The Salt Lick...best BBQ ever!

Lucky for us we've made friends with a couple here who are originally from Louisiana and who know where to find good food here in San Antonio. They already introduced us to two course peking duck lunch (duck with the fluffy rolls, spring onion and sweet soy AND the bones made into duck and cabbage/watercress soup - for under $20 total, not per head!) as well as Mama Lee's Soul Food (excellent gumbo, fried okra, fried chicken...apparently souls like fried stuff!). Well this time they took us on an out of town roadtrip to a place called Driftwood, TX...which is actually quite a long way for wood to drift. It was only about a 40 minute drive through very pretty ranch country, once we got off the mega highway that is, although I missed a lot of the view in my quest not to get carsick.

So our final destination was a place called The Salt Lick, which turned out to be a ranch sized BBQ place. It was a drizzly cold early winter day, probably 10 degrees but misty and wet with a nasty pervasive wind the got under every layer of clothing, so walking in the door of the Salt Lick was like walking into heaven! The BBQ pit was inside this HUGE shed, like a shearing shed, but filled with tables and noise and heat and people. The BBQ smelt incredible and I was basically drooling before we even sat down! While we were waiting for our table we got to watch them at the BBQ chopping up the ribs and smoking the sausages...mmm


Once seated at a rough wooden table in the veranda section of the shed (covered in but we got to watch the rain) we quickly ran through the menu, but opted for 'family style' which turned out to be all you can eat bits of just about everything! Our waiter turned up with plates of brisket, sausage and the best BEST sticky pork ribs I have EVER tasted in my entire life...they were fall of the bone soft and tough and crunch all at once, with this amazing dark sticky sauce - they put any other rib I've had here to absolute shame. We also had potato salad (not a creamy one...hard to describe but gooood), beans, pickles, coleslaw that wasn't creamy but had a lemony sesame dressing and fluffy white bread. It also came with their signature BBQ sauce and a habenero (spicy) version that cut through the smokyness of the brisket and sausages just so perfectly. The Salt Lick was BYO in the true sense, so we had our esky at one end of the table and thems who like beer drank beer and we cracked open an old vine Californian zin that seemed to be made for the day (Gnarly Head) - sweet and spicy with a good solid kick.

And once again nothing but a food post! But with food this good, how can I not!