barbecue

Freedmen’s Bar – Austin, TX

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Name: Freedmen’s Bar
Date: 6/29/14
Address: 2402 San Gabriel St, Austin, TX 78705
Order: Holy Trinity Plate (Ribs, Sausage, Brisket) (link to menu)
Price: $18.00

Like Monk, I too decided the best way to celebrate Father’s Day was to enjoy some barbecue. Freedman’s has been getting some good publicity recently in town for having great brisket, so I figured this would be a great time to visit.

The biggest complaint that I have with Freeman’s is by far trying to find parking. It’s located in the West Campus area, which doesn’t have much parking, but this was a Sunday during the summer, it shouldn’t have taken almost 20 minutes. But once we got inside, the atmosphere was very unique and fun. They have very little seating inside, but it looks like an old school saloon bar. They also have plenty of outdoor seating in a brick-enclosed courtyard. It was built in 1869 and appears to have retained some of the original style.

I ordered the Holy Trinity Plate so I could try as much of what they had to offer as possible. The first thing I tried was their sausage. As far as taste goes, it was good and had plenty of flavor. But that’s as far as I can go. The casing had no snap to it, and it appeared as if the sausage had been boiled or maybe steamed to keep warm. The casing was weak, fell apart when cut, and was chewy.

The brisket was much better, but not great. In fact, it was just plain average. You could tell there was potential there with a decent crust and plenty moist, but it just never got great. I think there is also potential that the brisket was cooked the previous day and heated up for Sunday lunch. That would help explain why it is getting great reviews from others but my experience wasn’t great.

The last item on the plate was the ribs, which were pretty good.  They had a good amount of black pepper to give flavor. They were tender, but still had a good amount of tug. They were definitely the star of the plate. I could have eaten many more if given the opportunity.

Overall, Freedman’s was just average. Better than many of the places I’ve been, but nothing worth writing home about. Because they have had such good reviews from other people, I’m inclined to try them again, however there are several other places I would go before heading back.

–Rudy

Ratings:
Atmosphere – 4 Hogs
Brisket – 3 Hogs
Sausage – 2 Hogs
Ribs – 3.5 Hogs
Overall – 3 Hogs
Freedmen's Bar on Urbanspoon
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Photo Gallery: The Great NC BBQ Map Launch Party at NoDa Brewing!

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Goodie bag, including map
Paul’s Brew-B-Que beer
The NoDa Brewing parking lot, turned into smoker’s alley for the day
Midwood Smokehouse
Zach from Sauceman’s and his burn barrel
Inside of NoDa Brewing
The hushpuppy eating contest
Amanda addresses the crowd
My plate of food, with both western and eastern barbecue
‘Naner pudding

While I did back The Great NC BBQ Map‘s Kickstarter campaign a few months back, I didn’t back them at the level to get you to the launch party. So when I was picked randomly as the lucky winner of their Instagram contest to gain entry into the party, I was thrilled.

The launch party took place at NoDa Brewing Company this past Sunday, and the main event of the party was a barbecue showdown between Midwood Smokehouse (representing eastern NC barbecue) and Sauceman’s (representing the west) with the party attendees voting to decide their favorite. In addition to the food, Paul (one of the map co-creators) also brewed a small batch of “Brew-B-Que,” a red ale brewed with smoked serrano and chipotle peppers to mimic the spiciness of eastern NC barbecue.

There were also fun activities like a “cake walk” contest that was kind of like musical chairs, but with cake, as well as a hush puppy eating contest, Coney Island style, and a raffle.

For those of you who backed the Kickstarter, you should be pretty close to getting your map in the mail (if you haven’t gotten them already) and I think you will be very happy with it. It is on high quality, heavy paper and is well designed with a ton of information for each of the 434 joints (!) in the state – location, hours, whole hog vs shoulder, flame source, sauce type. Not to mention it has a definitive history of barbecue in the US, a comprehensive listing of NC barbecue festivals, and a breakdown of NC barbecue traditions. I’m telling you, this thing is packed to the gills with information. They will be taking additional orders for the map soon, so be sure to sign up for the mailing list on their (soon to be now redesigned) website if you didn’t get in on the Kickstarter.

I briefly spoke with both Amanda and Paul (both super nice, btw), co-creators of the map, and their excitement was evident that night at the unveiling of their labor of love to the world. A big congrats to them on their hard work finally coming to fruition!

–Monk

Linkdown: 7/30/14

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– John T. Edge and Joe Kwon (cellist for The Avett Brothers and also raised in High Point like the Barbecue Bros), take in 15 of the Korean and Korean-inspired restaurants in northern Atlanta, including Heirloom Market Bar-B-Que (who we reviewed earlier this week)

– Texas BBQ Posse: More evidence that Lockhart has lost its barbecue magic

– The Elements of Barbecue Sauce has this little tidbit from Chip Stamey, which is similar to my feelings on the matter:

“Everyone makes a big deal about ketchup,” he says “But it’s really a mild thing. [Our sauce has] black pepper, red pepper, a little bit of sugar, and that’s it.”

– Ugh, not another one of these lists again, compiled according to some random set of arbitrary criteria. In this case it is:

To determine which states are the most barbecue crazed in America we used five sets of data…

  1. Barbecue restaurants per capita (source: Yellow Pages)
  2. Facebook interest in barbecue (source: Facebook)
  3. Percentage of restaurants that are barbecue (source: Yellow Pages)
  4. Google searches for “barbecue” (source: Google Trends)
  5. Barbecue accessory stores and charcoal producers (Yellow Pages)

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– Johnny Fugitt (aka barbecuerankings) gets interviewed by Philly.com

Nationally, “there are also a number of famous or historic places that I wasn’t impressed with, so they’ll be left off the list. I’m going to make plenty of people mad!’ he said.

– Well this was a nice surprise:

– Did you know? Via The Great NC BBQ Map, who had their launch party this past Sunday. We’ll have some photos from the event on Friday

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– Speaking of which, a sneak peek of the map which has begun shipping to Kickstarter backers