Texas Pit – St. Thomas

I got pretty skeptical on my daily drive past a chain of metallic trailers. Barbecue may have humble origins, but eating anything that comes out of a tin-can diner has to be the pits. And it was the pits. The pits of a Texas smokehouse grill.

I didn’t exactly have high hopes for this place, but I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that a restaurant shaped like a giant sausage would be a casing for delicious meat. I also found 15 dollars a plate to be a bit pricey, but I found a way around that, so let me drawl you some directions.

They tell you that the six-dollar special cut is a smaller portion of brisket or pork, but everything is big in Texas. This “smaller” portion is plenty big for one and more than enough for me. (That’s what she said). The Brisket is simultaneously smoky but tender, salt and peppered to perfection, with a smokiness that gives the beef a fuller flavor. It’s tender all the way through, and the spicy barbecue sauce makes some of the best brisket I’ve ever had even better.

The Chicken is a seven-dollar steal, and half a bird in the hand (with a side of rice) is well worth two in a bush. It’s hard to know whether it’s the barbecue flavor or the encircling sauce that penetrates through all that meat, but when you remember that the meat is encircled by a trailer, you remember not to think too much. The side of Mac n’ Cheese costs extra so you may need to pass on the three-dollar Taco Hell upgrade. I say spend that money to chase a well-Krafted dream, especially when that dream is infused with barbecue sauce.

I really didn’t expect much from Texas Pit, but that just goes to show that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover and you shouldn’t judge a barbecue by its trailer. If nothing else, come to Texas Pit just for the experience of eating barbecue off the back of your car in a parking lot. You may never find a Texas-sized plate of fun like this again, and if you can find a good football game, you’ll have yourselves a tailgate.