OK, I didn't do as much as I wanted, but I did do some.... Sunday night, nothing seemed to be open except Rudy's, so I ended up there with some ribs and brisket. I'd never had Rudy's ribs before. They were smokey and a bit different, which I generally like. They were in the fair to good range. I'd eat them again, but wouldn't search them out. The brisket was just meh. It was way underseasoned and a bit undercooked.
I had them back in December and had similar, so this seems a major drop-off in quality from a few years back.
I visited Sodolak's on a Tuesday night with 7 other colleagues. I really wanted to like the place badly, but the waitress was in a huff, bordering on rude. Well, actually, she was rude. She had no interaction with anyone, didn't smile and if you weren't ready with your order, she would just leave and go to the kitchen, coming back in a few minutes. They weren't busy or anything. The steak I had was the 2lb porterhouse. It was probably one of the most miserable pieces of meat I've eaten. It was tough and grizzly. The ribeyes seemed much better, from what I could see, and the chicken-fried steak seemed alright. The chicken-fried bacon was by far the best thing I saw or ate. It was much better than I expected.
Surprisingly, the BBQ in the Texas A&M student union was quite decent and I had a couple nice lunches there (sorry, no pics). By far the best meals I had were at C&Js on the edge of town.
Brisket was good, well seasoned if just a bit undercooked. The ribs were quite nice. Again, they had a different flavor, but much better than Rudy's. They were unsauced and cooked perfectly.
Ended up there three times. One evening we had a group of 20 of us.
