Barbeque in the Barbeque Mecca

Well going into this I must confess that I most definitely prefer Texas barbeque but I love all regional variations. I also love bacon and most people can relate to how delicious bacon is so we’ll use bacon to scale the goodness. Going into this I expect to enjoy every bit of BBQ I encounter so we’ll assume that it will all be as good as bacon and some will be better than bacon. Thus the scale will be one to three. One is as good as bacon, two is twice as good and three is three times as good. I don’t anticipate having anything better than that but here’s to hoping!

Memphis has BBQ around every corner and most BBQ restaurants have signs saying that THEY have the best in Memphis. Virtually all BBQ shops in Memphis are “hole in the wall” type places and some of the best restaurants are in the worst neighborhoods. So I couldn’t let the looks of an establishment prevent me from visiting a place. I focused on chopped pork sandwiches and sweet tea. Most places in Memphis have a small sandwich on the menu and who can avoid sweet tea in a Tennessee BBQ shop.

Memphis BBQ pork typically understates a hickory smoked pork flavor. The sauce is slightly sweet with peppery notes and is a brownish red color. Pork sandwiches are usually served chopped pork, BBQ sauce then topped with coleslaw all on a round bun. Sweet tea is almost always served with too much sugar. Maybe it’s appealing to those with a sweet tooth but I don’t like tea with my sugar. Sugar should be an enhancement not the dominant flavor.

Jim Neely’s Interstate - One Delicious Piece of Bacon
Interstate is out of the way and is in a rural area, kind of on the edge of town with a junk yard down the street. They have a sign in the restaurant stating they are ranked number two in the nation by People Magazine. There are a few old clippings from foodie news papers touting the superiorness of Jim Neely’s quality que. Also the restaurant is decorated with the prerequisite 40 year old paneling and equally old tables and chairs.

The chopped pork was juicy and tender. The slaw is done well and didn’t over power the pork or the sauce. I wouldn’t say it was superior stuff. It was done well and the flavor was as I expected. I wasn’t impressed with the soggy bun and it seems like they’ve toned down the flavor in the sauce to be more mainstream. The sweet tea was more sugar than tea as expected.

Alfred’s Bar and Grill on Beale Street - Is this pork? Definitely not Bacon!
Alfred’s wouldn’t have made the list of places to check out but it was on Beale Street and I was on Beale Street and well I couldn’t wait to dig into some quality que. They have a decent pork sandwich but the Elvis impersonator was the best thing in the place and he was scary looking.

Neely’s Bar-B-Que – One Delicious Piece of Bacon
Neely’s is different than Interstate and they both are quick to note it. The place had a nice façade and I thought it would be nicely decorated. After all the owners have their own show on Food Network. There is an appropriate amount of paneling and by appropriate I mean it’s everywhere. The place was darker than most and had a few extra holes in the booth seats, yup, decorated nicely.

The chopped pork is tender, juicy and well balanced with the slaw. The service set a new standard. The gal we had was great. The sweet tea was as expected, too sweet. Witch is a shame because I love sweet tea.

The Bar BQ Shop – Two Delicious Pieces of Bacon
The Bar BQ Shop is a great place with great service. Not only was the pork tasty the sauce was lip-smacking. The Dancing Pig sauce was the best sauce I encountered on this trip. There are char notes in the sauce that really complemented the hickory smoke in the pork. Texas toast was their bread of choice, you can get it on a round bun but you’d be missing out. They not only had the best pork sandwich they had great sweet tea. The tea has an unusual nuttiness and the proper amount of sugar.

They also had the best quote on the trip:
Q: Waiter! What kind of wood do you use to smoke the product?
A: Wood? Well I … It’s tree wood. Yup, they bring it every day! Comes right off the tree.

I love that!

I looked at a few other places, Tops BBQ and Curly’s, but the mass production turned me off right away. Most people don’t like bold flavors, at least that’s not what most people buy, and products that do well in mass production I normally don’t like.