Harlons Barbeque

Harlons is no longer, I think they closed a couple of months ago.

I have no idea how or why or where the actual Harlon’s BBQ location in Austin exists… but I hope, for the sake of its poor patrons and the general welfare of the neighborhood in which it is located, that the AUS airport incarnation of it is only a sad attempt to recreate the wonderful glory that is barbecued meat at the original location.
I’ve developed a bit of a modus operandi for departing out of my beloved Austin-​Bergstrom Airport. In a nutshell, I usually pack and shower about an hour and a half before my flight departs, clean boxers and socks flying pell-​mell about the room while the whole time I’m hoping to get out of the house not much inside an hour before my flight leaves. Fortunately (errrr, luckily), to date, my record is impeccable… not one flight missed.
The problem with my methodology is that I never have the time to get some food into my forsaken belly prior jumping into the car and making my exodus Eastward. And if, as was the case before jumping onto this lovely flight which, unbeknownst to me, would be making a stop in El Paso before continuing on to Los Angeles, I’m faced with a flight of outside of the state of Texas, that’s simply going to be too long to wait for food.
Well, after breezing through security (yeah, at Love field, I line up in the Expert traveler line, bitches!), I find out my flight’s at gate 8… away from Schlotsky’s, Maudie’s and Salt Lick. DAMN IT ALL TO HELL!!! Let’s be honest — food at the gate 7 – 8 area simply sucks. You’ve got crappy Chinese food, a poor attempt at Waterloo Icehouse, apathetic employees, and yes, Harlon’s BBQ. Well, a couple of weeks ago, I had to forego the french fries with my BLT from Waterloo, in order to avoid eating said BLT in a middle seat, because my flight was boarding. Didn’t work, but that was only because there was a middle seat available in the exit row. Let the record state that I offered a bite of my BLT to both aisle neighbors. Mercifully, they declined. I digress.
So this time around, I’m thinking I’ll be sly and grab a plate of BBQ, which does not require much prep time. And it wouldn’t have, except that the food technician assembling my plate of BBQ was a pissed off 300 pound sloth (no offense to anyone falling into that category… just stating the facts). I opted for the one-​meat-​item plate ($ 9.95), and went with brisket. But when I saw the sloth carve off three little slices and toss them into the styrofoam, where the sound of it landing echoed off the container’s walls and they lay pathetically surrounded by a sea of white, I changed my mind and told the sloth to kick down the three meat plate ($ 2 more), add in chicken (white) and a sausage link. Green beans and slaw were my «veggies». I even tipped her in some kind of twisted attempt at reverse pay-it-forward-let’s-make-the-sloth-happy psychology.
I didn’t have to wait long, as my group was already boarding, so I sat down and once airborne took a look at my sorry little feast. One dried out little chicken breast complete with retarded little wing (please allow me to emphasize DRY), half — yes, you heard that correctly — HALF of a similarly dried out and chewy sausage link (upon masticating, half became a good thing), and few strips of brisket, one of which was pretty much entirely fat.
Things didn’t get much better when taste buds actually came into play. Everything was dry except for the strip of fat… which I wisely stuffed into a barf bag. And cold, but that’s not really fair, since I did wait 10 minutes or so before digging in. Slaw was pretty flavorless, the roughage factor being it’s only redeeming quality. BUT! The cold green beans were… wait for it… okay. Hey, they were cooked with bacon. That’s worth a star.
To sum up the experience succinctly (and apologize for the mess of verbosity above), I’ll just say… BOOOO. One star — needs work.

I have eaten here a couple of times while waiting for planes and despite the high airport prices, I was pleased. I had a double meat plate with chicken and brisket, with sides of green beans and cole slaw. The plate was about 10.00.
The chicken was good and reasonably tender, as was the brisket. The green beans were outstanding. The sauce was excellent and they were extremely friendly and gave me extra hot louisiana-​style hot sauce which gives them an extra star.
Last time I was here I got a brisket sandwich, with a lot of sauce. I brought it on the plane to eat. The entire plane hated me while they ate their peanuts. oh well.