Springfield, St. Louis, Memphis, Nashville, Louisville

I’m ashamed to admit it, but I’ve never been to our state capitol. Been meaning to rectify that for years but never got around to it, until this weather finally got the best of me and drove me out of the city. What started as a simple overnighter to Springfield turned into, “Hey, it’s only another hour to St. Louis” to, “Hey, lookie that, St. Louis is only four hours to Memphis” etc.

First stop was for the infamous horseshoe sandwich in Springfield, at D’Arcy’s Pint on the south end of town. We got here around 11:15am on a weekday and it was packed already, and this is a big place. More lively on the right hand bar side. Seems like a very popular hangout for the white-collar bureaucrat crowd.

I had the buffalo chicken (boneless breast) horseshoe, my wife had the roast beef (more like a braised and finely shredded pot roast) horseshoe. Looking down from the mountaintop, you’re staring at a heap of decent crinkle cut French fries smothered in a thin, well-executed white mornay sauce. Under that is your meat, and under that is some Texas toast. Comes in a high-sided platter, and there’s a good eighth of an inch of the cheesy mornay sauce swimming at the bottom of the plate. There’s not a whole lot of meat to the dish, but if you sop up all the fries and sauce you’d be inhaling an ungodly number of calories. I don’t see how these people could eat this on a workday, I’d be lying unconscious in a cold sweat under my desk after a lunch like this. But seeing that most of the patrons were state employees, maybe that’s what they do. Overall it was pretty good (roast beef was better) with a good draft beer selection, but not life altering:

D’Arcy’s Pint
661 West Stanford Avenue
Springfield, IL 62704
217-492-8800

Dinner was with an old college buddy in St. Louis. We’d put in a request for something on the Hill, but he scoffed and absolutely refused. I’ve noticed when traveling that as a city slicker from Chicago, we’re always being steered away from the down home kind of joints and invariably ushered into the swankier restaurants. Like visiting a home and eating off of someone’s china instead of the everyday dishes. And what you end up with is “braised lamb shank in a port wine reduction” and “pancetta wrapped swordfish”. We ended up going to Remy’s Kitchen and Wine Bar in Clayton. Which was ok, but c’mon – I can get this same kind of food in at least twenty places in Chicago (and it will be better in Chicago, based on this night’s results). What I can’t get in Chicago is a wooden booth at an old joint on the Hill with autographed pictures of Joe and Yogi grinning down at me and fried ravioli looking up at me. So Marty, next time I’m in St. Louis and I want to go to the Hill take me there dammit!

Remy’s Kitchen and Wine Bar
221 S. Bemmiston Ave.
Clayton, MO

Next up was Memphis. First stop was lunch at A&R BBQ on the south side of town. For those of you not familiar with Memphis, the south side and the north side are the equivalent of Chicago’s south and west sides. Midtown and the east side are like our north side. I’d like to report that the chopped pork sandwich was “Oh my God!” good, but it didn’t quite hit that far on the meter. It was a little too juicy for my liking, I like my pulled pork drier with more chew. Even the outer crusty pieces lost their crunch from the saucing. But it was definitely a very fine sandwich, and the sides of baked beans, slaw and potato salad were outstanding. Cool place, funky old linoleum floors, worn formica tables, vinyl booths and generations of grease and smoke on the walls:

A&R Bar-B-Que
1802 Elvis Presley Blvd.
Memphis, TN
901-774-7444

Dinner was ribs at the Central BBQ in midtown. Parking lot is loaded with BMW’s and Benz’s, inside lots of college kids and families. Definitely sterile compared to the funk at the A&R, but the food did not disappoint. We had a slab of wet and a slab of dry to compare the two, and IMO dry is definitely the way to go. You can get mild, hot, vinegar or mustard sauce on the side at the condiment table to punch up the dry ones. The dry ribs have plenty of flavor from the rub and the smoke so they don’t need a lot of help. On the end of the slab that you just can’t manage to polish off, you can peel the bark right off in crunchy chunks – so all is not lost if you're stuffed. The wet ribs were good too, but again too moist for my druthers. The sides were delicious, a basket of homemade barbecue potato chips with an addictive sour creamy/parmesan dipping sauce along with greens, slaw, and beans. Good beer selection. These were excellent ribs, although I’d have to put them at my #2 all-time ribs behind the original Dinosaur’s in Syracuse, NY (of all places):

Central BBQ
2249 Central
Memphis, TN
901 272-9377

We were headed to Nashville, so I wanted to have a good southern breakfast on the east side as we were heading out of town. Wanted to go to Bryant’s but they closed at 1pm, but happened to spot a little shack called the Pancake Shop in a strip mall with a couple of poh-lice cars parked in front. The name was a little too cute, but we were hungry so why not give it a try. It’s small and grimy, and the utter lack of cleanliness does not inspire much confidence. But I order the Dixie breakfast, which is country ham, two eggs, a biscuit, and choice of grits or hash browns. I ask the waitress how the grits are, and she says “out of a box” so I take a pass. My wife gets the basic pancakes. So with low expectations out comes the food and it is INCREDIBLE! As I’m eating, I’m mumbling that I can’t remember the last time I had a breakfast this good – everything we had was delicious, including the coffee.

Pancake Shop
4838 Summer Ave
Memphis, TN 38122
(901) 767-0206

Next stop Nashville, which oddly enough was by far the worst stretch of interstate on the trip. It seemed like every semi in the eastern US decided to hit I-40 on a Saturday afternoon, on the rest of the trip traffic was surprisingly mellow. Dinner was at Monell’s, an old “meat and three” served up boarding house style in an old house on the north side of Nashville. You wait up front until a group of twelve forms, and then they herd you to a communal table. Awaiting you on the table are unmatched Tupperware bowls of cornbread and biscuits, green pea salad, cole slaw, sweet tea, lemonade and a couple of other items. These get passed around while you stuff your face and get to know your neighbors, and soon after they bring out the fried chicken, pulled pork and fried catfish. To accompany this you get macaroni and cheese (amazing), collard greens, mashed potatoes, grits, and I’m sure I’m missing a few more items. As our tablemate from Gallatin so eloquently put it, “This ain’t no real meat n' three, this is meats, catfish and ten”. For dessert there’s homemade banana pudding, which was really good. Man, that’s a lot of food but it was all delicious – I think this is how the term “groaning board” originated. They charge $18 per person, which is an insane bargain considering how good everything is – I’d highly recommend this place, lots of fun and great food:

Monell’s
1235 6th Ave North
Nashville, TN
(615) 248-4747

It’s been taking me all week to write this up, and now I have to scratch my head to remember where we had breakfast the next day, but now I remember a totally unmemorable meal at Fido’s in the West End neighborhood near the Vanderbilt campus. We wanted to go to the Pancake Pantry down the street but the line was literally half a block long. Fido’s was your typical hipster breakfast place ala Bongo Room, except the food sucked. Trust your better judgement and don’t eat anywhere named for a dog.

Dinner that night was at the Brown Hotel in Louisville. After way too many Pappy van Winkles at the bar, we stumbled over to the Thoroughbred Room in the hotel for a hot brown. It was tasty enough and it actually went pretty well with a bourbon-soaked palate, but I think they needed to brown it some under the broiler. Pictures I’ve seen show it all bubbly brown on top like a French onion soup, and this one was just heated through. But it was certainly a very tasty dish, and the hotel itself is very cool:

The Brown
335 West Broadway
Louisville, KY

After a long weekend of gluttony we’d planed to squeeze in a final breakfast at Lynn’s Paradise Café in Louisville, but this was getting ridiculous. We hit the road instead and got to Indy at lunchtime, and headed over to the Three Sisters Café in Broad Ripple – Indy’s answer to Bucktown/Wicker Park. Three Sisters is in an old frame building, complete with old woodwork, oddly-shaped rooms and crooked floors. Total hippy vibe going on, the wait staff is properly dreadlocked and tie-dyed. Menu reads very crunchy granola in a back-to-the-land way, I felt like I should have fired one up before eating to get the full affect. But out came the food and it was outstanding. Four of us split the meza platter, which was more than enough food; excellent hummus, feta cheese spread, black bean salad, dolmades, olives, etc. I had a pork tenderloin sandwich, which I assumed would be some clever variation on ye olde Hoosier-style breaded tenderloin – mais non! It was juicy slices of roast tenderloin on toasted pumpernickel, with melted jack cheese and avocado slices. This was a magnificent little sandwich:

Three Sisters Café
6360 Guilford Ave
Indianapolis
(317) 257-5556

Fun trip, a lot of driving in a short amount of time but the legs were all manageable. If I were to do it again I’d definitely spend more time in Memphis, this city is an underrated jewel.

What a great post, Fast Eddie! I grew up in Memphis, and although I haven't been back in many years, I can still remember exactly how that barbecue tasted when I was a kid. You've inspired me to start planning a trip back there this spring.

Fast Eddie wrote:A&R Bar-B-Que
Three Sisters Café

Thanks for the heads-up. I'm
planning a Tamale Trail/
BBQ Quest in April, and
I definitely plan to spend
some time in Memphis
en route to Mississippi.

Three Sisters has a surprisingly
good pulled pork sammich
as well (though I'm sure it
would not hold up to a post-
Memphis BBQ experience).
It is especially unexpected
since the place has such a strong
veggie/vegan vibe.

Paul SL wrote:What a great post, Fast Eddie! I grew up in Memphis, and although I haven't been back in many years, I can still remember exactly how that barbecue tasted when I was a kid. You've inspired me to start planning a trip back there this spring.

I think I'm going to make Memphis an annual springtime trip. Things were just starting to bloom last weekend, but I'd guess that early/mid
April would be a perfect time of year there.

I'd put Memphis up there with Philadelphia as fascinating places that get an undeserved bad rap which keeps them off the beaten tourist path. Both are as distinctly American as you're gonna find in this country, with great food and culture. Just amazes me that one place gave birth to blues, country, rock, soul, Johny Cash, Elvis & Isaac Hayes (A#1 Duke of New York). You get this great amalgam of black and white culture, but then there's this palpable racial tension. The food seems a perfect match for the place. I got the feeling that if I had the identical dish somewhere else it would taste completely different.

I got psyched to go there after watching "Hustle & Flow". Arnel's Bar was shot at the Poplar Lounge in midtown, the exterior shots were from the parking lot in back. DJ's house is on St. Paul Ave by Walnut, just southeast of downtown.

Scubachef, I didn't have time to check it out but I'd heard from locals that Payne's BBQ has an even better chopped pork sandwich than A&R. The owner of Payne's told me so hisself as he sat at the table next to us at A&R, I kid you not. By his girth I'd say he knew what he was talking about. They've got two locations, one in midtown and another just down Elvis Presley Blvd (love that street name) from A&R. I'd imagine the Delta would be a gas, I definitely want to hit that too next time I'm down there. That's Faulkner country too, Yoknapatawpha county.