Venison and Pork Spicy Snack Stick from Taste Texas out of Austin Texas. This is one of their private label jerkies. This is by far my favorite snack stick style jerky. It had a great taste and good amount of heat from the jalapeno powder and red pepper. They used quality ingredients in all their jerky products. The meat had a great consistency and a wonderful snap to it. I also liked the slight garlic flavor that complemented the venison and pork flavor. Also, the pieces are much thicker and bigger than your average store bought sticks and definitely have a much better taste. I would recommend this to anyone that loves snack style jerky- Rated 5 out of 5-D & A! Follow @TasteTexas on Facebook for exciting Texas news and food! For ordering information please contact Taste Texas via Facebook atwww.facebook.com/TasteTexasAustin or contact by Phone (512) 215-8671, Email nick@taste-texas.com Also check out their website for this and other Texas made products. Website http://www.taste-texas.com/

Blue Bell Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream. Blue Bell has rolled out a new flavor y’all! Chocolate and peanut butter has got to be one of my favorite flavor combinations, ever, so I was pretty excited about this one; even if it seems dull against flavors like blueberry cheesecake and birthday cake. Though it was very good, if you are looking for a solid chocolate and peanut butter ice cream, this may not be the one for you. There are plenty of creamy peanut butter swirls throughout, but even when there weren’t peanut butter swirls, it totally blocked and overpowered the rich, chocolate ice cream. The chocolate ice cream was very subdued in this particular flavor. It is a flavor I would personally get again because I am a fan of peanut butter anything, but again, if you are looking for a solid chocolate peanut butter ice cream, in my experience it lacked in the chocolate that Blue Bell always does so well in. Let us know what y’all think if you’ve tried it! Rated 4.6 out of 5 –A.

Oma’s Choice Blueberry Pie out of Schulenburg, Texas. We purchased this miniature pie at the Go Texan Pavilion at the Texas State Fair in Dallas. The pie was appealing with a cute little cut out shape of Texas on top. While the pie was good, I was looking for a more homemade taste to it. I was a little disappointed that the blueberry filling didn’t have any actual whole blueberries in it. It was more like a blueberry jam or filling you see in a generic store bought pie. It was sweet and the crust was flaky but I would have definitely liked to see whole blueberries inside! Let us know if y’all have tried any of Oma’s Choice products! Rated 3.7 out of 5. –A. D rated it a 4 out of 5.

Spicy Buffalo Jerky from Taste Texas out of Austin, Texas. This jerky is from their private label line. This gourmet jerky has a slight jalapeno spice to it that compliments the buffalo meat without overpowering it. It has a nice tender consistency and slight sweet taste from the brown sugar. I really like the buffalo meat mixed in with the beef it kept the jerky moist and flavorful. This is one of the best tasting buffalo jerky I have tasted. This packet had a decent amount of jerky in it. Rated 4.9 out of 5-D. I can’t wait to try more! Follow @TasteTexas on Facebook for exciting Texas news and food! For ordering information please contact Taste Texas via Facebook atwww.facebook.com/TasteTexasAustin or contact by Phone (512) 215-8671, Email nick@taste-texas.com Also check out their website for this and other Texas made products. Website http://www.taste-texas.com/

Texas Squeeze out of Austin, Texas. Grapefruit Juice. This grapefruit juice tasted great. It had a powerful grapefruit taste. I liked that it wasn’t too sweet like other juices I have had. It had a natural sweet taste and they use filtered Texas water and concentrated Rio Red grapefruit juice. This juice uses only natural fruit sugars and has no preservatives. I would recommend this juice to anyone that likes a refreshing grapefruit drink. Also it would taste great as a mixer. Rated 4.9 out of 5-D

Pecan Lodge at the Dallas Farmers Market Shed #2 in Dallas, Texas. We had gotten up early to enjoy the fall temps and head down to the Dallas Famers Market. We had arrived and gotten in line early, around 9:50-55ish (we knew that Pecan Lodge was a very popular BBQ spot) so we were prepared to wait! We had previously tried their chopped beef brisket sandwich at the Untapped Festival in Fort Worth a few months ago and loved it! When they opened up at 11am, we arrived at the counter hoping they didn’t run out of our favorite, beef brisket and beef ribs. Unfortunately, they had just ran out of beef brisket, beef ribs, and pulled pork just two orders before us( oh no!!!!!!) But since we waited in line all that time, we decided to give their sausage and pork ribs a try. Their sausage was very juicy and flavorful once you get past the heavy smoke flavor. I love smoked meats, but the sausage had just a little too much smoke, but it is something I would get again. The pork ribs were awesome! Very, very juicy and flavorful with a lot of meat on the bone and the spice rub was perfect, it didn’t need a drop of sauce! We had also gotten the fried okra, which was fried perfectly, and wasn’t slimy. Good amount of breading to okra ratio. By far my favorite place to have okra. We had also gotten the southwestern beans, which reminded me of black bean soup, because of the choice of seasons put in. It was delicious! Can’t wait to head back out there and camp our around 9am to get our hands on their brisket and beef ribs! Sausage rated 4.1 out of 5, pork ribs rated 4.95 out of 5, fried okra rated 5 out of 5, and the southwestern beans rated 4.7 out of 5. -A
Pecan Lodge Dallas, Texas. We arrived at 9:55am and there was a line of about 40 people ahead of us. They don’t open till 11am. At noon, we got up to the counter to order. The beef ribs, brisket, and pulled pork was sold out. We knew this may happen so we thought getting there when we did would be a good time to still get to try their great brisket. We ended up getting the 2 meat combo with 2 sides. The combo we chose was pork ribs and smoked sausage. The two sides were fried okra and south western pinto beans. Even though we were disappointed that we didn’t get any brisket the meal we had was good. The pork ribs had a nice smoke ring and taste. The ribs were tender and juicy. The smoked sausage was good too, but had too much smoke flavor. The first bite I could only taste the smoke. The sausage had a nice casing and good quality meat. Now to the sides. The fried okra was good and wasn’t fried too much and tasted good. The southwestern beans were good also. They had a different flavor than your usual pinto beans they had a lot of spices and almost a black bean soup kinda taste. Guess next time we try Pecan lodge again we will have to get there sooner. Ribs rated 4.8 out of 5. Sausage rated 4.0 out of 5. Fried okra rated 4.8 out of 5. Southwestern pinto beans rated 4.75 out of 5-D