I discovered Prasek's Hillje Smokehouse at an HEB. I was looking for some beef sticks\dried sausage and saw the little guy waving on the package. I saw it was local so I decided to try it. Now one of my gripes about sausage (especially beef sticks\dried sausage) in Texas is it's often greasy. It is often very bland too. I guess I'm accustomed to something a little bit different being from Wisconsin.
With that being said, one bite of Prasek's and I was blown away! There was an amazing amount of smoke to it and it was not greasy at all. You get a strong hit of smoke flavor as you bite into a piece of jerky. As you chew it the smoke flavor swirls around in your mouth and leaves a feel good aftertaste. I was hooked! On another visit to HEB, I bought their jerky. Again the smoke flavor was great and delighted my taste buds.
Seeing that Prasek's is located in El Campo and not a terrible drive away, I put it on my list of places to visit. It was a place that was on the back burner to visit, but the opportunity to visit just presented itself. When I was on my Buc-ee Mania trip hitting up all the Buc-ee's, Prasek's appeared on my route. It would have been stupid not to stop!
On the outside is a big parking lot. There appears to be a bunch of old time looking stores as the facade. On the other side of the parking lot is a bunch of gas pumps. Basically, this is a gas station meat market. If you've read this blog any, these are the type of places I love to visit!
When you come inside it feels very rustic and open. The high ceilings have deer head mounts all around. There is plenty of meat, cheese, and baked goods to go around. The meat counter is something that would put some of the largest supermarkets to shame!
In many ways, I wish I had brought a cooler. There looked like a lot of good things to try. Being that I was stuffed with Buc-ee's food, I opted for some of their beef jerky.
This place has become one of my preferred places for meat (especially jerky and dried sausage). It's a bit of a drive from Austin, but if I see it in HEB, I'll buy it!