Text 25706, 63 rader
Skriven 2015-04-06 02:51:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: AUS 468
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A big old party at Stiles Switch right off the freeway north
of town, sponsored by milepoint.com, with fifty of our
nearest and dearest, plus some of the United staff who had
entertained us earlier in the week - this time it was our
turn to entertain them.

It's a plainish restaurant with good, plainish food. This is
irrelevant to this report, because we had a function room
out on the side, which is even plainer.

A bunch of long tables, but by the time we arrived there
weren't any seats unclaimed, odd for a pre-counted group.
Eventually we were found chairs, which got put at the end of
a table right by the door. Which was chilly at first but
turned out fine, because all those bodies generate plenty of
warmth, not to mention the hot air that we create.

Happy hour was fun enough, and talking about such subjects
as mistake fares is edifying enough, but barbecue was the
focus, and when the food was ready, there was a big crush
at the trough.

Brisket came a bit on the resilient side; no consensus among
the diners at our table as to whether it was overdone or
under; I tend to think the latter, as the fat had not had a
chance to melt and was still sort of crunchy. What there was
agreement about was that the pit had been overtaxed by our
rather large group and didn't give the meat their full
attention. This was augmented by a fairly standard sweetish
sauce with a bit of mustard - a mix of Salt Lick and Black's
if you will.

Quite good sausage, I guess maybe the spicing stolen from
one of the Lockhart places or City Market.

I heard that the ribs and turkey were very good, but I have
written earlier about my attitude towards these meats - in
short, when in Texas, do as the old 300 would have done.

Sides were quite good. Lilli swore by the potato salad and
slaw. I liked the exceedingly rich and dairyful corn
casserole - after my decent-sized taster was down the hatch,
I went back and bypassed the meat department! and got a big
plate of it.

A confession: we were (Lilli was) tired of several days of
no wine or bad wine, so we semi-smuggled in a rather nice
Langmeil Shiraz, which made good music with and moistened
up the meat but not enough. And shared with friends and
relations in partial atonement for not having brought
anything to the clubhouse. I made up for this by buying
enough Shiner Bocks for two at $4 a pop.

After this, a raffle that featured mostly United/Continental
memorabilia; this benefited United We Care, which is a sort
of self-insurance by United personnel that gives grants to
employees who have suffered major setbacks, because the
company won't do this sort of thing. Doesn't sound like a
great idea in an ideal world, but it's not an ideal world.

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