KC Brisket the be-all and burnt ends-all

Don’t overlook the Italian deli, smoked bologna

In its dual mission as a daytime sandwich place and a nighttime barbecue and fried chicken joint, Dignowity Meats has the luxury of letting the smoke do most of the talking.

It also suffers the same supplyand-demand sellouts that define Texas barbecue, for better or worse. On a random weekday lunch — when the sandwich menu is in full effect — that meant no pastrami, no smoked turkey and no smoked chicken salad. There went half the menu.

What was left still got the job done at this Dignowity Hill walkup joint, which has an ordering window in the front and patio seating on the side like an old Tastee-Freez stand.

Best sandwich: Dignowity specializes in a version of burnt ends, which here are caramelized nuggets of brisket that’s smoked, cubed and smoked again with a liberal rub of salt, pepper and Cajun spice, glazed with brown sugar and barbecue sauce. They call to mind the traditional treasured charred bits of smoked brisket we beg for at Hill Country barbecue joints.

Those burnt ends formed the heart and soul of the KC Brisket Sandwich ($10), joined on white bread with tangy cabbage slaw and housemade sweet-and-sour bread-and-butter pickles for a sandwich as simple as the one you’d build at a backyard barbecue — and just as good.

Other sandwiches: A cousin to the KC, Dignowity’s Burnt End Melt ($10) took the novelty of the burnt ends and extended it with mac and cheese piled on top, with mixed results. The creamy texture of the mac complemented the sharp sweetness of the beef, but plopped together on a hard-toasted plank of ciabatta bread, they tried to escape the sliced pears that never seemed to belong there by pushing each other out of the sides of the sandwich like a fire drill with every bite.

Dignowity regained its balance with an Italian deli-style sandwich simply called the Salumi ($8), a flawless exercise in layering the salt and fat of salami and soppressata with tangy provolone, smooth mozzarella and a one-two punch of sharp garlic pesto and tangy pickled pepper giardiniera on ciabatta bread with arugula and tomatoes, the flavors married in a panini press.

To this kid who grew up loving bologna on white bread, Dignowity’s smoked bologna sandwich ($7) was like a rite of passage to adulthood. It’s cut thick, fried in a pan to create flavor islands of caramelized fat, then dressed with slaw and pickles on — you guessed it — white bread. A simple pleasure for a now-grownup kid who can order a beer from Dignowity’s craft beer tap wall to wash it down.

Photos by Mike Sutter / Staff The KC Brisket Sandwich incorporated smoked brisket burnt ends, pickles, slaw and barbecue sauce on Texas toast for simplicity at its tastiest.

The smoked brisket burnt ends, mac and cheese, sliced pears and barbecue sauce in the Burnt End Melt lacked harmony.