“You are in the Land of Brisket,” proclaims the counterman when an out-of-towner gets to the head of the line and innocently asks what type of meat is served on the beef plate. You can watch the brisket being cut from the order counter. As the knife severs the dark crust and glides into the meat’s tender center, each slice wants to disintegrate. But miraculously, it holds together enough to make it intact onto a Styrofoam plate, where a row of slices is accompanied by beans, potato salad, cole slaw, a length of pickle, a thick slice of raw onion, a ramekin of sauce, and two pieces of the freshest, softest white bread in America.
In the relatively cooler months of October through March Angelo’s posts a sign below its regular menu advertising chili. Strangely, a simple bowl of red is hard to find in modern Texas. The kind Angelo’s serves is an unctuous soup/stew of ground beef and plenty of pepper, here served in a plastic bowl with plastic spoon and little bags of oyster crackers on the side.