City Market — Restaurant in Luling

Not off the beaten path if you're planning to beat a path for historic barbecue. Made the circle trip from Dallas to Austin to San Antonio to Houston back to Dallas and everywhere I stopped people mentioned City Market so this was high on my radar and a definite stop between San Antonio and Houston. I went off the beaten path and found myself in the beautiful town of Luling, TX and there I was at a "historic" barbecue located in a 1920's Bank turned fire roasted barbecue pit landmark.

Greeted with a"Hello have you been here before?" Which I replied "No." And quickly she said "follow me to the meat room." We stepped inside the dark glass walls and where five guys dressed in white jumpsuits in this smokey,dark, hot, sort of seance room... working the barbecue pit. She said,"This is Junior and he'll help you pick your meats." Jr was a younger dude and he smiled and said "what do you like" and I told him "sliced brisket with no sauce You can give me the fatty stuff"without missing a heartbeat he asked affirmatively..."what about the sausage how much do you want if that?" What do you say in that situation? I replied with a quick "sure, qtr pound is fine." And that's when his second in command ask Junior, "isn't he getting ribs?"Junior turn to me and asked inquisitely, "no ribs today?" I declined juniors professional fear of missing out close and said, "that will be fine do you mind if I take some photos?" He replied, "Come on back here take a look at how we cook these things"and I followed him back to the smokers and he lifted up each one of these fire roasted barbecue bins and he said, "yeah man take as many photos as you want these are amazing".

I'm glad Junior was there to see me through my first time ....because you know you never forget your first time. And from the looks of all the people taking pictures out front of this establishment there was a lot of people who lost their City Market virginity today as most days. All of my friends in Texas seem to know of City Market. People enjoy referring people to a landmark, they were told to go there so they tell other people to go there and other people tell other people It goes on and on and on.

Well worth the journey off the beaten path and truth be told you only had to go off the beaten path a mere mile . Small distance to travel for such a...

Stopped here on our way to Castroville because it was rated 4.3 stars, the highest among Luling bbq joints. Walked in and looked for menus, to no avail, and the 5 or 6 people behind the counter offered no greeting, nor did they volunteer any help. I finally asked for a menu and received a snarky "it's below the beer sign" response from a young employee whom, I surmise, had been asked that question more times than she would've liked. The menu was a board explaining the price per pound of their limited meats; no turkey, no chicken, no mention of any side orders. We walked through the secondary door when they slice the meat and ordered a pound of brisket, not thinking to request "moist, not dry and charred", which is my fault, I suppose. To be fair, the guys in this section of the restaurant were at least courteous and friendly, offering us pickles and onions, etc. We took the brisket, onions, jalapeños and pickles to a table that had no bottles of sauce, so I once again had the delight of dealing with the snarky young woman behind the counter. The sauce was served in a "Tabasco"- type bottle, room temperature and mostly tasting of vinegar. As bad as the sauce was, it was necessary to swallow the dried-out, overly thick-sliced brisket, which was over cooked and charred beyond the usual "bark" that us brisket smokers strive to achieve. The sausage was terrible, and it appeared to have synthetic casing as opposed to natural hog casing, but I can't be certain. The flavor was not to our liking either way. I asked for silverware and a bag so I could take the brisket home in hopes of chopping it up and heating it in some better store-bought sauce, as we'd paid almost 30 bucks for sausage and brisket and tipped the meat cutters generously because of their courtesy. At least the older man who gave me my take-out bag was friendly and professional, as were the other staff except for "Ms. Snarky". We vowed to never return to this place. The only positives were the mostly friendly staff and...

Walking up to the establishment, it smelled amazing. It was a bit confusing upon entry though. There's no signs and staff didnt speak up to give direction. The very first counter turned out to be for sides only. A bit further down is the meats line. The wait was pretty short and walking into the smokehouse to order your meats was a cool ambiance, but it was all down hill from there.

There's no turkey or chicken. No sandwiches either... just sliced brisket, pork ribs and sausage. I ordered ended up with a pound of brisket, 3 ribs, and 2 sausage links. The pricing is pretty standard. But once it was all stacked on a piece of butcher paper in front of me, it was an extremely disappointing looking pile of food. Everything looked like every bit of possible moisture was smoked out of it. Didn't even bother going back to the other counter for sides. If the main courses looked like that, I didn't have much hope for the sides.

The sausage flavor was ok... but over cooked and shriveled.

The ribs were dry and CRUNCHY. Basically porkrinds on the bone, except no rub... no salt... no sweet or heat... no flavor. Just dry, severely over cooked, tiny ribs.

The brisket wasn't any better. It was tender and had an easy pull, but like the ribs, dry with no flavor. No saltiness or hint of pepper. It was literally just smoked brisket.

The meats had to be DOUSED in sauce because they were so dry and lacked flavor. It seems like that was almost the whole intent. Just smoke meat and let the sauce do the heavy lifting... only problem is. The sauce tasted very similar to another establishments sauce...

Its a bad sign when my 3 year old is pouring salt on the butcher paper and rolling each bite of brisket into a spread of salt and bbq sauce just to try and get some flavor.

Nice place, but not worth a...