BBQ Bastions: County Line

So, after arriving in San Antonio and settling into our room at the 4-star La Mansion del Rio, which Nancee scored through www.hotwire.com, we decided to start our BBQ tour at the locally renowned, and supposedly award-winning, County Line BBQ (www.countyline.com). Our hotel was directly on San Antonio’s famed Riverwalk and just so happened to be diagonally across from a County Line BBQ establishment. When entering/exiting our room, which faced the beautiful and unique Nix Medical Building (the first hospital in the country to feature air conditioning), you could smell the smoke wafting over the Riverwalk. A clock on the Navarro Street side of the building stated “It’s BBQ time.”

County Line, like several other Texas BBQ joints, started out as a single location, but expanded into franchise locations once word-of-mouth started to spread. County Line was listed in our guidebook and I read some online reviews stating that County Line was “legendary” and “quintessential Texas BBQ.” With such a statement running through my mind my interest was most certainly piqued since whenever I travel I want to sample the most authentic, and if possible best, local fare I can find.  

Like most “meat-oriented” chain restaurants County Line assaults you with the “traditional” roadhouse atmosphere with nailed bric-a-brac covering the walls, smiling servers wearing plenty of “flare”–Office Space, anyone?–and large menus that feature a lot of dishes not BBQ. I’m a traditionalist and what I like about “real” BBQ establishments (if they’re good and proper), is that they serve BBQ. They do not need to serve anything else, because their reputation stands upon the BBQ’s quality. As Nancee said, “When I go to a BBQ joint I’m not there to eat their salmon.” An excellent point. Side dishes are fine, cole slaw, baked beans and hash are certainly staples, but honestly, beyond white bread and sweet tea or soda, all one needs is the meat.

I ordered the “Five-Meat Sampler Plate” consisting of marbled brisket, pork ribs, cracked pepper turkey, a beef rib and sausage. Nancee ordered a side and intended to share the sampler with me. I was pretty excited about the upcoming meal, but was extremely disappointed when our server arrived with a huge platter of food and all of the meat was smothered in sauce. Now, I like sauce just as much as anyone, but I am a firm believer that I should be given the “choice” to decide if I want sauce or not, because what if I don’t like the sauce? Well, I ate the meat begrudgingly because I really didn’t like the sauce, which was quite thick and fairly bland. There was no kick or distinctive flavor that I noted. Nancee agreed. She barely touched any of the meat. The beef rib actually had a spot without sauce on it and although the rib was flavorful it was not enough to counter the overload of sauce. The sausage was spicy from what I could tell, but it would have been much better not slathered in the sauce. The sauce! It was everywhere! Sauce, sauce, everywhere and I could not eat! The brisket was not particularly tender. The best item on the Sampler was the turkey, I like cracked pepper turkey, but there was only a small amount. The cole slow was chunky and passable, but I prefer shredded.

Overall, eating at County Line BBQ was like eating at any other chain restaurant. From my experience, although our server was attentive, I would not eat there again. In light of what I later ate, I would not consider County Line to be “legendary.”

[NEXT UP: RUDY'S...]

~ by scrivenerstomb on July 24, 2008.