corn is very sweet and the corn still has a bite to it - unlike most creamed corn, which has the homogeneous texture of snot. I'm not normally a fan of creamed corn, you see. It needed with a few dashes of pepper to give some kick to counter-balance the sweetness, but I can see why it doesn't come with that pepper already in. Some people don't like everything they're eating to bite back. The coleslaw was pretty standard - tasty but not incredible, but definitely a nice cooling side dish along all the heat being tossed around.

All in all, Rudy's real is the Barbecue we've been waiting for - sure it's not a gourmet format, but it was most definitely good eats. Rudy's has locations across Texas and New Mexico, with one in Oklahoma.