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dcbc

Certifiably Surly
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Everything posted by dcbc

  1. Skip it. Go to Stanley's and Sunbird. Sorry, @TXSooner518. Or go. I mean, it's a rib joint. It's a'ight. So, Y'all's BBQ. It's a little shack near a house off of 31E near Tyler. A really friendly African-American family owns it. The sides are made from whatever is fresh in their backyard-garden. Homemade desserts. I think I paid $7 for a brisket-loaded baked potato and some sausage. I ate it over three days. So, yeah. This place fucks. I suck and never have eaten at Pat Gee's. But Nick Pencis, who has owned Stanley's since 2004, used to be in a funk band called Greyhounds (an Austin band now). They released an album while they all were living in Tyler in the early 2000s, and one of the songs on the album was about Pat Gee's. Nick was one of the first few people I met when I moved to Tyler. I remember Stanley's when they first built the deck (no roof). I used to get calls to help supply mics and mic stands when they'd try to have live music in the early days. This is my older son. He ended up working for Stanley's for two years when he was in high school. His first concert and past his bedtime.
  2. Hell, after I left, I took a wrong turn on the way to Wurstfest trying to go the back way and avoid the UT game traffic by taking back roads and ended up in Lockhart. I was like, I fucking can't. Because I was a big, fat fuck gearing up for Wurstfest with my college freshman and his roommate. But, shit, I figured I'd at least get some sausage at Smitty's. And I paid $33 for a 9.89/10 plate at Stile's Switch a couple of months later. At some point, nostalgia gives way to value-for-money. I get that. But lay off Tootsie.
  3. Louie Mueller BBQ and Country Tavern are similar: old joints that kept doing things the same and have kept things on pretty well. And, as an aside, I know they're proud of those rib$$$, and I know you like that place, but I've never been much of a fan. But, I'm still kind of glad places like it, Y'all's BBQ, and Pat Gee's are out there in this area and still surviving in the era of level-up BBQ, of which Stanley's and Sunbird are the local torch-bearers with a few pretty decent places up north of I20 nobody really knows about outside of the area. /edit: Really like what Sunbird is doing. I ate Bryan's BBQ at Bodacious before he left. I went by the trailer when it was in White Oak. Unfortunately, I had to take it to go and while I remember its being good, BBQ never is as good after 30 minutes in the car in a Styrofoam container. I need to just make the short drive at this point. I'm so lazy.
  4. Usually, I don't order a beef rib anywhere unless I'm sharing a tray, which had I not been solo would have worked better in my probably ordering more brisket. So it evens out, I guess. Order: 1 beef rib, 1/2 lb fatty brisket, 1/4 lb sausage, potato salad, unsweet tea. Like $108. The 1/2 lb of brisket was one thick-cut, sad-looking thing. Signed, Fat ass
  5. I have a friend who's a big weed/hemp lawyer based in Austin, who has, no doubt, been knee-deep in trying to fight this off for years now. The last session, I messaged her and asked about it all, including the "what if" question. She was like, "We're fighting it tooth and nail, but worst cast scenario, there's always the internet." So, there's that.
  6. Look, if this is between a drip machine and an espresso machine, then it doesn't really sound like you want top of the line either way because the either/or question seems like it pulls the matter to the center of the cost scale. As mentioned above, I have that rice-cooker Z-brand of drip machine I mentioned above. It's good for drip, has a mechanical mild/bold lever, and is super easy to program. If it lasts, it'll be good ($129). If you don't care about the lever, get the old 12-cup Cuisinart. Ours lasted 24 years. For inexpensive super-automatic, we're 15 years and counting on the Gaggia Brera. It's not the best, but it's very good and doesn't require effort when all you want is coffee.
  7. I've mentioned this before, but for posterity's sake, I ate there last November. The beef rib was very good, but I don't know that it lived up to the hype (and LaBBQ's was far better). The brisket was the most disappointingly bland thing I've eaten in a while. No bark. Flavor seemed pretty meh, too. It was tender. I mean, just do what you do to the beef rib. It would be fine. The sausage was pretty old school meat market, which is nostalgic, but not particularly delicious. I dropped over $100 for lunch on that with 1 side. For the sake of the old joints hanging in there, I'm okay with Top 50 because we're spoiled with BBQ in Texas and it's all relatively good in the known places. But if they'd dropped to honorable mention, I would have understood why. Still, I hope they're open for another hundred years.
  8. Sorry to neg you (I'll balance it out somewhere). But that was the only appropriate reaction. IYKYK
  9. Willie Nelson Patsy Cline Waylon Jennings Johnny Cash Jerry Reed (outside pick because while it's not a classically great country voice, I sure do like it . . . son). *Honorable Mention: Johnny Lee and Sturgil Simpson
  10. Add good, freshly (locally) roasted beans to this equation, and it's almost impossible to screw it up with a reasonably-good, semi-automatic machine.
  11. How I imagine it started with Elmo and Katie:
  12. Mine give me woefully when I use the hand with which I'm petting them to reach for my coffee cup.
  13. My bingo card looks like a damned Mad-Lib. Everything hits, and I keep losing. /USA
  14. So fast-forward many years. I'm having a get-together for my birthday at a brewery. We'd invited my friend and his family, but they were out of town. About halfway through the gathering, the band takes the stage, and it's the music teacher's band. I felt bad for her because a large portion of the audience consisted of people we'd known from our kids' elementary school and the situation was not a well-kept secret by anyone at the time. I recall being very thankful my friend and his family hadn't been able to attend. She came up and said hello at the end of the night, acknowledged the awkwardness, and had a piece of cake. Note to self: Check the live music bill next year to see which band is playing.
  15. Welp, I got four good years out of my Pixel 5, but the battery is self-destructing and pushing the screen off the body. Pixel 9 on the way. Hopefully, it gets here before the 5 explodes in my hand Sent from my rocking time bomb
  16. C'mon, Gus. Your family (and your Surly Family) needs you!
  17. And now I want to go eat at Stanley's and drink Shiner. Weird. Honestly, I just heard about that East TX Rust place in Gilmer last week, and really would like to try it since it made the Honorable-Mention list, but it's in Gilmer.
  18. Church of Brisket, right there.
  19. 88--early 90 is my favorite era of obtainable, vintage, Fender guitars.
  20. I was surprised not to see Stanley's on this list this year. I don't feel that way because it's my hometown joint or because it's made the list every time since 2003; that's not the standard. I was surprised because I remember thinking that the food greatly improved starting around 2017 and that the brisket had gone from very good to outstanding in the last year, which was very intentional on their part and based on some big changes to process apparently. And outside of the Texas trinity, they have a lot of other offerings, including the Mother Clucker, a solid Reuben, an a various rotation of interesting offerings. But that's the way it goes, and I hope they keep pushing themselves to improve and make it back on the list someday. They're good people and run a great joint.
  21. The Rest:
  22. It was?
  23. 11--50 (no other indications like number of stars).
  24. Glad to see Stiles Switch make its way back in. I remember eating there in January and thinking, "How is this place no longer on the list?"
  25. Yes. Apparently, it's frowned upon when you bang a student's parent and the other parent is not happy about it.
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