BBQ Field Trip #3 - Snow's

Snow’s BBQ: The story of an “unknown” gem that immediately reached international fame, and was left relatively unchanged. To fully appreciate this fat kid field trip, and the BBQ at Snow’s, you must first know the recent history and story of Snow’s. It’s a great story too.

How the world discovered Snow's

Texas Monthly, who for all intents and purposes is THE AUTHORITY on all things Texas BBQ related, publishes a list of Texas’s top BBQ restaurants every so many years. The success of this list has spawned into an entire section on the Texas Monthly website dedicated to BBQ, a yearly BBQ festival held in Austin at the Long Center, and a number of other similar Texas Monthly articles on the best burgers, tacos, etc in Texas. The last publication of their Top 50 list was a few years back (2008 I believe). The list caused quite a stir when published. There were some major shocks at the top of the list. The usual suspects were all there in the top 5: City Market in Luling, Kreuz and Smitty’s in Lockhart, Louie Mueller’s in Taylor (which I personally find sinfully overrated). Most notably, however, the longstanding king of Texas BBQ (as voted by Texas Monthly), Cooper’s in Llano, was nowhere to be seen, and a complete unknown, Snow’s BBQ in Lexington, was named the new heavyweight champion of the world.

More strangely, Snow’s had a story. Some character. Something unique. It fit a lot of the usual criteria: Located in an obscure central Texas town that starts with an L? Check. Pitmaster with a heavily guarded recipe and procedure? Check. Menu focusing almost exclusively on brisket, ribs, and sausage? Check. What didn’t fit? The pitmaster is a 70something year old woman named Tootsie who is sharp as a tack, sassy as hell, and works her day job as a custodian at the local elementary school. Almost equally puzzling was the restaurant itself – open only on Saturday mornings, from 8am until they run out. And they run out. Every time. The idea of BBQ for lunch is fairly commonplace, especially on the weekends. But BBQ for breakfast, both as a choice (for the proprietors), and as a necessity (for the consumers who are afraid of it running out) was just so damn off the wall it became this thing of myth. Following Texas Monthly’s publication, a trip to Snow’s became a badge of honor. You were one of those brave fools who got up at the asscrack of dawn on a weekend, drove to bumfucknowhere, and waited in line with hundreds of other folks with the chance the BBQ would be sold out by the time you got to the front of the line. 

It's a shack. You wait in line outside the shack.

My first trip to Snow’s was about 3 months after the publication. My BBQ obsessed posse and I decided to wait out the storm, hoping after 6 months some of the insanity would have subsided. We were dead wrong. Arriving in Lexington, about 9:00-9:15am, I remembered feeling this insane amount of angst that they would run out of BBQ before I got to the front of what was approximately a 40 minute line. It was a hot and muggy morning, and the humidity was as thick as the tension in the air. I believe there was actually a point where the pit masters had to turn people away around 9:45-10:00 because seeing the line in front of them they knew there wouldn’t be a chance of those poor souls getting a lick of BBQ. We ordered the staples – brisket, ribs, sausage – as well as a cut of their mysterious smoked pork. I still remember that first experience – smoky, sweet, tender, salty brisket, with a touch of their sauce. 

Perfect. I wasn’t ready to claim it beat out Cooper’s, and still may not be, but can’t say a bad thing about any of it. We left that meal like all good BBQ roadtrips, filled to the brim, with a meat coma setting in soon enough.

I’ve been back a few times since, and have had everywhere from a 9 out of 10 BBQ experience, to a full on “this could be the best bite of BBQ I’ve ever had”. Nothing short of superb, and a few times, so spectacular I get weak in the knees. 

What a pit. And I'm not sure there is any man more Texan than this fellow.

For the most recent fat kid field trip, we had a decent sized posse. Jacob was in town from London, and wanted to hang out so I suggested a road trip to Snow’s – along with BBQ enthusiast and brother Adam, as well as Asa. We met up with Skillachy and Greichten and the Chodes. The drive to Lexington, TX takes exactly one hour from my doorstep to the restaurant on a Saturday morning. It’s pretty much a straight shot down 290 until you pass through Elgin and get on to FM 696. Much like the drive to Lockhart/Luling – its butt ugly, relatively flat. Its drives like this that make me ever thankful I have an AUX jack to plug in iTunes and just jam out.

We left the house around 10:30 and arrived right at 11:30. It must be noted that this was the first time I had left for Snow’s this late in the morning. Although the business has slowed quite a bit since first publication, they still sell out around 10:30-11:00 of most of the good stuff, and are essentially all closed down by noon. A few of our field trippers knew a trick however, where you can call ahead and “reserve” BBQ to pick up later. I called in around 9:00 – reserved my food, and was supremely happy I called when I did, as by the time we had shown up, the ribs were long sold out, and mostly only brisket and sausage remained. Half of the crew called in too late, and were not able to reserve ribs (suckassssss). The timing and quality were inextricably linked. I have written in the past BBQ has this “bewitching hour” between about 11:30 and 1, where you are guaranteed to get the best of the best in terms of flavor, temperature, quality, and tenderness. At Snow’s that window likely exists between 8:30-10:00.

While the BBQ was still unbelievable, this was easily the “worst” of the trips I have taken to Snow’s. I blame some of that on mindset – I felt like I was cheating a bit for not getting up at the crack of dawn, hungover, dehydrated, slightly angry, and drearily driving to Snow’s to just wait in line. This was the ritual, this was the custom. The pain and suffering were always worth it in the past – it just made the end product that much more sweet when you know you had earned it. But beyond my psychological qualms – it was also a quality issue. The food was, as I have said before, still fantastic, but when you are  a true fat kid like me, you notice when the meat has been “sitting” a while, or you get a piece a little overly crusty, a sausage slightly oversmoked. Would any of these issues have been solved by coming at 9:00-9:30? Who knows. I just like to believe they would based on past experience.

It was ALL MINEEEEEE

 

On to the food: my order consisted of ¾ lb of brisket, ½ lb of pork ribs, a few cuts of pork, and 2 links of sausage, along with the traditional white bread, jalapenos, pickles, and a glass of sweet tea. The ribs were the clear cut winners (as a properly prepared pork rib usually is anywhere). A perfect balance between tender and resilient, they came off the bone with little effort but weren’t mush. The salt rub and seasoning was spectacularly portioned; the meat was intensely flavorful but not overly influenced in one way or another between salt, pepper, or smoke. A touch of Snow’s phenomenal BBQ sauce was a nice twist, but the ribs stood out on their own. The brisket was also phenomenal, but I was given the short end of the stick, and half of my order was fatty brisket (the prized possession), while the other half was lean. The fatty brisket was devoured with some dill pickles and sauce within an instant, while I kept the lean brisket as leftovers. The pork (is it butt? Shoulder? I have no idea what cut) was tender, juicy, and intensely smoky. A real treat. The sausage was a bit of a disappointment that day, however. I’m not sure if they were over smoked, if the recipe has changed, or if it was just an off day but the sausage didn’t cut it this go around. It was a bit drier than normal, and the flavor was relatively one note – it just tasted like “beef”. Dunked in the fantastic, world altering Snow’s BBQ sauce, I still don’t have many / any complaints!

Top 1 or 2 BBQ sauces in Texas...and they serve it to you in an empty water bottle

Despite my reservations with our crew showing up rather late, the environment could not have been better. It was a bit overcast and dreary, but our spirits were high, and we just ate, sat, laughed, and chatted for at least an hour. The employees at Snow’s could not be any nicer – they are more than happy to pose for a picture, or chat, and the ladies running the register were incredibly accommodating. The pit masters were tending to their business but wanted to swing by and make sure everyone could see the action if they wanted – and Tootsie spent most of the morning washing out coolers and barking orders. Hilariously the music on the speakers switched at one point from Texas country to an indie-hipster dance mix, with the likes of MGMT and Ghostland Observatory blasting through the speakers for 30 minutes. It was a bit surreal to say the least.

Overall this trip to Snow’s was one of firsts. It was the first time I’ve ordered ahead, but it was also the first time I’ve had the ability to chat and bullshit with my friends and truly make the trip about something more than just senseless face stuffing. I think it’s the first time I’ve left Snow’s with half of my food, and will be the first time I can throw some of that delicious smoky goodness in a soup. Even if the sausage wasn’t perfect – it will be the PERFECT addition to a kale and white bean soup later this week.

Until next time.

-Dutch