I Brake For Mushrooms

Today is the lightest day of the trip, readying us for taking our chariot across the rolling hills of the Kentucky and then onto the gorges of West Virginia. Tomorrow will be akin to Hannibal moving his army [complete with Elephants, which we are the size of now] across the northern Italian Alps in a failed attempt to take the Romans by surprise. Pretty sure that he surprised the hell out of the barbarians living in the foothills of the Alps – this is probably the same reaction that the equally exotic Prius will draw on the West Virginia Turnpike.

Today we will only drive 200 miles between Memphis and Nashville – Nashville is sort of anti-climactic for both Josh and I we are anti-country, with the exception of the Statler Brothers [who hail from where I currently live] and Johnny Cash. Also, Nashville is not really known for BBQ, but it is in the South so we sort of need to find the diamond in the rough or cross it off a future list.

This morning we woke up when we felt like it, we tended to our copious emails, and I even went to the Double Tree’s fitness center – this, of course, was a mistake because there was a scale in there, which I hope is broken. If not, I have gained five pounds.

The man working the desk at the ridiculously priced tennis courts [who also admonished us about the crime epidemic in Memphis] told us about a nice, non-touristy BBQ place in Memphis called, appropriately, the BBQ shop. It claims to be home of the dancing pig, but I’m not impressed – you want to impress me you need to make those pigs fly.

The location of the restaurant is pretty far removed from the tourist areas of Memphis on a somewhat busy artery to the city. We parked on the street and the building is what we would hope for – old, industrial, and real. The restaurant has two sections, a more typical sit down area and then a banquet hall attached to it. We were seated in the banquet hall area [which was empty except for a dude with a bluetooth headset talking to himself like a schizophrenic] because the restaurant portion was full. Any good BBQ shop [with the exception of Gates and Dreamland, which have no need to be told they are good] has various awards and newspaper articles on the wall letting you know that you have picked the right place; the BBQ shop is no exception. They have been, as we were further informed, consistently been picked as the top in Memphis and have also been featured on Bobby Flay’s show.

The man who took our order looked very much like a guy in a magazine review on the wall, who, as we later found out, was actually the owner. It was very refreshing to see the owner of a very busy, successful, and large BBQ restaurant inauspiciously working the tables. He is about our age and perhaps the coolest BBQ owner in the world because he said “It doesn’t get any better than that” pointing to Josh’s Mario Kart shirt that says “I brake for mushrooms”.

Now let’s talk about the food. We split a full rack of baby back ribs – half dry and half wet. This is served with cole slaw, beans, and texas toast. We both ordered tea, mine, of course, was sweet. The cole slaw is very good – perhaps the second best we’ve had [behind Bill Spoon’s perfection] – not really any cream, good combination of vinegar and sugar, and a surprising number of ingredients: sweet pickles, cabbage [though this is less than at most places], slight carrot, and green peppers. The baked beans were definitely BBQ baked beans with a healthy amount of sauce; they tasted like they were probably homemade – but they sort of blend in with others. They could not hold a candle to Big Jake’s baked bean opus. The Texas toast was plentiful, thick, buttery, and generally nice. Josh and I took quite a long time to figure out what we thought of the ribs. Like other ribs we have eaten that solely rely or heavily depend upon a dry rub, the ends are a bit dry and tough. The rub is unique for this trip in that there is no hint of sugar – good salt, paprika flavor. I think I like the wet ribs better because they were juicier and they, once again, had no hint of sweetness. The ribs aren’t particularly smoky, but this is par for the course in the part of the country. Josh and I are having a little trouble at this point really ranking ribs, so we are moving more to a tiered system. We can say that these are, sadly, not top tier ribs, but they are certainly not anywhere near the bottom. I, Chris, think they are as good as the ribs and Blues City BBQ, but Josh puts them lower. If there is anything to break the tie, it is that these ribs are slightly crispier at the ends [which puts them slightly behind]. Overall, a good feel to the place and somewhere I would definitely recommend people go if they don’t want to feel like a tourist eating BBQ in Memphis.

We have seen the cheapest hotel single advertised on the freeway -$22.95 for a single; hooker is extra [just outside of Memphis on I-40].

Just saw a sign that says: “Enjoy Tennessee wine” sort of like “Enjoy North Dakota BBQ”

These towns are separate. Of course.






We are beginning to compile a list of future potential trips as we enter the twilight of our voyage. All of them involve food, of course.

[Josh here] We are beginning to slip into madness I believe. I am sitting here in a hotel in Nashville, and I think we are going over the edge in the Prius. Why do I say this? Wait until the end of the post.

Ah, the road was fun today. It was a short but eventful drive. The Prius speaks to us. You doubt? Oh but it does, precious. We were just east of Jackson, TN when the car told us that there was a problem with the tires. And when the Prius speaks to us, we must obey. So we pulled off at the first exit and tried to look at the car as if we knew anything about it. Fortunately, even we can figure out that when there is a metal spike sticking out of a tire and a whistling noise coming from it there is a problem. What does Avis say?

“Go to a Goodyear or Firestone shop- we have a contract with them.”

“Great” I say. “Where is the closest one?”

“Ummm…they are usually in the bigger towns, you should be able to find one.” Click.

Well, the truck stop we were at did not really qualify as a bigger town, but it DID have a tire guy. I don’t know quite how to describe his workspace, and I am not sure if he didn’t fix the tire with bubble gum, but he only charged $7, so I think he was great. And then the Prius told us that it was satisfied and that we could continue.

We stopped at a truck stop to empty. As I walked past the isle of pork rinds a voice whispered to me from a hallway- “psst…you want a little multiball?” Into the hallway I wandered to the beautiful site of a vintage Williams pinball machine- No Good Golfers. We played for about 20 minutes. It was glorious. But then the Prius demanded a return to the road. With a whistful glance back at the seductive ramps and plastic gopher, we trudged back to the silver metal extension of ourselves.

The road to our hotel held new enticements. The pinball machine haunted my memory for the next hour and so when we passed a Family Fun Center with cosmic bowling and an ARCADE I was pleased. We also passed a Hooters. Chris was pleased. Our hotel has a huge LG HD TV with plug ins for the PS2. We were both pleased.

We went to Whitt’s BBQ. It was take out only, which was a bit of a surprise. We got the family pack for the whole family, but Prius is on a diet, so we ate it all ourselves. The pulled pork was actually quite good. Very smoky, and pretty moist. We had it on the hamburger buns that were thrown into the sack. The coleslaw was not very good. And to even discover this Chris had to slip into the hotel restaurant and steal two forks since they had neglected to give us any. Dinner was follwed by a rousing game of Battlefront II. Then on to more decadent activities.

Or not. The Family Fun Center was not. Not a pinball machine in sight. There was an iceskating rink though. As much as I left Vermont to come to Tennessee to ice skate, we had to move on. At least Hooters is a guaranteed good time, right?

Nope, we are old. Instead of going to Hooters, we went and played more tennis. Well, sort of played tennis. We were both so sore from the previous marathon match that we just hit a few shots and then went to a grocery store to buy supplies for tomorrow’s exodus. One supply was a razor. You might have noticed that we were both sporting a bit more facial hair than normal over the course of the trip. Well, that was getting old. But have a look at the pictures taken tonight and you will see why I say we are slipping. I am going to go back to drinking my Mojito now and then join Koski in our valiant attempt to liberate Tatooine from the clutches of the evil Galactic Empire.