Memphis Blues - Broadway

It seems like the month for clogged arteries and chest pains!  I went to Memphis Blues on Broadway last night and had a near-death experience.  It was a meatfest from heaven, a vegetarian's hell, an absolute dream come true!  It reminded me of the food orgies in those Asterix comic book and scenes from Conan the Barbarian.

The sheer audacity of the place, just completely over-the-top excess of barbecued flesh served on a massive platter is food porn at it's best.  When your platter arrives, it's a feast for your eyes, and once you commence eating, it will be the dam in your arteries.  After eating your first morsel of food, you will feel your heart shudder in fear, you can feel the imminent cessation and ultimate failure of your most important organ. 

The Elvis Platter - $69.95 comes with enough to feed 4 uncomfortably.  It comes with some kind of fries that's got some wicked seasoning (puts NY Fries to shame), beans, corn bread, bbq sauce (tastes like Hoisin sauce - google it for explanation), cole slaw, potato salad, bbq chicken, sausages, bbq pork ribs, pulled pork, and BRISKET!!!!!

This was my first ever encounter with pulled pork, and I have to say I was pretty damn impressed.  I have no clue how they make it, but it was amazing.

The BBQ chicken was a bit on the dry side, but that's why the platter comes with a tub of bbq suace.  Drown the chicken in it, and you're done.

The sausage was out of this world, juicy, flavourful and the perfect fat/lean ratio.

Our platter came with brisket already, but just for good measure, we ordered a Brisket Meal - $15.95 which came with four or 5 slabs of creamy brisket.  I just call it edible grisle.  It came with beans, bbq sauce, cole slaw and a baked potato.  The cole slaw was kind of gross, but the baked potato wasn't too bad.  When we ran out of bbq sauce, Jay started using the beans as sauce.  It turned out pretty good.

This isn't that tiny sliver of beef brisket you get in your pho.  This is a barbarian-size helping of brisket that will slay you just like the name-sake. 

My buddy Jay described it best when he said the pork ribs are so tender and fall-off-the-bone moist, it was like eating meat flavoured marshmallows.

If there was ever an institute of excess, Memphis is the place. By the end of the night, the three of us were reduced to nothing more than a collection of false hopes and shattered dreams.

We've all heard of food comas, meat sweats, that thing that happens after eating turkey.  Lots of fancy names and descriptions of what happens after eating in excess.  When I eat too much greasy food, I always feel like my brain is floating in a vat of oil and my skull feels fat.  I have to say that after my evening at Memphis Blues, I was was in a world of discomfort I never imagined.  I felt like a fat kid in a candy store, a coke-head frollicking in the fields of Columbia, an alcoholic running amok in a liqor store.  I ate way more than any human being should have to eat in one sitting, enjoying every minute of it, and before I knew it, I ate too much and I wanted to hurl.  It really snuck up on all of us, as if we were doing shots of tequila.

Anyway, between the three of us, we had a few slabs of brisket and slivers of other miscellaneous meat left over.  As full as I was, I greedily grabbed a take-out box and scooped up the left-overs for later.  Memphis Blues is a God-send, a bonafide miracle.  I remember feeling pretty bummed when Tony Roma's and Dem Bone's left the lower mainland and I was a bit choked.  Had I known how awesome Memphis Blues is, I wouldn't have wasted so many tears.  Memphis Blues.....I can't wait to go back!