Breakfast at Van's Bar-B-Q, Oakville

Look at the size of this biscuit!  Must be four inches long and two inches deep.  Toasty on the outside while flaky inside.  This is a great biscuit!  Thanks to my neighbor Steve for stopping here for breakfast on the way back from a bad fishing trip.

I have been to Van's for lunch for years, but this is my first time I have been there for breakfast.  If you're on I-37, just take exit 65 (Oakville) and you're there.  It's on the east side access road of the interstate.

BREAKFAST

Bacon & Eggs with Biscuit:

Eggs over easy with home fries and crispy bacon.  That white stuff in the cup is cream gravy.  I will show you what to do with that later.



Sausage & Eggs with Biscuit (not shown):

Scrambled eggs with home fries and sausage.  See how shiny the sausage paddy is.  That's good old fashion grease.  No turkey sausage at Van's!  By the way, eggs come the way you want them at Van's.



Biscuit & Gravy:

This is what you do with the cup of gravy.  Used the top of the biscuit to eat my eggs and bacon, then covered the bottom half with gravy and black pepper.  The gravy is perfect in consistency and flavor.  As my friend Mike said, the gravy  enhances the taste of the biscuit rather than overwhelming it.


Breakfast Fixings Served Old Style:

Butter, grape jam, strawberry jam, and salsa, all are served so you can easily serve yourself without opening all of those pesky packages that the stuff comes in in the big restaurant chains.




LUNCH

Barbecue plates come with one, two, or three meats.  Most of us on the way to the bad fishing trip from the Del Webb Community in San Antonio had already eaten a late breakfast.  So we ate lite for lunch.  Eating lite at Van's is getting jus one meat.  Thanks goes to my friend Frank who suggested we stop there on the way to the coast.

The plates at Van's are mis-titled.  What you get is a strip of butcher paper with everything on it.  And how the waitresses get that to the table without dropping it is beyond me.  But they do.  Note, all pates come with onion, pickle, potato sapid, and pinto beans.  The beans have obviously been flavored with freshly grown black pepper.  The pepper taste is predominant without the heat.

Sliced Brisket Plate:

The brisket meat is obviously trimmed of all of the hard fat, but enough of the soft fat is kept for flavor. The brisket is juicy enough to eat without barbecue sauce and without being greasy.  See the rim of smoke on the brisket slices.



Chopped Brisket Plate:

This is one of those wonders that developed years ago from left-over brisket.  Take the pieces from the day before and cook them down in barbecue sauce.  Some of the world's best dishes come from leftovers.  I don't know that Van's chopped brisket is from leftovers, but it is great stewed in their own barbecue sauce.



Pork Rib Plate:

Texas prides itself with barbecue, and the barbecue restaurants are most competitive with their smoked ribs.  Van's holds its own with the competition.  The pork ribs have a great smoked taste and are quite lean.  The ribs are cooked so long that it takes little gnawing to free them from their bones.

Van's sells their ribs by the pound so if you're really hungry, just order up a pound of ribs and feast.


Barbecue Sauce:

Barbecue sauce at Van's has a nice sweet taste.  I recommend it in their beans or on their sausage.  Sorry, no sausage plate pics; no one on this trip ordered sausage.


The Menu: