Barbecue Lover's Guide to Austin - Book Review

Texas is a big barbecue state, and Austin has a terrific selection of barbecue joints. While you can spend hours online looking up information on barbecue restaurants in the area, I'd recommend getting Barbecue Lover's Guide to Austin by Gloria Corral.

Gloria's guide is her first book, and it's a basic guidebook. It includes all the information you'd need or want without a huge amount of fluff. Austin is divided by area with maps for each marking the barbecue restaurants included. Each restaurant gets a double page spread with general data like times open and whether they take credit cards etc. Then, Gloria gives the inside scoop on each. This is the kind of information you don't usually get. Some little barbecue places can be hard to spot, so she gives extra descriptions. She includes data about other specials like homemade banana pudding or peach cobblers. You don't know to order those goodies if someone doesn't check it out and tell you.

This is a book that is small and easy to pack to take along. It has a solid index of the barbecue restaurants which range from ones I've heard of like Stubb's to others that are not as well known like The Salt Lick BBQ and Bee Caves.

I used to live in Texas, and I sure do miss that beef barbecue. I'll have to take a road trip one of these days, and I'll have to save up some calories, so I can try out all these neat barbecue restaurants in Austin or at least a few of them.

If you live in Austin, TX or close or are moving there or just taking a trip, this is a very handy book to have on hand or in the glove box.

For more information on the book and Austin barbecue or to buy a copy, visit Gloria's barbecue web site. You can also follow her at Twitter under bbqloversguide.