Down in Texas they like Brisket

Today's post title is a homage to the place we eat last night - The Hill Country Barbecue. As The BBQ song by Rhett & Link have it: "Down in Texas they like Brisket, which is a big old slab of Beef". Yes they do, and we do too, hence our visit here.

Dinner on Monday Night

Drew was again in charge of picking the location for tonight’s dinner and it was a return to an old favourite. We first tried the Hill Country Barbecue here in New York four years ago. We enjoyed our first visit so much that when we got stuck in New York by the hurricane we went back for more. Two years ago when we were in Washington we found the outlet there. Hill Country like many Texas still barbecues has meat cooked to perfection in smoking ovens for long periods of time. The innovation of this particular company is that you select your food yourself, in a market environment, rather than ordering it and waiting to be served. As someone who taught marketing for a living, earlier in my career, I love the fact that they take a cost-efficiency and make a promotional feature of it, converting the potential inconvenience into an added-value offer. Very clever, because while the meat is absolutely gorgeous it is the process of ‘selecting and gathering it' that distinguishes Hill Country from that of the competitors. The 'menu' is outlined here

Having had a more gentle day than yesterday we managed to walk to the restaurant – 12 blocks by 3 avenues – and got there at around 8 pm.

Drew has always liked the ‘moist’ this is brisket where moist is used as the opposite of lean, so 'a bit fatty' might be a better description, still it is tender beyond. For firsts Drew had two slices of moist, a regular Kruez sausage and for sides a 'cool as a cucumber' salad and a serving of white onion. I had two slices of moist, two of beef knuckle and a jalapeño Kruez sausage, my two sides were a bowl of red (chilli) and Texas black-eyed caviar (a bean salad).

With all the eating we only got one photo of the food, this is my first 'plate'.

For seconds Drew had two slices of moist and a Jalapeño Kruez sausage, I had three slices of moist and two of knuckle. So I guess you realised we didn’t starve, Drew is always worried he will get meat poisoning, but he seems to have survived.

Given the amount of meat we had eaten we needed the walk back. We got to the hotel at 10 and were in bed by 10.30 pm.

Tuesday Morning

This morning I woke up at 3.30, I was so glad, this is a not unreasonable time, five hours is about the normal pattern of sleep for me, so I seem to have got over the jet-lag, hooray. I spent some time completing yesterday's blog post and did some e-mails before showering and getting ready to go out. By this time, 6.15 am, it was clearly raining outside, looking out the window it was clear that the rain was heavy. So I re-orientated my plans to go to the 7.45 Mass in the church across the road rather than getting very wet walking up to the Cathedral.

There was a benefit to this change of plan, I left the hotel at 7.05 and was in the Church at 7.06, confessions (the sacrament of reconciliation) was taking place, so I was able to go to confession and still have time to pray before Mass. Drew, when I got back to the hotel, asked “how was it possible to get all your sins in in half an hour - I'm sure you need more :-)

Mass was celebrated by a retired priest, a very engaging man who had the features of an Irish person, but whose accent was wholly New Yorker. The Mass was a prayerful reminder of the peace that being at one with the Lord can bring.

Corned Beef Hash and Eggs

Ham and Eggs

I was back in the hotel by 8.10 and drew was waiting in the lobby. We walked down to Blooms for breakfast. Drew had Corned Beef Hash with his sunny side up eggs and potatoes, this was a little humour on his part, as he is involved in cooking Corned Beef Hash for my Dad, who is reverting to the foods of his younger days now that he is bed-bound, so Drew whinges about the pong of the Corned Beef Hash we make in large quantities for my father. To be fair the version for my Dad is more fluid than the real thing, so Drew was glad his version was the real thing, plenty of meat and potatoes. He had Strawberry jam with his toast. I've probably said it before but breakfast at Blooms comes with as much coffee as you want, a glass of Orange Juice and two rounds of toast in addition to the main event.

The Hash with the eggs moved for those who couldn't see it in the first photo

We left Blooms in the dry and walked back to the hotel. We left the room at 9.00 checked out and got a Taxi at 9.15, called by the hotel concierge in the New York fashion of standing in the middle of the road in the face of on-coming traffic. It took 15 minutes to get there and 8 minutes to confirm everything with the car. The car was brought to us at 9.40 and we were ready for the off at 9.45 – but that’s for a later post.