Beal(e) Street

 

This past July, I wrote a post about my continuing quest to get to all 29 NBA cities and arenas (yes, there are 30 NBA teams; L.A. has two teams in one arena). Part of that post looked forward to the then-upcoming 2017-2018 NBA season and included my own personal NBA city top five destinations for the season. I wrote that post without really understanding what the schedule had in store for me because the season schedule hadn't been released yet.

The number two city on that list? Memphis, Tennessee, home of the Memphis Grizzlies and blues. And maybe a little bit of rock and roll and some pretty darned good barbeque. Or at least I hoped there would be all that when I took off last Friday to the banks of the Mississippi River for a couple of nights to watch the Wiz play the Grizz and see what else I could get up to.

I'd been to Memphis once before a little more than ten years ago on a bourbon and music trip that had me spend a couple of nights each in Memphis and Nashville followed by a few days visiting all seven (at least that was the count in 2007) bourbon distilleries in Kentucky. Since that trip, I'd been back to Nashville and a couple of Kentucky's distilleries. Now it was time to get back to Memphis. I couldn't wait. Blues is one of my very favorite types of music to see live. Last time I was there I club-hopped one night before settling into some outdoor alley bar with some phenomenal piano blues that had me back there the next night as soon as they started playing.

 

Blind Mississippi Morris and band warming up.

So let's start with the non-basketball stuff and then we'll get to what happened at FedEx Forum on Friday night. Music first. Food second.

If you love music and you've never been to Beale Street in Memphis, I encourage you to go sometime soon and then go back maybe once or twice more. Think a much smaller but way better Bourbon Street if you know New Orleans at all. Or a little smaller Broadway if you've been to Nashville. Although from a musical level maybe Broadway is better because Nashville is the epicenter of the country music recording industry and it's big big business. Blues in Memphis or anywhere else for that matter? Not so big business, which is unfortunate for folks who prefer blues over country.

If you go, take some bills for tips because all four of the bands we saw this past weekend at B.B. King's Blues Club, Rum Boogie Café and Blues City Café were playing for tips and tips alone. The best two bands we saw were definitely Earl "The Pearl" Banks (unexpected Bullets tie-in there) and Blind Mississippi Morris. Any bluesman named "Blind" has to be good. There are historically a whole series of bluesmen with the blind moniker. And yes, they were all blind, as was Blind Mississippi Morris. Hard-driving guitar and harmonica based blues classics from both these bands was just what I was looking for alongside plenty of local Memphis beer when I was in town.

 

 

Last time I was in Memphis, I struggled with my food choices. I basically did no research into where I should go and ate nothing remarkable whatsoever. Foolishly, I accepted the recommendation of my hotel when I was looking for some barbeque and they sent me down to some very disappointing tamales and ribs on Beale Street.

 

Not so this time around. I checked out several "best of Memphis barbeque" lists before heading out of town. If you are looking for some serious smoked meat in reasonable walking distance of Beale Street, your choices are going to be kind of slim. Based on all the lists I reviewed, I came away with one: Central BBQ Downtown, which is about a 15 minute walk south down by the National Civil Rights Museum. After a half rack of ribs with some turnip greens and baked beans, this is definitely a place I'd go back to. The meat was flavorful and fall off the bone and I can highly recommend the spicy barbeque sauce on the side for some dipping.

 

Lunch Saturday was over at Central BBQ. Lunch Friday? Gus's Fried Chicken. I'm not a fried chicken guy at all but this was probably the best fried chicken I've had in my life. I've never had a batter so light and crispy that kept breast meat that juicy. It was absolutely phenomenal. I can't take credit for this find; I'm glad here that my friend Bryan is as concerned about eating good food while out of town as I am. Thanks, B!

 

But this is a basketball blog, right? Let's talk hoops.

 

 

In a season of trap games that have become so frequent that any game can become a trap game for this Wizards squad, a Friday night game against the injured and underperforming vs. expectations Grizzlies was the poster child for an unexpected road loss against a team far back in the standings.

It almost was. This was another game where the Wizards seemed to have things comfortably in hand in the third quarter before thinking they could just put the bench in the game in the fourth and kill some clock later in the fourth and walk out of there with an easy win. And die-hard Wizards fans know what happens when this team tries to do that: the ball sticks and we end up getting a rushed isolation shot by John Wall or Bradley Beal with a second or two left on the shot clock. With the bench not on their best game for the second straight contest, this game was the Wall and Beal show all the way. And by that I mean they were great in the first three and the problem in the last half of the fourth playing iso-ball.

Beyond watching the game and being a completest in terms of seeing the Wiz play the entire rest of the league on the road, one of the things I love about traveling to other NBA cities is seeing what it's like in other arenas. You can't really get a sense of what that's like watching a road game on TV. Besides the awesome viewpoint from pretty much straight away center on the Pinnacle (read: second) level of FedEx Forum in Memphis, there were a whole bunch of things worth noting about this arena.

First of all, I love the scoreboard. This may be the most awesome scoreboard in the NBA that I've seen so far. It's enormous, gorgeous and super bright. I also love the rounded corners which double as mini-stat boards, although I have to say I'd prefer to see names rather than faces by the stat lines. I can get our guys by the numbers but I don't watch enough other teams regularly enough to know them by their jersey numbers or faces.

Like most arenas in the NBA, FedEx is huge compared to our home sweet home Capital One Arena. This is mostly I believe because other cities haven much larger lots than the confined city blocks that make up the District of Columbia. The result is much larger concourses so the home team can load up on circulation space, have cafeteria style restaurants on the upper level or have their upper levels not overhang the seats below. All these seemed to be true in Memphis.

But the Grizzlies' home seemed to be bigger in another dimension (the up dimension) that caused an excessively quiet environment in the place. I know this is going to sound strange coming from a Wizards season ticket holder that's seen more than a few mid-week games against non-popular teams over at 601 F Street in the last dozen plus years, but I don't think I've ever been in a building as quiet as the one in Memphis. I'm serious. From our seats in the second level, we heard high five slaps as guys substituted, crystal clear directions from the refs during in bound plays and individual fan voices in the crowd again and again.

We even heard one fan yell to Marcin Gortat "You are not an actual wizard!" during a free throw attempt, which was both notable for its crystal clear audio quality in the building but also for its undeniable truth. I should note for the sake of completeness there were likely no actual wizards besides Marcin playing at all that night, just like there were no actual grizzlies playing on the court. Although...if there were grizzlies or wizards playing, it would have been way easier to spot the grizzlies than the wizards. Just saying.

 

Beyond the scoreboard and the church-like atmosphere, there were all manner of cool and quirky things to note about the game environment at FedEx Forum last Friday night. What, you might ask? How about the signage on the marquee (shown above) right inside the front door which I assume has to be changed by hand each game night? Or how about the pictures of musical artists with Memphis connections on the walls of the lower level concourse? Check out Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash (who both recorded on Memphis' Sun Records) either side of Sam and Dave (Memphis' Stax Records) above.

Not cool and quirky enough for you? How about people dressed up in toothbrush and toothpaste costumes to promote a local dentist's office? Or two mirror balls (that's two) hanging from the ceiling of the arena? Still not impressed? Ever seen a burger stand at an arena which counts down the number of burgers available to impress customers with the freshness? Might need to stock up. The photo below shows just 36 burgers left and that was before the game. The restroom signs were awesome too: singing girls with beehive hairdos for the women's room and singing boys with pompadour for the men's (hoping I got my hairstyles right). They just got a bit weird when they went family on us. Is the baby being tossed or does he really just have some amazing hops? 



Hurry! Just 36 burgers left 'til BC Burgers is sold out for the night!

Maybe the sign's not as quirky as I think but I think it's pretty interesting.

But despite all the burger countdowns and mirror balls and jumping babies and toothpaste mascots, the thing worth spending the most time on here is the wrestling. Nope, I'm drunk or anything. They had wrestling Friday night. Grind City Wrestling. I'll try to explain succinctly.

First the Grind City thing. The Memphis Grizzlies until this season were perennial playoff contenders. Their run of playoff appearances was fueled by hard work by hard working players. The words grit and grind became associated with their (mostly) superstar-less teams fighting and clawing for every win they could get. The team nicknamed Memphis Grind City.

Now let's try the wrestling thing.

 

When I was in junior high school and maybe just into high school, I used to watch pro wrestling or what would be later known as the World Wrestling Federation. Of course, pro wrestling is really nothing of the sort; it's all just theater. Back then this was not big business like it is now. We used to watch matches with the Magnificent Muraco or Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka taking on some local stiffs on network television on Saturday afternoon. I think I got about as far as the emergence of the Strongbow Brothers before realizing it was essentially a total waste of time.

Anyway...apparently after I stopped watching this stuff, Jerry "The King" Lawler was one of the wrestlers in Vince McMahon's stable. Jerry (now 68) is from Memphis and Friday night at the Grizzlies game was Jerry "The King" Lawler night, which featured the most elaborate halftime in game entertainment that I have ever seen, taking a story all the way from the beginning of the game with a marquee halftime wrestling match in an actual wrestling ring to pretty much the end of the third quarter. Almost every time out until the beginning of the fourth quarter featured a touchpoint to the story of how Lawler had the Grizzlyweight World Championship belt (yes, there was an actual belt) stolen from him and how the Grizzlies were going to get it back from him.

I'm guessing this is not the first time the Grizzlies have had some sort of wrestling night, although I don't know that for sure. If it's not, if this is truly a one time event, I have to admire the time, effort and money that the team put into this narrative. There is some true dedication involved here. There's no way this can be the only time they've done something like this. I mean they have an actual custom made belt and everything.

The story starts out with a "genuine tape" of a wrestling match between Lawler and some other dude (shown above; ironically considering how much I'm going to write here Lawler is not pictured in this post) in front of about 25 fans (maximum!) going at it until Jerry is robbed of his belt through foul play. Yes, I am too disinterested to look up who this other dude is. Anyway in the process of stealing the belt, he also hurt The King's shoulder, meaning he couldn't fight to get it back.

So...the Grizzlies brought in Tennessee's own Jeff Jarrett to fight for Lawler's belt and I guess his honor. But...as it turns out Jarrett is from Nashville, not Memphis, so after winning back the belt (in actual wrestling ring on the upper level of the arena) he keeps it for himself and taunts Lawler enough that despite the injured shoulder he fights anyway (again, in the actual wrestling ring on the upper level of the arena). Of course, after a rough start to the match, Lawler wins. But he doesn't. Because the referee was stunned by Jarrett and didn't see Lawler pin Jarrett. Ultimately through more foul play, Jarrett wins. What a bummer!!!

Yes, there's an actual wrestling ring inside FedEx Forum during a Grizzlies game.

Until...the Grizzlies mascot Grizz (ranked number 20 on my latest NBA Mascot Rank) wins it back from Jarrett in the third and final live wrestling match of the evening. Got all that? And this was during a basketball game, like between halfs and quarters and during time outs and stuff. Like I said, you have to admire the Grizzlies for their dedication to this show. Pretty amazing promotional department they got down there in Memphis, I have to say.

And I lied earlier: this is not the first time the Grizzlies have had wrestling night. Not sure how far back this goes (telling the truth this time) but they've definitely done this before.

So that's it. That's my report of my experience at my first ever Grizzlies game. That checks off my third NBA game in a Southwest Division arena and I now have 20 game experiences (with a few asterisks - see here and the post referenced at the top of this post) in the 30 NBA arenas. Long way to go. One more scheduled for this year then I think I'm home for the year. Detroit up next in a week and a half. Wizards home tomorrow against the Jazz. Go Wizards!!!

For some reason during the out of town scores update, the Grizzlies showed them beating themselves 100-4.

 

NBDL Tour Side Quest: Texas Barbeque

Sausage and brisket plate at Franklin Barbecue. Live Oak's Big Bark Amber in the glass.

One of my hopes in traveling to Texas to watch basketball was that I would find some good barbeque while I was there. This was not my first quest to find good barbeque but I swore it would be my last if I didn't find something really really good. I've eaten barbeque (or barbecue or BBQ, if you prefer) in what I would consider to be some fairly significant destinations, including North Carolina, Kansas City, Memphis, Nashville and even once before in Texas, and I have never EVER found it to be worth searching out, with the possible exception of the totally delicious Original Barbeque Sauce at Arthur Bryant's in Kansas City. I could have eaten that stuff on cardboard and it would have tasted good.

But I can admit I've made mistakes in my searches before. I asked the hotel concierge for a recommendation in Memphis and I've randomly picked places in Fort Worth and just pulled into the first place I saw about 200 yards over the North Carolina border. Not very scientific or selective. For all I knew I could have been pulling into the Arby's of barbeque (if you know me, you know I justifiably have a very low regard for Arby's food). So this time I actually did some homework. I'd done that before a cross country trek that took me to Arthur Bryant's and it worked out OK so why not give being prepared another shot. Here's where I went and what I found.

North Main Barbecue's sign and pig.

North Main Barbecue, Euless

I picked this place because it was featured on Food Network's show The Best Thing I Ever Ate. Ted Allen raved about the brisket. I'm not a big Ted Allen fan but I figured there had to be some merit to this claim so I thought I'd check it out. It was also right near the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport and I landed just before lunch so it was technically almost on my way.

North Main Barbecue is located in a strip mall type setting on the main drag in Euless. It's a cafeteria style atmosphere with rolls of paper towels on the table and dark window tinting film on all the windows (it faces west and I imagine the Texas sun is pretty brutal in the late afternoon). There's a center carving station where the all you can eat meat is placed buffet style with a couple of guys standing behind doling out the meat.

I have a few fundamental objections to barbeque I've eaten in the past and my experience at North Main Barbeque is a shining example of my biggest objection. My impression of barbeque is that most places present well cooked but fairly flavorless meat, slather it with sauce which may or may not be that good, and serve it on bread which is absolutely the cheapest white prepackaged hamburger roll you can find at any grocery store. The whole flavor profile is based on sauce and sauce alone. This is exactly what I got at North Main Barbecue.

Having said that, their sauce is pretty darn good with a strong vinegar base that I love. They also had some hotter sauce on the tables called Cowboy Ketchup which added flavor and heat. I left being impressed by the sauce but not by the rest of the experience. It's not the worst barbeque I've had but I don't think I'd go back.

Pecan Lodge's Pitmaster sandwich.

Pecan Lodge, Dallas

Pecan Lodge is located in Shed No. 2 of the Dallas Farmer's Market (not misspelled; that's the way they spell it) and has been voted by D Magazine as the Best Barbecue in Dallas for the last two years. The Best rating was the magazine's pick, not the readers' pick; important distinction to make there. In addition to the rating, the place is open from 11 a.m. to whenever they sell out. Any place having their closing time as "sold out" has to be good, right? To me, this sounded like a can't miss stop.

I got t0 the market early, figuring there would be something else there to check out so I strolled around looking at stall after stall of the same fruits, vegetables and Virginia peanuts (irony!) on every stall. While I was wandering around, a line had formed at Pecan Lodge. It was about 20 deep by the time I joined it at about 10:20 a.m., forty minutes before opening time, so I got in it. The party ahead of me was on a barbeque tour the last week. It sounded like Pecan Lodge was stop number 10 of 10.

The menu at Pecan Lodge.

By the time the dinner bell rang (yes, they ring a dinner bell), the line had grown. According to the woman in front of me (who counted) there were 64 people in line behind me. Good thing I got there early. The menu is written on a chalkboard at Pecan Lodge and features meat by the pound (a Texas thing apparently), sandwiches and daily specials. Because I'm a sandwich guy, I elected to go with the Pitmaster sandwich, which is brisket, pork and sausage with cole slaw and jalapenos on a roll. I also sprung for the pinto beans because I love beans and will get them pretty much any time I can.

The sandwich is huge, but not too big that you can't bite into it. It's also gorgeous to look at: it's colorful, plated well and just looks delicious. And it didn't disappoint. This is the best barbeque sandwich I have ever had in my life. It was sweet and moist and you could taste the smoke coming through. The meat was cooked well, with a nice crust, without being dry. The sauce added the right amount of tang and the chiles added just a little heat. And it was a real sandwich, well conceived and well balanced from top to bottom. I'd return here for this sandwich in a second. I'd pass on the beans though: a little tasteless for me.

Salt Lick's off the menu sandwich.

Salt Lick, Driftwood
Salt Lick cropped up on so many "best of" lists that I thought I should take a journey off the beaten path to see what all the fuss was about. I also thought it would get me into Texas Hill Country, which my trip otherwise wouldn't take me. Normally I would avoid a place like Salt Lick strictly due to the fact that they sell bottled barbeque sauce and other products on line but I figured why not make an exception. Some folks clearly like this place. I had to see if I agreed.

I drove a ways off the beaten path to get to Salt Lick but after passing through multiple construction zones, I finally arrived. First of all, the signage at this place is confusing and it took me a few minutes to understand just exactly where I was supposed to go. When I finally figured that all out, I found a table based on the hostess' direction ("sit anywhere"). Knowing that I wanted more than one type of meat but also preferred a sandwich, I asked my server for some guidance. He suggested I go off menu and get the brisket and sausage sandwich, which sounded perfect to me because that's exactly what I wanted. I also kicked in an extra buck for three sides: beans, cole slaw and potato salad.

What arrived was a sandwich and some sides packed onto a single plate. The sandwich looked good. I was happy to see they didn't present it to me on the cheapest roll in the grocery store. The brisket looked good, with an obvious smoke ring. But ultimately the sandwich disappointed. I didn't get a whole lot of flavor or smoke out of the sandwich, even when I piled on the habanero sauce on the table. I pulled some of the brisket off the sandwich to see how it tasted which was a good idea. There was more flavor without the other components of the dish but it was dry to me.

The biggest objection I had though was that the sandwich didn't succeed at exactly what it was supposed to be: a sandwich. The bread couldn't stand up to absorbing the moisture from the sausage, brisket and sauce so it sort of fell apart rather quickly. They also sliced their sausage lengthwise, rather than crosswise like at Pecan Lodge, which meant that my teeth had to cut through the sausage to get mouthfuls of sandwich. I found this difficult to do so every time I bit into or onto a piece of sausage, I ended up dragging the whole thing out of the sandwich, leaving me with bread and sauce for my next bite.

I don't think I'd end up going back to Salt Lick if I had the chance. But if I had, I'd skip the sides. I know they were only $1 but they too disappointed.

Franklin Barbecue and part of the omnipresent line.

Franklin Barbecue, Austin

I picked Franklin Barbecue as my in-Austin lunch spot based on the Austin Food Blogger Alliance voting it as the top Barbeque spot in 2012 and I like to think that I can trust an alliance of food bloggers. It has also been featured on Anthony Bourdain's show, No Reservations, which I didn't realize until I googled it Thursday morning to make sure I knew where it was before setting out for a spot in line. I heard about the line from the barbeque tour guys ahead of me at Pecan Lodge so I figured earlier was better here.

The restaurant opens at 11 a.m. and, like Pecan Lodge, is open until they run out of meat. I arrived at 9:45 a.m., a full hour and 15 minutes before opening time and there was already a 29 person line (I counted - there's only so much Twitter I can read in 75 minutes). By the time the place opened, the line was much longer, easily three times as long, so I was glad I showed up early. As soon as they opened the door, this incredible smell wafted out of the place which was a good early sign.

Franklin Barbecue's dining room.

Rather than go with a sandwich at Franklin Barbecue, I elected to get a meat plate. I'd heard too many good rumblings about the brisket and knew I also wanted to taste the sausage. The meat plate was the only way I was going to get those two things based on my read of the menu. The brisket slicing process here is one you have to see. First of all, you can get fattier or leaner brisket based on questions asked of you and they know which is which without cutting into the meat. When the meat is cut, the knife slices through the brisket so easily that the knife has to be super super super sharp or the meat is that tender. It's the latter by the way; you can cut this stuff with a plastic fork it is falling apart that much.

I grabbed my plate complete with sides (beans again, of course, and potato salad) and headed to my table. The brisket may be one of the most delicious pieces of meat I have ever eaten. It's juicy and full of flavor using only salt, pepper and smoke. The bark on this meat is salty and worth savoring. As a reminder, lack of inherent flavor in the meat is one of my fundamental objections to barbeque (until now). There was barbeque sauce on the tables but I didn't use any it was that tasty.

The sausage was juicy and greasy but without being disgusting. The casing snapped and there was something tangy and lipsmacking in there which I'd go back for again. The beans were also creamy and loaded with pork, which is not a bad thing. If there's a complaint here (and there is one), the portion size was just way too big. Three slabs of brisket was more than I needed. There were also some parts of the bark which were way too salty. I've waited in longer lines for food (Pink's Hot Dogs in Los Angeles) but this was worth the wait. I'd do it again.

Lamberts Downtown Barbecue: 401 West Second Street if you are interested.

Lamberts Downtown Barbecue, Austin

Two barbeque meals in one day was not something I thought I'd ever have. This place finished as a runner up on the Austin Food Blogger Alliance list. I was sort of doubling down on my bet above here but what the hell. The first place winner was awesome. If this came anywhere close to Franklin Barbecue, I'd be a happy diner.

Lamberts was a different experience from the other barbeque places I went to this week. It was more of a restaurant rather than a counter service (admittedly, I got served at Salt Lick) and I went at dinner rather than lunch. The menu looked amazing. I had to restrain myself from ordering the jalapeno hot links with hot pink pickled cabbage and the achiote lime rubbed half chicken and stick to the task at hand which was eating some barbeque  food comparable to what I'd had in Euless, Dallas and Driftwood.

Ultimately, I picked the hot links plate with two sides, in this case beans (what else?) and collard greens and with my food I was presented with three sauces: housemade barbeque, mustard and hot sauces. Despite my attempt to keep this food on an even playing field with the rest of the barbeque I've had this past week, this meal was clearly superior to all the others.

I know the photo's grainy. It was dark. What else can I do?

The sausage is smoked on the premises so Lamberts is doing what every other barbeque place I've eaten at is doing but the flavor was just incredible. The grind on the meat was perfect and the sausage had some great heat which went with both the barbeque and hot sauces really well. The beans were also the best of the trip; the addition of cilantro made these tastier, cutting the creaminess of the beans. I can eat my food fast and I have to tell you I ate slowly here, savoring every bite. If I lived in Austin, I'd come here a lot. And the 512 Pecan Porter went really well with the food by the way.

So after a week of trying, I am clearly not ready to give up on barbeque, although I've convinced myself not to shoot from the hip when it comes to food. I know I'm a food snob and it really helps me to be prepared with my restaurant choices as much as everything else in life. I still have my reservations about this style of food but as I think about it, I am no less disappointed in other types of food that I love (particularly Mexican) than I am in barbeque. There are some places I'd love to go back to that I've dined at this week.

In picking the places above, I read a lot of reviews and opinions and visited each restaurant's website, but I also checked my math, so to speak, with Daniel Vaughn's Full Custom Gospel BBQ blog. It's good to have an opinion from someone who claims to know what he's doing, I guess. I didn't always follow his advice and I'm sure he'd think I'm a novice at this stuff, but I definitely crossed some places off my list based on his blog.