Author: foodnerd

OK, so i think i might have a theory on why people down South tend to be fatter on average: waitresses down here just keep on topping up your glass of sweet tea. You have no damn idea how much of that sweet, sweet nectar is going down your gullet, and it’s not like you can just not drink it. It’s far too delicious for that.
And while I’m at it perhaps I can describe the delicious barbecue available at The Bar-B-Q Shop. I’m here in Memphis visiting a client, who as it turns out is rather a kindred spirit and when I asked about barbecue recommendations she said she was friends with the owner of the best place in town. Okey dokey then, let’s go!
Her husband said that the beef was better than the pork, so I went that way. They pull their brisket here rather than slice it, and it is fantastically aromatic and smoky. The sauce is sweet-based and dark, but the sweetness is not the primary note; just like in KC, it’s surprisingly complex and balanced with spices and savory notes, but this sauce is distinctly different from KC style sauce — though admittedly neighbors on the sauce spectrum.
I’m not sure if it’s a Memphis thing or just a specialty of the house, but I had to order it regardless on a half-and-half plate with my beef: bbq spaghetti. Soft thick spaghetti with barbecue sauce and barbecue meat. I ask you, what’s not to love about that?
Big thick slices of buttered Texas toast on the side (oddly enough), and slaw with bits of chopped pickle in it top things off. The drummettes are excellent, super crispy fried and with a little sprinkle of their house dry rub on for flavor. (This stuff is awesome, a southern barbecue version of Old Bay seasoning — i was dabbing it up off the plate and licking it off my finger, salty and spicy and delicious.) Everybody working there is friendly and the place is actually rather huge for a barbecue shack, i expect because it’s not really a shack so much anymore, being rather popular with Memphisians.
I have a hazy photo in my phone that i’ll try and get uploaded soon. And I have a fridge here in my hotel room, so I’m gonna eat leftovers for dinner tomorrow night, oh yeah!
nom nom nom nom nom nom

Often with the tallasiandude’s parents we go for dinner at the Mandarin Deli in Northridge. It’s pretty close to the house, it’s very mellow and low-key, and the food is really great.
Especially the cold cucumber pickle. Oh my god, it is so delicious: rough-chopped cucumber with some kind of intensely garlicky dressing and some cilantro. I can’t quite tell if there is any sugar or vinegar involved; it’s one of those pickles where it’s probably just salt but some crazy alchemy makes it into a super-savory complexity that makes me happy all the way to the end of the plate. Can’t get enough, especially in warm weather.
The shredded radish pickle is also excellent, we learned on this trip. It looks much like the daikon-thread pickle one gets as pan chan in Korean restaurants, but has a slightly different taste, almost as if it has just a whisper of fish sauce in it.
The spicy seafood chile noodle soup did turn out to be jambong, as we’d hoped. Hilariously, all the Chinese family at the table informed us that this soup is Korean, while every single Korean restaurant in Chicago that we asked for jambong told us, no, we don’t have that, it’s Chinese. This was a nice version, lots of heat in the buttery broth, but with a bit of a charred note that kept me from drinking down every drop.
The dry pork sauce noodle was delightful as always, a savory brown mess of pork and scallion and cabbage that makes those noodles into what lo mein desperately wants to be. There was also a lighter, brighter noodle with a serious chile kick and some shredded chicken, carrot and cucumber — i didn’t catch its name, but I will definitely try and find out next time so we can get some more.
The rice cakes were gummy, sadly, but came with a huge pile of perfectly crisp-cooked vegetables — cabbage, carrot, and lots of snow peas — in a stupendously savory but light sauce. There’s another savory brown dish that we always get, deliciously similar to the dry pork sauce noodle but involving more vegetables and instead of the noodles a bunch of shredded shao bing. The wonton soup is a classic of course, and I like this broth more than most. It’s darker and pepperier somehow, and gives a nice contrast to the bland dumplings.
But i think the very best thing that we ordered this trip was the tofu with thousand-year eggs. Sometimes the tofu can be bland in this dish, but this had absorbed just enough of a very flavorful soy dressing, and the edges of the cut eggs dissolved into a salty, creamy mess to add even more flavor. I love this dish anyway but this was for sure the best version I’ve ever had, and only a vague attempt at social grace kept me from licking the plate entirely clean.

On our way to the airport as we left Kansas City, we stopped for lunch at Stroud’s Fried Chicken. Just as a change of pace from all the barbecue meat, we figured we’d have a little fried meat. Heh heh heh.

Observe, please, this mess of chicken for 7, so bounteous in its largeness that it required an additional satellite plate just to contain it.

The chicken is delightful. Very crispy skin (be still my heart) and moist meat… my only complaint is that I had to salt it, but you know, that’s hardly a complaint.

Perhaps it’s done this way to balance the mashed potatoes, which were supersalty — I actually really enjoyed them, but pretty much everyone else thought they were too salty for comfort. The green beans are cooked to death, as you might expect, but they seem homemade, studded with bits of bacon, rather than canned, and they are delicious.

Every chicken meal comes with salad or soup, potatoes, beans, and cinnamon rolls. The cinnamon rolls are dessert: these things are insane, gooey warm cinnamon treats. We nibbled ’em, but were so full that we ate most of ours a few days later, warmed back up once we got to LA.