City Market BBQ (Luling, Tx)

Part 3 of 5

This is the 3rd installment of my 5 part "Texas BBQ Road Trip 2010". Texas Monthly Magazine listed the top 50 BBQ Joints in Texas and I had the honor/dishonor of attending 5 of the 50 establishments during Memorial Weekend.

City Market BBQ was honored as Texas Monthly's Top 5 BBQ establishments. In my opinion, this is the 2nd best BBQ I've ever tasted.

Below is a video I found on Youtube of what you can expect at City Market BBQ. Disclaimer: This video does NOT do justice to how the bbq really tastes in person. I can't say one bad thing about this place. Good old Texas BBQ smoked with post oak.

This is barbecue’s holy of holies: City Market’s dark pit room, located in a back corner of the main dining hall. Clouds of post oak incense have been rising from its five pits for fifty years, and the smoke envelops manager Joe Capello Sr. and his crew as they slice your order—a choice of brisket, ribs, sausage, nothing else—onto butcher paper. You pay at the blackened cash register (bread comes free, onions, pickles, and peppers for pocket change), then reemerge into the dining area, where staff at a central counter sell sides and liquid offerings: vessels of potato salad and beans; hunks of yellow cheese; an array of beers, Big Red, IBC Root Beer. You take your place at one of the pine booths or tables among the multitude of other devotees, a startlingly ecumenical mix of faces white, black, and brown. A handwritten notice proclaims the righteous requirements of the meat before you: “No forks—use your hands.”

- Texas Monthly June 2008

Ok, that quote is a little over the top. However, the food is so intrinsic that one can't help but to write about City Market BBQ from the perspective of having an out of body experience.

City Market BBQ will be receiving a 5 out of 5 stars