There are nice air-conditioned buses on which you can meet pilgrims from Japan to Juno, some on their first trip and some on their twentieth trip to Graceland. I regret to not have been on that coach because I missed the chance to sit with the Irish family dressed in skintight rhinestone studded suits and to watch their young son with teased hair croon with the senior citizens. I later saw him air-thrusting his pelvis in the aisle of the Elvis gift shop next to the parking lot at the King’s home. Despite being deprived of that life changing bus trip, not taking the bus meant that I would meet Larry, a Memphis cab driver. And it was Larry who took me and my girlfriend to a barbecue lunch at the Mississippi Grill.
Memphis is celebrated for its variety and quality of smoke pork with tomato based barbecue sauces. The Carolinas offer their vinegar sauces and Texas boasts its beef brisket, but Memphis style is a quintessential plate of barbecue. Baby back ribs and pork shoulder. The town came into focus after reading an extensive review about its downtown institution, The Rendezvous. The restaurant’s walls are crowded with awards and tributes from celebrity photos and politicians. Regulars are shown directly to a table while the rest of us wait and get blasted with the hot seasoned air from the kitchen vent. After all the anticipation and pomp, the service is curt and the ribs dry. The main problem here, as is the case with all barbecue, is volume. Barbecue can not be cooked, stored and served in large amounts. We had been in Memphis for over forty-eight hours and had struck out twice (see “Beyond Beal Street part 1 regarding that).
When I told Larry about Rendezvous, he chuckled and agreed that the ribs were too dry.
So I asked him where he gets his barbecue fix.
It was little place, a cousin had introduced him to it, nothing fancy, and it was in a bad neighborhood.
“Yes, yes, yes and yes”, I thought to myself.
Travel guides and television programs styled on food adventurism do a good job selling the idea that authentic is best, and the best is found in little known and hard to reach places. This axiom can be interpreted as romantic, quixotic, and even a little arrogant, but for most part it is true.
Mississippi Grill is not a place written about nor is it a place stumbled upon. Our journey from downtown showcased metropolitan Memphis’ industrial sector and its various neighborhoods, many of them poor. It was the middle of the day and nobody was walking on the streets, a past time I saw few do at any other time of the day. If you drive up to Mississippi Grill you would not know it was open until you smell or see, whichever first, the small cloud of wood smoke hanging in the air. The building is non-descript and unannounced, aside from the decades old hand painted signs above the door and on the sides. The shades were drawn in the windows. Larry was not even sure the restaurant was open.
As I was about to pass through this door, in this seemingly neglected building, on a forgotten block in a city I knew nothing about, an instinct kicked in telling me to reconsider. But two things pushed me on: the complete endearing nature of Larry and the devastating smell of slow cooked pork. Any remaining anxiety vanished immediately upon entering this well worn, but cozy room lined with three tables and a pay phone. All of it held down by a lovely large woman behind a counter.
There were a few other customers sitting and drinking beer at a counter and a table. A television drilled to the wall had the local news on. At one point somebody came through the door, greeted everybody, used the phone, and then walked out.
We all stepped up to the counter and followed Larry’s lead. Burnt beef tips, rack of baby back ribs. The meat truly fell right off the bone once lifted off the plate, a sign of patient slow smoking. The burnt tips were especially delicious. Typically drenched with a tangy sauce and lined with crispy skin over the tender and well marbled meat inside.
Good barbecue is both rewarding and punishing. It begins with the evocative smell of the burning hickory, which activates your imagination and saliva glands. Then there is the sight of the meat, lush and when piled on your plate, exciting and a bit daunting. Those first few bites are always the best, of course. The flavors of the sauce open up while you discover more about the subtleties of the dry spice rub on the meat. The fat is buttery, not stringy. When faced with a variety of meats, you rush to try each one as well to pay attention to the sides, which can be divine or distracting. The meat inevitably sticks between your teeth. Your hands and face are a mess. Then the weight of this meal hits you.
Because I eat too fast and tend to ravage good meat, I have experienced real moments of lightheadedness and ringing in my ears when working towards the end of my meal.
I moderated my consumption on this occasion because Larry, who really did not know me, might be alarmed by my vacuum eating, and would feel responsible for my well being. We drank sweet tea to wash it down, although forty-ounce malt liquor was also an option.
So Mississippi Grill was the gold mine we had looked for and Memphis barbecue was finally living up to its name. It had just been a matter of finding the right person with a cousin who knew a little place. Later that day we walked through the rococo entrance of Graceland bloated on good southern food and I felt that the former owner would have approved.
On our last day in Memphis there was one last restaurant that required inspection.
Payne’s BBQ sits in a former garage and filling station on a remote boulevard lined with partly occupied small shopping centers. This time we were with friends, also from out of town, who we strong-armed into finding the place. A few miles on local streets and doubling back once, we found Payne’s serving the lunch crowd. Unlike Mississippi Grill, which operates completely under the radar and caters to the neighborhood clientele, Payne’s is better known and has two locations with costumers from all over town.
The exterior of the Lamar Avenue location is bunker like. The conversion from garage to restaurant was accomplished mainly by filling in the bay doors with a lattice of brick. On the other side of the wall is an austere big open room with a few picnic tables in the middle. The ladies behind the counter were dressed in white shirts and an older man managed the smoker off to side. Such division of labor seems typical to these restaurants. The men seem to exclusively deal with the smoker and the meat, while the woman work dish out the sides and deal with the transactions.
I enjoyed a half slab of ribs, and sneaked tastes of the pulled pork sandwich and the smoked sausage. The sausage I found a little dry, but the ribs and pulled pork were excellent. The ribs were the classic match of sweet sauce with a kick and tender well-seasoned pork. The proper smoking and crackling fatty skin did all the work. The leftovers were put in a lined bag that filled our car with that distinct scent all the way south to Oxford, Ms. The ribs made their final appearance 12 hours later after a Faulkner inspired campaign through that college town.
Locations for restaurants mentioned:
The Rendezvous
52 South Second St.
Mississippi Grill
Mississippi Avenue and E. Trigg
(approximately)
Payne’s Barbecue
1762 Lamar Ave
Garrett with land locked salmon, just landed. 
John, cleaning a fish by the water.
salmon fillet revealed on paddle, speckled trout is gripped securely. 
from a different catch, an improvised smoker made from drift wood. John assembled it with pliable roots.
salmon is laid whole on wood above embers. coals should be hot but flame kept to a minimum. 
fish is filled with pungent alder leaf and lingonberry harvested from the hill above the beach. 
coals are covered with alder leaves to optimize smoke. we cooked it too fast, an hour or so.
fish is tender and flaky. it becomes finger food. verdict is still out on alder flavor.
