What I Ate: July 4, 2009 (City Market)

Lunch: We headed to Luling's City Market (633 E Davis St, Luling, TX‎ - (830) 875-9019‎) which is supposed to be one of the best barbecues in Texas.

We ordered 1/2 pound brisket, 2 pounds spare ribs, and 1 sausage ring for Tina, myself, and Tina's parents.

The sausage was good - salty, not too fatty, with a medium texture (not too fine, not too coarse). It was the best of the three meats.

The brisket, although tender, had a little smoke flavor, but tasted rather bland - minimal beefiness, no discernible saltiness, and not nearly as much smoke as I'd like. Cody (my neighbor) made brisket several weeks back, and that was much better. I needed to lather on a bunch of sauce to get the brisket sandwich I made down.

The spareribs were salty - too salty. The rub didn't have very many other flavors that I could taste besides the saltiness. The crust was so thick that for most of the rib the meat was chewy (like pork jerky) and hard. The parts that weren't hardened were quite tender and falling apart - almost to be point of being mushy. They also left the silverskin on the pork ribs which drives me crazy (especially since they were cooked to death and that membrane turns into one of the toughest substances known to man).

Dinner: I cooked a fillet of halibut encrusted with crumbs I made from pork rinds mixed with paprika, salt, and fresh ground black pepper. I served it on a bed of collard greens with capellini on the side.