Eat in OC Takes on Austin, Texas! Part 7 – the end!

Ok this is it the final post about my trip to Austin, TX, if you follow Eat in OC on Facebook I mentioned I had some smoked BBQ Beef Ribs that tasted like candy, one of my peers in Austin recommended I check out Southside Market and Barbecue in Elgin, Texas since be knew I was such a big fan of smoked meat. I’ll say this again and again when I see him, my coworker knows he smoked meat! When I first pulled up to Southside Market it didn’t look that big, but once you enter you realize they couldn’t probably seat about 300 people inside. Not other does Southside serve food to order but they also have a butcher with great cuts of meat to smoke as well as made in-house sausage (since they are the home of Elgin Hot Sausage).

I had a 4 meat plate, pork rib, brisket, sausage, and beef rib. All the meats were pretty good, but there was one that stood out from the pack. Their beef rib was the best damn beef rib I’ve ever had. I don’t tend to be a big beef rib fan, but there rib reminded me of candy the way it tasted with the sweetness of post oak smoke and the simple seasoning of salt and pepper. I was blown away and wish I had ordered just a big plate of beef ribs, but now I have a reason to come back to Elgin. Not only that I have a reason to now try to perfect smoking my own beef ribs.

Southside Market and Barbecue Meat Plate

Once thing I did find funny was that they sell a BBQ rub with a number of different seasonings in it, but after giving their beef rib a taste I really couldn’t see them seasoning it with anything other that the tried and true salt and pepper. There isn’t really much more you need other than that if you know what you are doing with you smoke meat. These meats were great without sauce, although I also appreciated the different flavor profile introduced when I used their BBQ sauce and their Hot Sauce (made with apple cider!).