Posted February 19, 2008 by Nick Lindauer in Reviews

Restaurant Review: Southside Market – Elgin, TX

I took a road trip over the weekend and made our way to Austin, TX for a small Valentine’s Day celebration. I had ulterior motives and purposfully planned the route so that we could stop by the Southside Market in Elgin, TX for lunch. Having had the Southside Hot Sausage at the Big Apple BBQ and consulting with friends and cohorts, I knew that I had to stop in to try some BBQ.

Elgin sausage is known far and wide as the best in the west. For more than a century, the town of Elgin (say it with a hard G, as in gut) has been famous for all-beef links that are pit-cooked, smoky, and succulent. The Southside Market has been Elgin’s primary meat market since 1882.

It used to be a creaky, sawdust-floored store downtown, but about five years ago the Southside Market moved to a huge, spanking clean, barn-size building on the outskirts of town. While the new place lacks the charm of a well-aged and charmingly dilapidated house of barbecue, it still has a working butcher shop on premises, and it still smokes sausage and beef brisket the old-fashioned way, in big iron pits over slow-smoldering post oak wood. Order your meat by the pound at the pit and carry it to a table.

The sausage is spectacular ““ vividly spiced, taut, and moist beyond description; but don’t ignore the sliced beef; it too is luscious and flavorful, needing no companion other than a few slices of white bread just to mop its juices. – Micheal Stern

We decided to split the brisket and sausage combo as it was only 11:30 in the morning and we had a long day of eating ahead of us. We were both hesitant to give the brisket a try due to a recent run in with some shoe leather that was being passed off as “authentic TX brisket” but we forged ahead anyways.

Wow. Hands down, the best BBQ we’ve had yet in TX. The brisket was so divine that it restored our faith in brisket BBQ and has inspired me to give it a try on my own. The sausage was superb – with a crisp outside and a spicy inside. I will say that the beans did throw me off a little bit – traditional refried beans (not BBQ beans) with a side of potato salad – not a typical choice, but who cares – it was delicious.

We sat there and oohed and ahhed over the food and decided that it was more then worth the 2 hours drive – we immediately agreed that we need to bring any visiting friends and family along, just so they can enjoy the food as much as we did.

And you know you’ve found a chilehead mecca when there’s a jumbo sized bottle of hot sauce on the table – and nothing else.

Southside Market Loot

I’m glad I had the foresight to bring along an ice chest for the trip – beyond the non-perishables above, I also bought 4lbs of the hot sausage to bring home. We’ve already cooked some up for breakfast tacos and I’m eagerly researching the fine art of smoking sausage on the BGE – so look for that post soon.

Bottom line – even if your not in TX, you can order some Elgin hot sausage from the website and I highly suggest you do. It won’t disappoint and your heart doctor will have to learn to live with it. Just order some for him too.