Sunday, August 19, 2012

Ray's BBQ Shack does solid neighborhood 'cue

[...] I keep going back to Ray's BBQ Shack, which occupies part of a gas station on Old Spanish Trail, for the kind of solid hickory-smoked 'cue and homey sides that make life on my southeast side of town a little sweeter. It might be a gorgeously constructed sandwich of spicy homemade pork-and-beef links on a butter-grilled hamburger bun, stashed with just the right amount of pickles and onions and sweet/tart sauce. Or, if I'm feeling particularly puny and shameless, a humongous baked potato piled with chopped brisket and laced with cheese, sour cream and green onions that are interwoven, quite magically, through the core of the potato. If the spicy link sandwich at Ray's is ready for a photo shoot, its bun glistening and its bias-sliced links stacked high, then the Lott's Link sandwich is a museum piece out of a Texas that is all but lost: just a fat round unsliced sausage slapped between two slices of white bread with a bit of pickle and onion, not a jot of sauce. Don't miss the barbecue beans, which start out their lives here in a can and finish them transmogrified into a celestial dish jumping with red pepper, cumin-spiked chile powder, plus smoky chunks of sausage and brisket, all boosted by a richly sweet-sour tang. The potato salad has that partially mashed texture I associate with deep East Texas, and it's heavily seasoned with mustard and relish and scallion. [...] you could go the Texas rice route for your starch, too: either with Spicy Rice, a kind of jambalaya cut with scallions and hunks of sausage; or classic dirty rice bursting with liver and giblets and black pepper. Pitmaster/co-owner Ray Busch started out as a moonlighting sheriff's deputy serving 'cue from a trailer, and you can still see that storied vehicle out back, along with stray hunks of half-burnt hickory wood.

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