My buddy Eric, whom I've gone with to eat most of the BBQ I've written about, told me that I needed to go try Micklewait Craft Meats. His claim was that it was one of the best briskets that he had eaten. So I invited a friend from work and met Eric there a few Saturday's ago to give it a try.
Micklewait's isn't much to see. It's essentially two trailers, one an old former RV and the other a BBQ pit mounted on wheels with an enclosed screen around it. Not unlike the early Franklin BBQ setup when they were on Concordia and I35 in Austin. Micklewait's is nestled in a small food truck court at 1309 Rosewood Ave, Austin, TX 78702. They've got some large trees to shade half of the wooden picnic tables that are scattered around.
I got there about 15 minutes before they opened and was completely shocked that there wasn't a line waiting for them place to open. If this place was supposed to be as awesome as I was led to believe I just imagined that it would have a line draped around the block. Close to 11am, there was an influx of families and other bbq goers show up. We didn't rush to get in the newly formed line, and ended up waiting about 15 minutes once it did.
They had a pretty typical offering of meats, brisket, sausage, beef ribs, pork ribs, half chicken, etc. Something that did catch my eye was the "housemade bread". The phrasing of it called my attention to it. Their sides were potato salad, cole slaw, beans, and jalapeno cheese grits. And I do love me some jalapeno cheese grits. They also offered pecan pie, buttermilk pie, and homemade moon pies. I ordered the 2 meat plate with brisket and pork ribs, with potato salad and obviously jalapeno cheese grits, I finished with a slice of pecan pie. The jalapeno cheese grits were as awesome as I thought they would be, in fact I dove into those first. The mustard based potato salad is more or less your normal offering with chunky potatoes.
Some nice touches I thought were the "housemade bread" and the homemade pickles, both of which were very good. The brisket was very moist and tender. It had a good flavor on the outside of the cut. I had hoped for a bit more flavor in the meat itself, but it was still outstanding. The pork ribs weren't quite as tender as some places I've been, but they were far from tough. You just had to work at it a bit to get all the meat. The BBQ sauce was a thin vinegar based sauce that worked well for dipping. I finished off the meal with a very tasty slice of pecan pie.
All in all, this was a really great spot. I'd recommend going there.
