Text 25672, 57 rader
Skriven 2015-04-05 16:42:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: Austin 465
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We wended our way northward to Freedmen's, which despite
being more bar than barbecue, is said to offer some of the
best food in town. We had our doubts at first. It was hard
to figure out where to park, for starters - we found an
unlit lot on one side that had signs (unlit) saying that
Freedmen's customers would be towed. While puzzling this
out we noticed another car hovering suspiciously about but
that made way when we exited that lot; then we found another
unlit lot with no signs - I think there were five spots, of
which two smalls were empty. It was a little disconcerting,
but the car did about the same thing as we did, though we
overshot and had to make a youie at the light and come back,
and by the time we did this the other vehicle had parked and
left just a tinyish place where we could barely pull in. I
got out before Lilli (carefully zipping my wallet into my
jacket) and checked out the car we'd had encounters with.
Turns out to have been occupied by an attractive 40-ish
couple, both female, both half in the bag, giggly, heading
for the Bourbon bar (same as the barbecue of course). We
entered together and plopped all of us down, both parties
having determined that the other was harmless, at a table
that we were quickly informed was reserved, so we had to
squeeze in to the bar, and there were three stools only for
all of us. I offered to stand, which was refused (as we were
decades older than they), so I got squished between Lilli on
one side and the cuter thinner of the two, standing, on the
other. Not a bad deal. At some point some guy down the way
vacated, so we all got to sit. Lilli had a glass of okay I
think Norton or Catena Malbec, and the other three of us
had various Bourbon iterations - mine a Buffalo Trace (good
bang for the buck) neat, the girls cocktails of some sort.
Despite the brick-plants-and-oak aspect (who coined this
term, and why isn't it used more, as it's a perfect
characterization of such places) and the pick-up-barrish
aspect, the smells were tantalizing, and remembering the
reviews, we ordered a pound of moist from the energetic
bartender, who seemed to be doing everything in the place
short of sweeping the floor, and he might have been doing
that as well while we weren't looking. What came: superior,
borderline world-class meat, well smoked, nicely marbled,
tender at that perfect stage between toothy and falling
apart, with good fat top and bottom; odd-tasting almost
Indianish pickle spears; bread (untasted); and a murky and
we thought kind of superfluous sweet-sour sauce flavored
with mustard and celery seed. The big issue was that the
rub included a surplus of coarse salt as is the fashion in
BPO places these days, but once that was scraped off, the
meat was well-nigh perfect. The kitchen had cut us a most
generous pound, and there was enough food for us to give
tastes to our new-found friends. After a pretty jolly time
it was time to find our way back to I-35 (easy enough) and
then to the Holiday Inn, whose beds were lumpy but quite
sleepable.

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