Surprising Septuagenarians in the South West (or "Eating Like An Asshole Week: Day 5")

As much as we'd adored Casa Maria when the sister took us, we thought we had to bring the parents there, too. Everyone ordered the migas plate again, except for me. Wanting to be more adventuresome, I ordered the machacado plate--which turned out to be almost exactly the same thing as migas, only without tortilla chips and with dried beef instead of chorizo sausage. (That's okay, cause I just added tortilla chips on my own.) Once again, their flour tortillas, used to wrap up our breakfast-matter, were amazing, heavenly cakes of pure goodness. One major revelation of the meal, though, came when the waitress told us that the tortillas were actually made at a completely different restaurant owned by the same people and imported. That means that potentially there exist even fresher tortillas which could only be better, right? The concept boggles my mind.

Let me say a couple of words about barbeque: good stuff. I don't deny it. However, barbeque is kind of one of those foods that people take really personally. The regions of the country famous for making it each have their own spin on it and each region claims there's is the best. Now, I'm able to enjoy nearly all kinds of barbeque because I'm not terribly picky, though I do confess to not eating ribs often because I just can't deal with the mess of them. My wife is not so blessed as me. She's a vinegar-based barbeque gal and is even pretty choosy within that sub-genre. And it is because of this reason that until the day before our trip, we had not dined at the local barbeque joint in Borderland. Then, the very night we left to drive to Charlotte, on our way out of town, we decided to give it a try despite the fact that it claimed to be barbeque of a style more at home in a major mid-south city, as opposed to NC or Austin. Our logic in this was that we would soon be in Austin and were planning to head to the world famous Salt Lick restaurant at some point so we may as well get the barbeque party started early. We needn't have bothered, for it turns out that our local barbeque joint is aggressively sub par in nearly every way. We were pissed off.

So, for Day 5's dinner, we decided it was time to head to the Salt Lick. Before we could leave for it, though, we talked ourselves out of it. From what we'd been told, and what Mapquest suggested, the Salt Lick was a 45 minute drive at minimum and usually had a wait for a table of around the same. Instead, we headed to Artz Ribhouse, on Lamar. The sister had heard it was good, but not tried Artz herself. Turns out, she heard right. There was a table the size of our party readily available and the live band that fired up was of exactly the correct volume to allow for conversation. I ordered a brisket plate, but I should have ordered the ribs. One look at my sister's rib plate and I could see and smell my error clearly. The wife took one look at them and ordered one rib of her own to accompany her cheeseburger. I wound up having a bite or two myself and can attest that they are pretty awesome.

However much I enjoyed Artz Ribhouse's ribs, though, I may never set foot in the place again due to the the ribs I ate the following evening when we finally did make it to the Salt Lick.

(TO BE CONTINUED...)

GASTRONOMICAL JOURNAL FOR DAY 5
Breakfast: Return to Casa Maria for Machacado.
Lunch: -
Dinner: Brisket and ribs at Artz Ribhouse