Everything Kreuz's serves is good, but some items stand out as exceptional. On the whole their beef offerings are quite nice, with a tasty rub and good quality meat. The shoulder is really too lean, and even their brisket is less fatty than most, but has good flavor. Of the three beef selections the prime rib is the one which stands out as better than the rest, but accross the board Kreuz's beef suffers from being a bit too dry and not terribly tender. It's good, but it's not great. Their pork, on the other hand, is simply brilliant. The ham is the weak point, a bit dry and not terribly interesting, but I have to admit to not really being a fan of ham in the first place. The ribs are delicious, tender with a tasty rub and lots of meat. But the real standout of the pork items are the pork chops, huge loin chops with lots of spicy crust and the bone still in to give you something to hold onto. They're what I would call a Llano chop, because they are in the style of the chops which distinguish the barbeque of that hill country town. Most barbeque joints offer a very dry, relatively flavorless, boneless, trimmed pork loin which really has nothing to recommend it. Kreuz's chops are the same cut of meat, but presented in a way which preserves flavor and tenderness that's impossible to resist. Order end chops if they have them available. You get even more of the great peppery crust. And of course, the thing which makes Kreuz's legendary worldwide is their sausage. It's what defines the Lockhart style of sausage, a stand-alone link which is looped and tied to itself instead of tied to other sausages. It's filled with coarse-ground pork and seasonings, especially lots and lots of fresh ground black pepper. There's no other sausage like this. With black pepper replacing more common flavorings it has a unique taste which is really exceptional.
"A sinister cabal of superior writers."
Article comments
1 - Dave Nalle
Ooh, exciting. I got a trackback.
Dave
2 - Aaman
Very nice article, too, Dave. What do you think of the BBQ joints in Dallas?
3 - Dave Nalle
I'm not as familiar with BBQ in Dallas as I am in the central Texas area. I've tried a lot of them, but none really stood out. I'm going to go up there at some point this year and have my brother-in-law show me around to some of the better ones. I'll write reviews if any of them seem particularly good.
There are a couple of small BBQ chains up there which aren't bad -Red, Hot and Blue and Colter's. I also want to try Sonny Bryan's and Dickey's which are supposed to be the best up there. What I've heard about Sonny Bryan's isn't that appealing to me personally. Dickey's sounds more like my kind of place.
Dave