Hill Country Correction

Gregg informs me that every establishment we visited served shoulder clod. Yet there was some concern that it was a leaner cut and so we avoided it, which in retrospect was a mistake.

Hill Country, Day Two

We began the second day in Lockhart’s Kreuz Market, which has to be one of the few remaining American restaurants founded in the nineteenth century. A victim of too much success, in 1999 it moved from the downtown smokehouse that it made historic to Lockhart’s outskirts. Kreuz is now housed in a giant red shed of a roadhouse that, like many of its Texas barbeque brethren, could well suit a putsch. Patrons order meats by the pound inside the cavernous pit – and just like at Meyer’s, they may not enter until summoned.

The smell of smoked meat was so intoxicating that it was difficult to focus on the menu. We entrusted the ordering to our expert, Gregg, who was rendered powerless by the glorious smoky aroma. In his BBQ-fueled stupor, he failed to order the shoulder clod that we saw only at Kreuz’s, leaving us just with a pound each of beef brisket, ham, beef and pork ribs, prime rib, pork chops, and sausage. I love my younger brother, but I remain bitter.

Kreuz, in spite of its reputation as a purist’s redoubt, was the only establishment that sold legitimate side dishes; nevertheless, they were segregated and sold in one of the large dining rooms flanking the pit. The exemplary side dishes included a vinegary German potato salad (which is to say, one not tainted by that culinary ejaculate, mayonnaise), a hot and zesty sauerkraut concoction, and satisfying baked beans.

Kreuz's brisket was the best of the trip. It had a great crust and smoky ring from the post-oak, and was tender, though not meltingly so. Both sets of ribs were delicious. Ironically, in the heart of beef country, the pork chop may have been the best thing of all. Of course, I didn’t have the clod so I can’t say with certainty. (Thanks, Gregg.) The pork chop stands out and was transcendently good with its deep smoky flavor and meaty texture. (OK, so “meaty texture” isn’t exactly the most evocative description, but dude, IT WAS MEAT AND ME LIKE MEAT.) It alone would warrant a return trip to the reddest of states. Kreuz forbids the use of forks, but this “rule” seemed more a physiological response than a normative obligation. Passing it around and eating it with our hands was totally apropos, and I was proud of any similarities to the opening scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey. The only drawback: Kreuz’s sausage, much like every other smokehouse’s (save Mueller’s), tasted like a greasy, unprocessed Dodger Dog.

We then moved on to Smitty’s, which is located in Kreuz’s original (and comparatively compact) location. We were somewhat nervous about going there because it had to follow Kreuz’s wild success. But Smitty’s aroma swept through its corner of tiny downtown Lockhart, its adjacent lot enticingly filled with rows upon rows of chopped post-oak. We entered directly into the hot, smoky pit, its exposed flames licking the air around the door. (There is no way this degree of danger would be tolerated in risk-averse California. I thought that it would be illegal in Texas, until I read that Texas does not even regulate its crane industry.) I could only imagine how many careless and drunken fools have fallen into the fire.

Despite its sterling pedigree and colorful setting, Smitty’s food was a disappointment. The brisket was exceedingly greasy and salty, as were the pork ribs and pork chop. The Sterns, writing in Gourmet, aptly described the sausage as “so succulent that if you plan to snap it into two pieces, you must treat it like a bottle of Champagne you are about to uncork.” However, this statement should not be construed as praise. The sausage tasted like liquefied fat. I could not swallow more than one bite. Incidentally, Smitty’s was the most racially integrated of any of the smokehouses that we visited on our trip. That was its only plus.

Our last smokehouse of the day was Black’s, a real oddity. Toward the end of the corridor where patrons enter was a pathetic salad bar of items that didn’t belong in a salad and looked like they could have prepared when Black’s opened, in 1932. My interest in eating was crushed by the salad bar's wan potato and macaroni salads and oleaginous agglomerations of beans. The interior wasn’t charmless, but after the Smitty’s fiasco and this “salad” bar, we didn’t want to stick around. So we confined ourselves to the outdoor picnic table and noshed on a pound of brisket. Seasoned only with salt and pepper, the brisket was pleasant, if somewhat greasy.

After these disappointments, T2P wisely demanded a return to Kreuz for one more pork chop. Naturally, we obliged, devoured the chop and then traveled to San Antonio for a dose of traditional tourism. We have vowed to return to Lockhart to correct Gregg’s error and try the shoulder clod.

Kreuz Market
619 N. Colorado St.
Lockhart
(512) 398-2361
www.kreuzmarket.com

Smitty’s Market
208 S. Commerce St.
Lockhart
(512) 398-9344
www.smittysmarket.com

Black’s Barbecue
215 N. Main St.
Lockhart
(512) 398-2712
www.blacksbbq.com

Le Pigeon

With the corporate expense account on its final gasp for life, AO and I hopped a plane to Portland on the flimsy pretext of transacting business. From Le Pigeon we expected a small, serene setting and a shrine to gastronomic excellence (or, at least, ambition). Instead, we found a tiny but boisterous bistro packed until midnight with a crowd of young foodies.

AO began with a nice rendition of foie gras accompanied by mashed, dried mission fig and pine on a superfluous triangular buttery pastry. The pine was the principal ingredient signifying unconventionality or “innovation,” and its mild flavor provided a soothing presence to the richer foie and sweeter fig. I loved my appetizer of warm lamb belly, which is “the meaty flap that surrounds the front ribs of the lamb” now in vogue with trailblazing chefs. It was served with a salad of asparagus, spring peas (as the meal actually took place in May), and a dab of a mint salsa verde catalyzed by pecorino. New York Times critic Merrill Stubbs is correct in arguing that lamb belly “offers a more nuanced mouthful than its porcine predecessor.”

I envied every bite of AO’s beef cheek bourguignon. Chef Gabriel Rucker’s take on the classic dish was modern but in perfect harmony with traditional recipes. The preparation consisted of succulent beef cheeks, a few carrots, and a robust sauce which deftly used salt to balance the red wine sauce. Plus, the beef cheeks were delicious.

Rucker has a reputation as an aficionado of tongue. I eschewed eating the organ until four years ago, when Babbo’s warm lamb’s tongue with a two-minute egg proved so revelatory. El Taurino/King Taco continually reinforces the Babbo experience with its brilliantly sapid taco de lengua, the best of its kind in my experience. Accordingly, I was eager to see what Rucker could do with tongue. I was concerned that the only beef tongue on the menu was mixed in with the spätzle that accompanied the flat iron steak; while I tend to enjoy spätzle, I generally do not like to order steak. Nevertheless, I put myself in Rucker's hands and, to my delight, the steak was excellent. Le Pigeon respected the cut of meat and served it rare, allowing the steak to retain its flavor. Moreover, the creamy, mustardy spätzle with the tongue was a luscious complement to the steak. It was no surprise to learn that Rucker, a native Californian, also enjoys tacos de lengua and cabeza.

My praise here is getting uncomfortably fulsome, and I admit that by the time the steak came around, AO and I were at the bottom of a second bottle of wine with one to go. But, even as we started plowing through a Vouvray Trie de Vendange—striking a minor blow against the dwindling balance sheet of my former employer—my sensory perception remained intact.

The desserts were not as successful as the savory portion of the meal, though they were good. Most enjoyable was the profiterole filled with foie gras cream and dressed with sea salt and caramel. It traversed the familiar terrain of the salty/sweet juxtaposition— and much like the bourguignon—the pendulum was set firmly, but not excessively on the salty. Less successful was the coffee pot de crème, served with crème brûlée. The pot de crème was boring, and the brûlée repeated the very same salty/sweet interplay that was in the profiterole. It was a better version of the basic, cloying American crème brûlée with its thick shell and incandescent yellow crème. The pastry chef’s inexperience here showed, and she should take a lesson in making the standard from Astier.

An exemplar of the new Portland dining scene, Le Pigeon is refreshing and exciting precisely because it is not a temple of refinement or elegance as found in New York or San Francisco. It is not even a finished product. But it exudes the freshness and exuberance that are lacking in larger cities with their Zagat scores, older clientele, and bourgeois posturing. At Le Pigeon, the artifice yields to a genuine and unpretentious desire for good and thoughtful food in the setting of a vibrant bistro.

Le Pigeon
738 E. Burnside St.
Portland
(503) 546-8796
http://www.lepigeon.com/

Hill County, Day One

As I discovered over a two-day tour of Texas’s Hill Country, one of the larger frauds perpetrated on the American culinary scene is the existence of a debate about which region has the best barbeque. The loudest, if not all or even the best, claimants would be Memphis, Kansas City, North Carolina (though the state is itself divided on methodology), and the towns circumscribing Austin, Texas. I’ve had the good fortune to visit Kansas City and Memphis on a few occasions, and Gregg, the true barbeque aficionado and a practitioner in his own right, has spent considerable time in the self-anointed barbeque meccas. In the final analysis, Texas smokehouses are peerless for the quality of their barbeque and—to choose a despicably and unacceptably heinous term that I just cannot resist—their overall mise en scène.

We began Gregg’s carefully plotted barbeque tour in Taylor at Louie Mueller Barbeque in a setting that is as rustically American as Chez L’Ami Louis is Gallic, if not more so. Since 1959, Mueller’s has been housed in a cavernous edifice that lays deceptively within the shops on Taylor’s main drag. The engulfing scent of the smokehouse sets the scene and radiates throughout Taylor's small downtown. On the morning we visited, an American flag and a Harley Davidson were planted in front of the restaurant and provided the heartiest of welcomes. Taylor, however, is hardly a nativist’s utopia, as a mom-and-pop across the street was selling piñatas to the growing Latino population.

We entered the dim, large hall which houses the main dining room, service counter, and various smokers and pits. (It was once a ladies’ gymnasium.) The paint on the walls is so dark from smoke and rust that it is impossible to ascertain the original color. The only sources of light are the handful of half-open window panes at the nexus of the high ceilings and front walls. But the ceiling's dark wood cannot refract the meager quantities of rust-tinged sunshine that penetrate the panes; it's just as well because our gustatory and olfactory senses were all that we needed.

Gregg ordered beef and pork ribs, sausage, and of course brisket at every establishment we visited -- and as is the custom, he ordered by the pound. (We supplemented this basic menu at Mueller’s with a bone-in rib eye.) We quickly learned that silverware, plates, sauces, and side dishes were all extraneous on this BBQ tour. The only necessities? Butcher paper, fingers and thumbs, and the occasional raw onion and sliced pickle to cut the palate when the meat flavor became excessive.

Mueller applies a rub to its meat that consists exclusively of salt and pepper. All of the various meats thus have a peppery taste, and virtually of all of them are delicious. (I thought the pepper inundated the nevertheless overcooked steak.) As it turned out, Mueller’s meaty and succulent beef ribs, a carnivore’s fantasy, and the well-done, peppery pork sausage were probably the best of the weekend for their respective genera. In fact, the sausage proved to be the only edible version as every other establishment, including the several self-proclaimed specialists in sausage, sold coils of encased grease, surpassing the beleaguered Dodger Dog as the zenith of treyf cuisine.

After a freight train temporarily blocked our way out of Taylor and forced us to have a decent enough intermezzo of brisket at the ancient, but not yet dilapidated Taylor Café, we hurried to Elgin for two more lunches.

Elgin is privileged to be the home of Southside Market and Meyer’s Smokehouse. Southside is a barbeque and butcher shop that dates to 1882, though it moved to a large sterile facility on the edge of town some 16 years ago. Southside is notable in that it uses no discernible rubs on any of its meats, which allows for a much more natural flavor than at Louie Mueller’s. Southside’s brisket is deliciously tender and better than Mueller’s in my book, as it lacks the taste of strong black pepper. The baby back ribs are unique in that Southside emphasizes their essential porkiness; in fact, they taste almost like ham. I enjoyed them, though I would not be surprised if others did not. Southside wishes to be judged on its “Original Elgin Hot Sausage” but it is overwhelmingly greasy and foul tasting. I could not ingest more than a few bites before experiencing revulsion. Nevertheless, the natives love it, a mystery as perplexing as their habit of eating hunks of incandescent orange cheese with their barbeque.

The day’s penultimate lunch was Meyers’ Elgin Smokehouse, which similarly has a smokehouse and market, and touts its beef sausage. Potential patrons followed the Soup Nazi methodology of customer service. We were stationed in the adjacent room behind a line that was some 15 feet from the counter. Once summoned, we ordered, paid, and received our lunch. The next customer was not summoned until we exited the counter area.

Running out of intestinal capacity, we only tried the brisket, the sausage of which Meyers is so proud, creamed corn, and a pit-smoked baked potato. Once again, the brisket was outstanding and had a nice smoke ring. Meyers uses a spicy and smoky rub that is not as strong as Mueller’s, though much more pronounced than Southside’s elusive rub. The creamed corn is sweet and tasty and, though we had high aspirations for the pit-smoked potato, it tasted like an ordinary baked potato. Once again, we were not charmed by the sausage’s fat and grease.

Meyers was to be the final lunch of the afternoon. But on our drive back to Austin, we drove through Bastrop where Gregg spotted a trailer on the side of the road with a pit beside it. Actually, his nose detected a great smoky scent permeating the air, and he demanded that we stop. We found an aging King of the Hill inside waiting for customers for his barbeque “made the old fashion way!” Open only Friday through Sunday, we figured one more pound of brisket and a seat at a filthy picnic table wouldn’t hurt anybody. This gentleman’s brisket was just as good as his more famous competitors who are open more than his allotted 18 hours per week. This was straightforward brisket with no concealing rubs or spices.

While we waited for our food, Gregg snapped a few photos of the trailer for posterity in plain view of the nervous proprietor. When I returned for some napkins, the owner raised the issue of the photos and asked, “Are y’all a part of some kind of con-cern?” I assured him that our intentions were entirely benevolent.

As great as the barbeque is, the local cuisine is otherwise mediocre at best, and often inedible. Contrivances like Frito Pie and hunks of what could be government cheese simply do not pass muster. On Day One, at least, supposedly urbane Austin’s attempts to sophisticate local Texan cuisine were embarrassing and literally forgettable.

Louie Mueller Barbeque
206 West 2nd Street
Taylor
(512) 352-6206

Southside Market & Barbeque
1212 Hwy 290
Elgin
(512) 285-3407
http://www.southsidemarket.com/

Meyer’s Elgin Smokehouse
188 Hwy 290
Elgin
(512) 281-3331
http://www.cuetopiatexas.com/

Lost Pines Bar-B-Que
1106 Chestnut St.
Bastrop
(512) 321-8551

Barney Greengrass

With a daytrip to decidedly un-Semitic Greenwich, Conn. imminent, the ever sagacious gravida thought that pre-eating at Barney Greengrass might fortify the soul against any preppers. She also had a craving for a bagel and smoked salmon. While I normally eschew Ashkenazi food for its stagnancy and lack of freshness, there may be no type of food I love more than effluvial fish. Moreover, I had never paid a visit to the Sturgeon King, which is so venerable that it is the setting for a scene in Roth’s Operation Shylock.

Greengrass’s smoked sturgeon is certainly very good. I did not expect its mild flavor and creamy texture and am glad I tried it. But the true revelation was the soft, smooth mound of chopped herring, which I spread onto a crusty bialy. Greengrass’s traditional recipe calls for mixing the cured herring with vinegar, white wine and apple sauce. The latter ingredients provided a flavorful and balanced zestiness. But more than that, the chopped herring simply had an abundance of herring flavor and brought to mind one of my favorite dishes anywhere, the Chez Georges bowl of marinated herring filets submerged in oil and herbs. Considering my usual antipathy to the Chicagoland of the Upper West Side, if it weren’t for the ersatz New England town, I might never have gone.

Barney Greengrass
541 Amsterdam Ave.
New York
(212) 724-4707
www.barneygreengrass.com

Tere's Mexican Grill

Cater-corned from the garish Brothers Collateral Cash Loans pawn shop and a long block from Los Angeles’ best restaurant, Tere’s Mexican Grill is a charming, textbook example of a great neighborhood eatery. Tere’s has an extensive menu of Mexican specialties with a few standouts and standbys -- as well as a few items to be avoided. (This is to say, it’s not a taqueria.) It has a loyal clientele of locals, families, laborers working in the area, and, thankfully, not too many hipsters. Mexican folk art adorns its walls and ceiling, accompanied by the de rigueur American flag and portrait of Zapata. And fortunately for waiting patrons and breaking employees, the television always seems to be tuned to Primera División soccer.

The owner and his lieutenants are friendly and efficient. The constant flow of business and a lingering language barrier tend to prevent much banter, at least with the gringos. But the staff is always quick to offer a salsa bag if they detect any take-out patron struggling at the salsa bar with too many containers, a regularity considering how tasty the three salsas and pickled carrots are.

The real standout is the pork con chile verde, which provokes a feral response. The pork, which comes in three or four chunks to the order, has a tender consistency and occasional crispiness on its exterior. The kitchen simmers the pork in a sophisticated, deliciously piquant chile verde sauce, which has ample, but not immoderate, fire and a welcome lemony undercurrent. The manager confessed that he will put the chile verde on basically anything, but the pork is really the only appropriate vehicle for such a magisterial sauce.

I also like Tere’s mole which is unlike the thick, lumbering sauces I normally see. Ground chiles are its chief ingredient, chocolate is excluded (for the record), and it accordingly has a reddish orange color. But its appealing, spicy taste is unmistakably, if unconventionally, mole. Served over a platter of stewed chicken or a pair of chicken enchiladas, the mole tastes best when I wash it down with a cup of horchata.

Befitting its proximity to Providence, Tere’s showcases a commitment to fresh produce and quality preparations. It makes its own tortillas which are always served hot and perfect for sopping up chile verde, mole, or any of the homemade salsas from the bar. Its modest mixta salad—an assortment of chopped lettuce, red cabbage, cilantro, onions and a few wedges of avocado lightly dressed in lemon juice and salt—is always a success . Guacamole and chips are a consistently good starter, though the guacamole could use more fire and exclude the diced tomatoes.

Tere's Mexican Grill
5870 Melrose Ave.
Los Angeles
(323) 468-9345

Osteria Mozza

Recently, we returned to Osteria Mozza for the first time since Marisa somehow snagged a reservation on its opening weekend, when we had an enjoyable dinner (though one with justifiably mixed results). After frequenting the pizzeria regularly after its opening weekend, we ended up ignoring the Mozza twins for the last several months because reservations were impossible to come by and fighting the crowds for bar seating was as pleasant as a morning at the DMV. Then, we received a tip that the frenzy had moved west down Melrose to Comme Ça, where it is possible to reserve a table, but not secure a good meal, or even a table.

Since moving to Los Angeles in 2004, I have managed to suppress my urges for pasta because Italian food here is an object of my personal frustration and resulting derision. As much as I love Italian food--and I truly do--the whole Bill Buford cult of regional Italian cuisine and authenticity is as annoying as pretentious Silverlake espresso shops. (I'm talking to you, LA Mill.) Not only is French food infinitely better, homier, and more interesting, but Joël Robuchon’s Atelier in Paris may be making the best spaghetti carbonara these days. A week ago, though, I wanted some pasta. And going to JR's place in Paris is a hell of a commute.

We took a seat at the mozzarella bar, in direct view of the diffident celebrity chef. Silverton is a marvel to watch. She constantly examines, sniffs, and tastes, and is a model of efficiency and intensity in her preparation of mozzarella bar dishes. She devotes precious time to instructing the younger chefs, stopping often to issue seemingly inaudible diktats to her assistants who miraculously absorb every word. Unlike her extrovert of a partner, she is not interested in superficial banter with her customers, though she seemed happy to discuss the nuances of Italian and Californian burrata. Overall, she, like Quinn Hatfield, and, for that matter, Suthiporn Sungkamee (whose moo nua mae chan Silverton reportedly favors), is a throwback to the pre-Food Network days when chefs focused only on food while big personas with middling talent and creepy laughs did not win made-for-television competitions.

We began with a simple preparation of four deliciously tender pieces of grilled octopus accompanied by a salad of celery and potatoes dressed in lemon. This is a dish I absolutely love. It was great on opening weekend and was just as good on this particular night. It is also superior to Craft’s roasted octopus and Greek yogurt appetizer which does not have the same tenderness or flavor.

From the unwieldly large mozzarella bar menu, we had a less successful take on Campanile’s brilliant pressed autostrada sandwich. Silverton’s adaptation substituted scamorza (a mozzarella cousin, for all intents and purposes) for Peel’s aged provolone, Armandino Batali’s mole salami for Peel's assorted cured meats, and pickled cherry peppers. Silverton’s scarmorza sandwich, like Campanile's, used the device of embedding slices of salami on the exterior of the sandwich (which for all I know Silverton may have actually originated). However, the Silverton/Batali offering was a model of disproportion. Marisa felt that the mole salami, which has a distinctive, spicy taste and is a star in any platter of charcuterie, overwhelmed the sandwich. I arrived at this conclusion from the opposite direction: I thought the cheese smothered the salami and peppers. It’s worth noting that Peel charges $16 for an entrée-sized sandwich that comes with an always excellent salad of greens and frites for the table, while Silverton/Batali charge $14 for a much smaller sandwich accompanied by a tasty, well-dressed arugula salad but sans frites.

The two pasta dishes we shared were solid and faultlessly prepared. At their finest, the Batali pastas are both refined and exquisitely guttural, but Osteria Mozza’s lack this latter element. Marisa had the mezzalune, half-moons filled with butternut squash, topped with crumbled amaretti, and served in a brown butter sage sauce. I had the tasty francobolli di brasato, pasta filled with braised beef and served in a gray butter sauce with thyme. Francobolli are literally translated as “postage stamps,” though the spatial dimensions of the diminutive first class U.S. stamp bore no resemblance to the slightly larger filled pasta. There is no doubt that this pasta was the best I have eaten in Los Angeles though I cannot say that it triggered the desire to eat pasta here with great frequency. What we had was too luxurious and lacked rusticity. On our next visit, I’ll try the amatriciana again (which I struggled to enjoy on the admittedly challenging opening weekend) with the goal of proving myself wrong.

For an entrée, we shared the crispy duck which I devoured. It was the unquestioned highlight of the evening. The kitchen confited and then grilled a breast, thigh, and drumstick under a brick, which allowed the skin to crisp. It was like being back at the old Phil the Fire on Shaker Square, a chicken & waffles joint. The breast was as tender as a confit should be, i.e., not preciously tender, and with the advertised crispy skin. The drumstick may have even been better on account of its greater fat and the ease of eating the meat and skin together. A side of pear mostardo delivered some complex sweetness punctuated not only with a rich pear flavor, but also a little spicy kick moments later. A ramekin of leafy, vinegary brussel sprouts negated the theory that there can never be too much garlic. I would never have expected this theory to be tested in almost an afterthought of a side -- especially considering that the sprouts were cooked in the duck and then in sherry, two dominant flavors. This stuff was acrid.

The espresso was barely potable and had no crema. An expensive 250 ml carafe of a Soave was uninteresting and bland. On the plus side beverage-wise, I discovered the joys of Averna, a Sicilian digestif so fruity, herby, and delightful that I rushed home to order some from K & L (who refers to it as a "bitters"). As long as the Batali chain retains its silly policy of all-Italian wine lists, I’ll gladly pay the corkage fee.

Osteria Mozza
641 N. Highland Ave.
Los Angeles
(323) 297-0101
http://www.mozza-la.com/