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Rolling Barbecue Revue: Old School BBQ
A preview of Thursday’s six-part Rolling Barbecue Revue in Austin360.
The most truly mobile outlet of this Rolling Barbecue Revue, Old School commutes, smokes and sells from a big yellow schoolbus no different than the ones we just sent to the barns for the summer. Except for the smokestack and the long, inky streak falling like a veil from a side window.
These are some of the friendliest people you could meet on a bus, even as they blink away the heat and haze on a verdant stretch of road next to the Metro Rail track.
And this is some of the most challenging barbecue in the city, the most aggressively smoked meat you’ll ever find. It follows you like a swarm of cartoon bees, from the bus to the car, from the car to your office, in your hair, on your clothes, in your pores. People will stand aside to let you pass, waving you away like a walking house fire.
If smoke is your preferred poison, Old School is your hotline. I’m not the man dialing that number. But on the edges of the menu, I found a truly fine hamburger for $6, a dripping half-pound of shredded beef dressed with caramelized onions (ask for them).
And there’s another thing, a side dish truly among the best at any joint, transient or steadfast: a wedge of macaroni and cheese, cut like a pie, held together by melted magic and shot through with a velvety cream sauce and a kiss of oregano.
If the meat were Al Pacino at his frothy apex in ‘Scent of a Woman,’ the mac is Michael Corleone in the first movie: subtle, nuanced, ready for bigger things.
Old School BBQ & Grill. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Clifford Lane. 947-6830. Hours: 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays. On Mondays from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., the bus parks in the lot at East Side Lumber, 3001 E. Cesar Chavez St.
(American-Statesman photos by Mike Sutter)
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