The Great Salt Lick
The Video Egg team arranged a rock-n-roll party bus trip to The Salt Lick Barbeque, supposedly the ultimate bbq joint in the Austin area. I ran into them between sessions at the Hilton, and they had some last minute cancellations so they did the hard recruitment on me. Despite my desperate need for a shower, I gave in and managed to pull in Jonathan before the bus departed. Once on the road, we discovered that it was a thirty-mile trip to the bbq joint. We were descending into the hinterland.
Here’s the fur-lined interior of the bus, karaoke machine in the background:
Arriving, it was clear that we weren’t in Austin anymore. Our purple and orange swirled paint party bus may as well have said “Freaks Inside,” and our ironic t-shirts and laptop bags probably underscored the point. But it’s a beautiful, flat countryside, with a football field’s worth of picnic tables. There’s a rock patio, where people throw down-home weddings. We were thrilled to be there, especially as we could now smell the smoke from the pit.
The Salt Like is this enormous, rustic complex, the kind of place you imagine Dubya and his people gather at to consume large amounts of animal and tell dirty jokes. Being Sunday, I saw lots of churchgoers eyeing us suspiciously as we discussed the linking strategies of porn sites, and as our busdriver hauled in a couple cases of beer (it’s strictly BYOB at the Salt Lick).
The meat plates were out of control, with the ribs the clear favorite. I don’t know what they do to infuse the deep smoky flavor, but it must involve many days of immersion in secret sauce. You can order Salt Lick Special with Two Racks of Ribs for delivery on their web site. They say it serves 10-12 people, but if you eat as much as we did that day, you should halve that number.
Renee Blodgett has some great pictures here.