St. Louis Eats and Drinks With Joe and Ann Pollack

On The Road: Driving and Drinking in France

I haven't really meant to create a series of non-St. Louis entries, but the other day I got something from France in the mail. It's been very difficult for the average person to visit French (and German and Italian and...) wineries. Folks with a close relationship with their wine merchant could sometimes set something up through channels, wholesaler to negociant to winery management, and perhaps a few intermediate steps that I'm not aware of. But now marvelous Burgundy can be investigated, thanks to those smart folks at the BIVB, the trade group of Burgundian wine houses.

Burgundy itself is exciting; take the train to Dijon, rent a car and head south, and occasionally a little west, and find treasures in wine, food and history. It's not just the stunning sight of the cathedral at Vezelay towering above the countryside, or driving through town after town whose name you've seen on bottles of wine.

The food from this traditionally prosperous part of what eventually became a single country - at one time, the Dukes of Burgundy controlled more land than the Kings of France - is remarkable, much more meat-centric than compared to, say, Provence, which was poorer and whose cuisine emerged with far more emphasis on vegetables. I recall from one visit to the biennial Burgundy wine expositions a lunch buffet that offered, among other things, a crock of duck rilettes more than a foot tall and about 10 inches wide.

You may not encounter that crock, but now you can visit Burgundian wineries. The BIVB has created an 80-page book that has maps, a calendar of wine-ish events and, big news, a list of many wineries that have agreed to receive visitors and offer at least one wine for tasting. The charts show what languages are spoken, who's available on-site that presumably might be able to talk with guests, and whether food and even overnight accomodations are available. Yesterday, Relish put up my discussion of this booklet there, and you can connect to that, and its link to the BIVB and instructions to get the booklet or download here.

New York: Dim Sum

Just posted on the St. Louis Magazine blog Relish, this piece is about our favorite Chinatown dim sum spot. If you like St. Louis dim sum but think you keep getting the same choices, this is the spot for you. Huge and busy and open for dim sum 7 days a week, it buzzes with action, both with carts and a buffet line.

Besides, an excursion to Chinatown in New York is always an adventure, whether by bus, taxi or subway.

Noshing in New York

A fast run to New York City, courtesy of one of those short-notice airfares, and a few casual meals plus one more formal one. That was at Danny Meyer's Maialino, located in the Gramercy Park Hotel, where I broke yet another of the Food Critic Rules: I ate out on Mothers Day. Indeed, I ate brunch. It looks as though the details of that will be on the St. Louis Magazine blog Relish, and when it goes up, I'll post a link.

But most of the time, the meals were partly due to where I happened to be walking at the time, whether alone or with a friend, and partly due to vague memories of something I'd wanted to experiment with when I read or heard about it. Both those factored into a mid-afternoon Saturday lunch at one of the locations of Shake Shack, Meyer's chain of burger spots born out of his St. Louis roots. The flat-grilled hamburgers are really not Steak 'n Shake (or Carl's Drive In) thin, but they're cooked to order; the ShackBurger, available as a single or double, sports lettuce, tomato, cheese and ShackSauce. My single was hot, moist, and not overwhelmed with the sauce, whose exact ingredients are the source of intense discussion at several places on the Web. Mayo based, to be sure, but frankly I thought it fit in so well (and was so hungry) I didn't do the wipe-and-lick that I often do. Passed on the crinkle-cut fries, a personal no-thanks of mine, had a glass of Bonny Doon Vin Gris de Cigare, the perfect match on a hot, sunny urban afternoon, and topped it off with a coffee shake, rather than a concrete, which they also do. The frozen custard flavor varies by the day, and each month the weekly rotation changes to offer an alternative to the constancy of vanilla. On my visit it was Mexican chocolate brownie, and quite zippy it was with some pepper as well as cinnamon. I was thrilled with the shake, which propelled me uptown to Kitchen Arts and Letters, the cookbook book store.

Extremely casual, family friendly, more expensive than McDonald's (the ShackBurger was $4.55), and very popular, so you'll be lucky if you don't have to wait longer than the time it takes to cook your food.

Shake Shack

various locations, including beyond New York City

www.shakeshack.com

 

 

 

Poking around in the East Village, I saw Baoguette Cafe. There are several places called Baoguette, sort of like Ray's Pizza came to be, not necessarily related or even formerly related. But the basic banh mi sandwich, the focus of each of the Baoguettes (although they have noodles and pho), was a remarkable $6 sandwich. They grill their sandwich in a light press, put the spicy ingredients on at the wishes of the customer, and thrill the mouth with tender pork, crunchy-spicy pickled cucumber and carrot, and sprigs of cilantro. I'd never had one hot before, but it's like hearing a favorite song in a new arrangement. Also tempting are a fish version and another using a gravy-sauced curry. The other Baoguettes seem mostly to be in areas where they serve (and deliver) business lunches.

 

Baoguette Cafe

37 St. Marks Place, New York

347-892-2614

 

St. Louis doesn't hear much, if anything about Korean fried chicken. I'd been trying to taste some for a couple of years, and finally got the chance. Served primarily as wings and drumsticks, it's double-fried, making it extremely crisp. Most of the outlets in Manhattan are in the Koreatown neighborhood near the Empire State Building, but one of them had branches in several locations, and I just aimed for the nearest, which was on Second Avenue near 51st Street.

Bon Chon is far nicer than anything the Colonel or his friend the sailor man offer in decor. There's a liquor license, a calm decor with table service, and plenty of customers who might have been eating this kind of chicken for decades. The chicken is cooked to order, and can be had with a soy-garlic sauce or a hot sauce. I split my order down the middle, added a pajeon, or onion pancake, and had a cocktail of sparkling wine, a little soju, the korean drink that's rather like a slightly sweet vodka, and a lychee. The pajeon was large, and full of browned onion-y goodness, and could have been a meal in itself. But the chicken made it superfluous. Yes, crisp. Yes, greaseless. I'd expected to prefer the hot wings, whose heat gathered steam slowly and kept the fire down to a point where tastebuds remained alive. But the soy-ginger surprised me with its charm. The garlic had been cooked slowly enough that the minced bits had become sweet, giving a nice contrast to the salty soy sauce. Alongside came cubes of pickled radish, much more approachable than kim chee. The wings are enough to make someone give up the blue cheese dressing and celery sticks and stick with this Seoul food.

Bon Chon

958 2nd Avenue, New York

212-308-8810

New York City: Nice Matin

Nice Matin, named for the largest newspaper in the South of France, sits, sidewalk tables at the ready, on a corner of Manhattan's Upper West Side. Part of a Manhattan restaurant group called Tour de France, each featuring a regional French cuisine, its menu sings of Provence and the Riviera. And so does its interior, quite Art Deco, although the terrazzo floor and aluminum chairs help raise the noise levels. Still, we've always been able to eavesdrop at the bar and hear friends speaking from across the table.

First courses alone could feed one very happily. Steamed mussels with rouille, the ruddy, spicy, aioli-type sauce often served with bouillabaisse, brought memories of Nice, Cannes and other towns along the Mediterranean Sea. Spicy merguez, the tangy lamb sausage we just don't see enough,stayed moist from its grilling and was a handsome fit with an Alsatian riesling.

And then there was the pissaladiere, the onion tart of the region. Not quite a pizza but riding a yeast dough, onions braised until sweet, black olives and cheese, plus a bit of dried tomato pesto; we always say oui to the optional anchovies. Tuna tartare, not quite as authentic, still tasted good with a lemony vinaigrette showing a bit of peppery harissa paste.

Mussels also sang under a slightly different treatment, prepared Provencal style with garlic, tomato, basil and shallot providing a more complex broth, and the complexity made the treatment superior to the appetizer. Another hit was seared scallops, sauced in a finely nuanced pesto comprising basil, garlic, and a very lightn touch of fennel. But probably the hit of the main courses was veal scallops, sauced with thyme, garlic and Marsala wine, then joined by cherry tomatoes, shiitake mushrooms and some Swiss chard, the whole adding up to a truly exciting dish that showed off flavor and texture in delicious French style.

Dinner was excellent in all respects, so much so that we decided to pass on a dessert list that showed lots of familiar dishes, but nothing to make us risk over-eating. Coffee apres was a satisfactory wrap to the meal. Service was brisk and cheerful, with servers offering complete explanations of unfamiliar offerings. The wine list is filled with interesting choices and includes prices that are high for St. Louisans but reasonable for New Yorkers. Alas, though, no Rin-Quin-Quin, the lovely peach-scented and -flavored wine that's a specialty of the area and which would have been a perfect fit.

 

Nice Matin

201 W. 79th St., New York City

212-873-6423

www.nicematinnyc.com

Breakfast daily, Lunch Mon.-Fri., Brunch Sat.-Sun, Dinner nightly

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Fair

Smoking: No

Entrees: $17-$28

New York City: Colicchio & Sons

 

While we normally post here about our restaurant experiences when we travel, St. Louis Magazine's food blog Relish decided they'd like them. We were really happy with Colicchio & Sons, and it's following the trend for offering less-pricey options. You can read about it here.

New Orleans: Pascal's Manale

Heirloom tomatoes. Heritage pork. Lots of old, traditional foods are being rediscovered and saluted, thanks to heroic cooks and restaurateurs who didn't let them die out. It's that way with restaurants, too, sometimes. And there are plenty of examples in New Orleans, a city where, like St. Louis, “We've always done it this way,” is a common explanation for all sorts of things.

Pascal's Manale has been serving Italian Creole for 98 years. A few blocks off St. Charles avenue and a few blocks beyond the Garden District, it's an unassuming spot from the outside, with a parking lot behind it and a modest entrance that leads to a large bar where folks knock back oysters and wait for their tables. Pascal's can fill up quickly during Mardi Gras, other festivals and holidays, and large conventions. The dining rooms looks as though they've not been changed much since, oh, perhaps the Kennedy Administration, simple and decorated mainly with clippings and photographs. Lots of clippings and photographs. The lighting is lower than one might expect, although we're told it was darker before the post-Katrina clean-up.

Barbecued shrimp originated here. It's become identified with New Orleans, but it doesn't involve smoking or tomato sauce. It's not an ancient dish, either, but dates from 1955 when a customer came in and talked about a dish he'd had on a trip. The kitchen tried to re-create it. They didn't quite manage, but the result became a classic.

We kicked things off with, in the menu's phrase, a combination remoulade. It's a cocktail dish of boiled shrimp and lump crabmeat, topped with remoulade sauce over the crabmeat in the center and cocktail sauce over the shrimp that surrounded it. Remoulade sauce, in its Creole manifestation, is a mayonnaise that's kicked way up with chopped aromatic vegetables, Creole whole-grain mustard and (sometimes) horseradish, plus whatever magic each particular kitchen decides to use. The seafood was cold and fresh and moist, the sauces both with a little bite to them but not enough to demand anything beyond a cool beverage of choice to offset things.

Oysters Bienville, with a cheese-mushroom-shrimp topping, weren't remarkably handsome; they seldom are. But the oysters were fresh, large and juicy, and the topping nothing short of succulent. Bienvilles have served as a gateway drug to oyster neophytes, and this would be perfect for them. Old New Orleans Hands also revel.

Now, about those barbecued shrimp: While you can find them all over town these days, we thought it important to try them here. Joe has eaten them many times in many cities since his introduction here in the run-up to Super Bowl IV in 1970; this was Ann's first visit to the motherhouse.

Huge. Heads on. Yes, heads on, unshelled, feelers waving merrily as they swim in a Lake Ponchartrain of butter. The butter is seasoned generously with garlic and pepper and probably other things, although it, too, was not vigorously spiced, unlike some other versions. Each serving arrives with two waiters, one to place the dish and the other to ceremoniously tie a plastic bib around the neck of the customer. Extra napkins, too, are brought to the table, because there is no way to eat these with knife and fork. Fingers and plenty of bread are the weapons of choice. Occasionally the shrimp can be overcooked, but these huge crustaceans surely weren't.

Indeed they do need to be shelled. The heads also need to be pinched off. Those who understand and obey the Crayfish Commandment, “You gotta suck dey heads”, may follow the same advice here. The succulent heads are the richest part of the shrimp, but not everyone is up for such Faustian indulgence. Despite the generous amount of bread given and refilled as requested, it's close to impossible for one person to consume the entire dish, given the lashings of butter. (The waiter said the kitchen melts 50 pounds of it at a time.)

Of course there's pasta. A dish simply entitled Crabmeat and Scallops brings capellini tossed with bay scallops, lots of crabmeat, a little green onion and a touch of sweet red pepper, some olive oil, a little cream and certainly a jot of white wine. The result was practically as rich as a proper fettuccine Alfredo, and so wonderfully flavorful, tasting of the sea, the onion and the mysteries of the wine. The capellini was close to being overcooked, but with a sauce like that, we were in a forgiving mood.

In retrospect, it's hard to imagine why we went for a dessert. And yet, thinking about the dessert, we are more than glad we did. This was the best bread pudding we had this visit. Light and moist and, to be sure, rich, it sported a few raisins and was topped with a scoop of brandy butter that also gave a serious nod to vanilla. We later discovered the bread pudding recipe the restaurant gives out calls for a pound and a half of butter for three loaves of French bread. We keep meaning to check on how often the American College of Cardiology meets in New Orleans.

Service is keen-eyed but not formal, and happy to explain dishes to newcomers. But on a normal weeknight, it's easy to tell that most guests are locals, and regular visitors. Not much of a wine list, but that's not what folks come for. We suggest reservations no matter when you visit.

 

Pascal's Manale

1838 Napoleon Ave., New Orleans

504-895-4877

link

Lunch Mon.-Fri., Dinner Mon.-Sat.

Credit cards: Yes

Smoking: No

Wheelchair access: Poor

Entrees: $18-$35

New Orleans: Brennan's

Given a fairly wide iconoclastic streak in our makeup, we passed on the tourist tradition of breakfast at Brennan's on a recent visit to New Orleans, where post-Katrina recovery has been at least a partial success. Instead, on a quiet Sunday night, we dined in the big pink house on Royal Street, and we departed in an extremely grim mood. The meal was next door to disaster, and with a tab a little more than $100 for two, without alcohol, we felt as if our pockets had been picked.

It was shocking, given the preeminent position among New Orleans restaurants taken in recent years by the Brennans, led by Dickie. At the same time, as in many other cities, New Orleans seems to have ended the era of the dress code. We ate at four rather upscale restaurants and saw few ties, fewer jackets. But the Brennan's dining rooms look much the same as visitors over the last half-century might remember. Black ties on waiters, white cloths on tables, grown-up voices in use by all. The menus are almost the size of a tabloid newspaper, and provide several minutes' reading before decision-making can commence. We stayed mostly with first-course choices, thinking we could try more things and perhaps eat more lightly, not that the latter is apt to happen to any food lover in The City That Care Forgot.

Oysters, of course, headed our choices. We prefer oysters from cooler waters than the Gulf of Mexico, but Gulf oysters are preferable to no oysters at all. Brennan's version of Rockefellers uses parsley and green onion instead of spinach as the green ingredient. (Antoine's, where they originated, insists it doesn't use spinach either.) There's probably fennel, for its licorice-like flavor, but very lightly used. A half-dozen large oysters were, all in all, very good.

On the other hand, there were the oysters casino. Joe is a fan of clams casino, usually topped with bread crumbs, maybe parsley and green or red pepper, always some butter, and – very important, this – crisp bacon, all popped under the broiler. Brennan's version brought another half-dozen of those large oyster shells, containing a dozen or so itty-bitty oysters. Some bacon on top and then, slopped over all, what seemed to be a basic tomato-based cocktail sauce, overpowering everything beneath it. Period.

At the risk of being indelicate, this casino just crapped out.

But besides second-rate taste and third-rate presentation, there remained the question of where all the oysters came from. Certainly not from those large shells. It looked to us as if Brennan's was substituting smaller, less expensive, less flavorful oysters for fresh, just-opened ones, and adding more so that we perhaps we might think these were Siamese Twins separated at birth. (It reminded us of a years-old story: A St. Louisan called Joe one day to report that he worked near a fancy seafood restaurant, walked by it almost every day, but never saw oyster shells in the trash.)

We asked our server about something called oyster soup Brennan. “It's a soup with oysters.” A pause. “But they're chopped up really fine,” A very brief pause. "Real fine.” We gently asked what else was in it. He lost the deer-in-the-headlights look when a young woman began to refill our water glasses. She, he assured us, could tell us more about it. And she did, pointing out that it had potatoes and it was thick, not heavily creamy and seasoned with thyme. It was properly, steamingly, hot. It was far too heavy on the thyme, though, overwhelming the oyster flavor.

On the salad side, the Brennan salad is essentially a fairly good Caesar, the dressing good but not what one thinks from the menu which promised “tangy Creole dressing.” Fresh croutons, obviously made in-house, helped. To our delight, spinach salad did not have a sweet dressing, but a proper vinaigrette, heavy on the garlic, the spinach bolstered by good bacon, mushrooms and red onion.

Our only true entree was buster crabs Bearnaise. Buster cabs are small soft shells, and these were indeed little guys, perhaps four inches long. Each was sauteed in butter and perched on an oval slice of grilled French bread. Bearnaise, essentially a Hollandaise sauce with tarragon and shallots, can make sofa pillows taste good, and this was a fine, classic rendition.

As dessert decisions loomed, we noted that the bread pudding is designated "St. Joan d'Arc." And how, pray tell, did Joan of Arc make her bread pudding? Another pause from the waiter, and one of us blurted, “Don't tell us it's burned.” Turned out to be the usual, with bread, raisins, a custard sauce, and we ordered it. After the waiter left, the other one said, “I was about to ask if it was served on a stake, like shish ke-bab.” It was light and tender, and we admit that the custard sauce displayed a light additional flavor that we couldn't identify, but which was quite pleasant. Still, it remained, essentially, the usual bread pudding.

Dinner at Brennan's might have been an acceptable meal with an average entree of, say, $23. But with entrees between $35 and $43, even though there is a prix-fixe menu available, it becomes totally unacceptable, and someone in management should be blushing the color of the outside walls.

 

Brennan's

417 Royal St., New Orleans

504-525-9711

www.brennansneworleans.com

Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner daily

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Fair

Smoking: No

Entrees: $35-$4

New Orleans: The Acme vs. Felix's

The two French Quarter oyster bars that are the stuff of arguments are Felix's and the Acme, across the street from one another and a mere block from Canal Street. Both attract a mixture of localsand visitors, both are slightly scruffy in the manner of many old New Orleans favorites, and both, of course, have their passionate fans. Long before we knew each other, we preferred Felix's, and neither of us had visited for a number of years, even before Hurricane Katrina. A recent visit gave us a chance to try both.

The Acme has changed the most. Once it closed at 8 p.m., and all day Sunday; no more, since new owners took over. They've changed that, enlarged it a little and added two more locations in theNew Orleans suburbs and others in Baton Rouge and Destin, Fla. Waiting diners cool their heels in a line on the sidewalk, although the wait seems rather brief.

Oysters in their many local styles are the game at both places, although we're told they do fine renditions of other traditional Creole/Cajun foods. We kicked off, of course, with oysters on the half shell. Louisiana oysters are usually larger but milder than their cousins from colder waters off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, lacking much of the mineral taste those display. Gulf oysters can be a pleasant experience, but we prefer the big flavor of the cold-water varieties. Still, it was summer, andthe Louisiana shellfish suffer less from the heat. These were satisfactory, but we have missed the pleasure of sitting and watching a skillful shucker for a while. On the other hand, the grilled oysters, shucked but left on the shell, put on a grill and slathered with garlic butter, were excellent. Our only complaint was that they were too salty, which our server told us can be remedied by ordering themwith light (or no) salt. Use plenty of the only-in-New-Orleans bread with its paper-thin, ultra-crisp crust to sop up the remaining juice.

 

Soft shell crabs are in season, and a poor boy sandwich featured one of the largest we've ever seen. This is not the version that is lightly floured, then sauteed in butter, we see at home and on much of the East Coast. In New Orleans, they're battered and deep-fried for outstanding sandwiches. We found the batter rather too thick, but the meat was incredibly succulent. Tabasco mayonnaise was a nice touch, too. We had a side of jambalaya, which was too dry and gluey, and its flavor too bland.

First-rate service from a guy so good-looking we wished we'd had one of the Apprentice Eaters with us.

 

The next day we crossed the street to Felix's for another late lunch and found it quieter as we walked by the raw bar's charming neon sign,“Eat Oysters, Love Longer.” A dozen on the half-shell were better than those at the Acme, arriving more flavorful, juicier and colder. Felix's offers oysters Rockefeller and Bienville, and Ann's long enjoyed their Bienvilles, which are traditionally topped with cheese. Felix's has updated the recipe she recalls from years ago, adding chopped shrimp, which increases their pleasure. The oysters are only lightly cooked, retaining their juiciness, the whole thing piping hot.

A soft-shell crab poor boy brought a smaller crab in a lighter batter. The meat, however, remained equally delicious. Our extra dish here was bread pudding, very traditional New Orleans dish, found in almost every restaurant and home. It varies from kitchen to kitchen, just like poultry stuffing (or dressing, if you prefer that terminology). Felix's is a sturdy, firm version that contains both bananas and fruit cocktail, with an excellent custard sauce. Bread pudding is a dish where we differ; Joe likes it dense and Ann likes it tender and fluffy, but she found this version very good indeed.

 

Another amiable server, this time a tall, competent woman who'd clearly been doing this job a good while.

The edge, in our minds, still goes to Felix's. And we'd point out that while there are no reservations at either, they're both family-friendly, something that will encourage young eaters. (Ann's son probably ate his first shrimp at Felix's, and at the same meal, watched gap-jawed as she knocked back raw oysters.)

 

Acme Oyster House

724 Iberville St., New Orleans

504-522-5973

www.acmeoysterhouse.com

 Lunch & Dinner daily

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: No

Smoking: No

Sandwiches and entrees: $8-$21

 

 

Felix's Restaurant & Oyster Bar

739 Iberville St., New Orleans

504-522-4440

www.felixs.com

 Lunch & Dinner daily

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Difficult

Smoking: No

Sandwiches and entrees: $8-$17

Memphis: Interstate Barbecue

Yes, the Neelys of Interstate Barbecue have been on television. We've not seen them, but what brought us to their house of 'que was their reputation in print and on the net. It's well-deserved, worth a detour (as Michelin would say), and the fact that it's easy to get to from I-55 should endear it even more to drivers from St. Louis and surrounding areas.

The dining room is large – actually, there are three – and there's plenty of parking on both sides of the building. A separate door and drive-through for carry-out is a fine idea, moving that stream of people out of the way of dining room patrons. Decoration is, well, homey. One wall is family photographs of elegant ladies, cute children, grade school classes, a group on a cruise. The opposite wall is just as plastered with photos, this time of guests of note, lots of musicians, athletes, the inevitable politicians. Through it all are sprinkled fading magazine and newspaper clips about the glories of their pit.

The praise is accurate, worth the self-aggrandizement. Let us first laud the sauce. Tomato-based, some of its sharpness from acidity, some from a mild-to-moderate degree of heat in the spicing. Yes, a touch of sweet as well. In various permutations, it appeared on almost everything we ate without becoming boring.

When we ordered the chopped pork sandwich, the young server said, “You want slaw on that?” Such a question, of course, is a hint to the newcomer. It means, “Welcome to Memphis," and, "Most of our regulars take it this way and you might like it, too.” And so we said yes. The sandwich, described as large, was exactly that. The chopped coleslaw with a creamy dressing sat on the bottom of the bun, the meat, tender, rich and deliciously smoky above that, the splendid sauce splashed on top. The bun, by the way, had been toasted, a graceful touch. But we cannot imagine anyone picking it up and managing more than a few bites before the contents came cascading down the front of a T-shirt or tie. (Diners displayed both.) No, this is a sandwich for a fork; the tenderness of the components make knives practically superfluous. We don't think we're converted to slaw on all our barbecue, but it worked well here.

We haven't found rib tips as a major menu item at barbecue places outside of St. Louis, but here they were. The serving was generous, six large pieces, neatly separated. Lots of crisp outside, and the meat was moist and tender. Plenty of gristle, as occurs with tips, but easily worked around. Like the pork, the hickory smoke was apparent. Our only quibble was that there was more grease floating on the plate than we've seen from the Neelys' St. Louis peers.

We also tried a hot dog, which arrived dipped in the ethereal sauce after it had been grilled until the skin was almost crisp, the smoke making things even richer. The cheapest item on the menu, at less than $2, it was juicy and flavorful, and we could have had slaw on that, too.

The other members of the holy trinity of barbecue sides also were present. Potato salad was dressed with a mustard-mayo combination, slightly sharp but mostly cool and creamy, and the spuds hadn't been cooked to falling apart-ness. The beans – ah, the beans-- were seasoned with more of that great sauce, enlivened by shreds of pork here and there, and the sauce further enriched with a slug of molasses. Divine beans. (The third member? Coleslaw, discussed above.)

We had a few onion rings, which arrived crisp, crunchy, and clearly fresh out of the oil. The breading was thick, but it was tasty, and the onions in manageable-sized rings. And there was a regional dish, barbecue spaghetti, the pasta topped with lots of sauce, of course, and laced with shreds and small bits of 'cue. This was so good we can forgive the fact that the texture of the pasta indicated it could have been prepared by Chef Boy-Ar-Dee himself. Comfort food, indeed, and delightfully spicy, too.

While there are a few signs of fame hanging heavy, like the one that says menus are for sale for $5, this is the sort of place that hosts groups of folks in their hats and best suits with their own buffet line in the rear dining room, and young servers who smile, move quickly, and are eager to please. They're also casual enough to spell barbecue three different ways. Not that we care. And, perhaps, thanks to being at the FedEx hub city, they overnight-ship their products.

One more thing, the sort of news we particularly like to share. It's really close to I-55. Take Exit 85 to U.S. 61, which is also called South Third Street. If you're coming from the north, you'll have to make a U-turn at a convenient point, because the exit will only allow you to go south. But once you accomplish the turn, it's only a couple of blocks from the interstate to the Interstate. Michelin would say it's worth a bigger detour than that.

 

Interstate Barbecue

2265 S. Third St., Memphis, TN

901-775-2304

also at

150 W. Stateline Rd., Southaven, MS

(which is also just off I-55)

662-393-5699

www.interstatebarbecue.com

Lunch & Dinner daily

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Very difficult

Smoking: No

Sandwiches and Entrees: $2-$20

London: Yauatcha

We would never visit London for longer than 48 hours without having a Chinese meal. While it probably can no longer boast it has the best Chinese food in the world, the city continues to offer interesting choices, and seemingly familiar things have different looks and flavors than they show at home. Looking for dinner fairly close to our favorite B&B, around the corner from the British Museum, we checked Time Out, a usually reliable source. It recommended Yauatcha (yow-at-cha), pointing out that dim sum was available every day and night.

Yauatcha is clearly a next-generation Chinese restaurant, with coolish, low-light décor, open kitchen and a lower, basement-level dining room that's even more night-clubby. We had no idea it was quite so fashionably popular, so arriving without reservations brought us a bit of the fish eye from the hostess. She whisked us off to the very busy bar in the rear where we soon found stools amidst the well-dressed crowd. Their costumes were different, of course, but the diners and drinkers could have strolled over from Rick's, just around the corner in Casablanca.

Quite a cocktail menu – not cheap, of course, but intriguing. Joe, in a playful mood,went for the Sweet Khandala, a lovely, tall glass whose ingredients began with rum and went on with kiwi, peach, rhubarb, apple and passion fruit, topped with some blue tea foam, obviously from a closeout sale at El Bullli. The foam had little flavor but indicated it might have been in the same room with some tea, and the drink proved almost worth the 10 pounds or so it cost, lots of fruit flavor with serious alcohol, only a little sweet, and generally rather lethal because one could be easily lured into knocking back three or four of them.

A large selection of sake, 15 wines by the glass, all from a huge drinks menu that carried wine selections from 16 nations representing every continent except Antarctica and must have weighed half a pound, counting the expensive cover. And speaking of liquids, there's also the longest tea list we've ever seen, although that's on the dinner menu.

Old favorites and new-to-us options on the menu, which had some entrees as well as many categories of dim sum, not from carts but ordered from a lengthy menu. Char siu bao, the steamed barbecued pork buns, were nice but not outstanding, but that was the only example of ho-hum we found. Chili squid was deep-fried with crisp brown bits strewn over it, wheat flakes, apparently, and some curry leaves, also crisply fried. Not greasy, and with more pop than we're used to finding with this dish.

The most remarkable experience at Yauatcha was the rice-flour wrappers, the translucent white pasta-like material often seen on dim sum menus in St. Louis. We had a spicy Peking chicken dumpling as our first encounter and remarked on how thin and delicate the wrapper was. Then we ordered the three-mushroom chow fun, the wide noodles wrapped around a filling, like an enchilada. The mushrooms were the attraction; neither of us is particularly taken with chow fun in general. But one bite left us staring at each other in disbelief. The noodle was incredibly tender, with none of the gummy chewiness that too often has marked our previous experience. It was so good we went for another round, this time with tofu, and it was equally great. A Szechuan wonton, steamed rather than fried, neared perfection with the same thin skin and a coating of hot-spicy oil. The round dumplings in the photo are duck and pumpkin wrapped in the same dough and fried, topped with pea tendrils, wonderfulness the size of a ping pong ball.

Dessert here jumps the hemispheres and comes in as a modernist pastry chef's riffs on traditional desserts. All are displayed behind a counter in the front of the restaurant, and some people order for munching on their way out. Others come in to buy as if they were in a retail bakery, without even a nod to the Chinese delicacies a few steps away. So our fig and chestnut clafouti was a cylinder ringed with half-moons of fresh fig walling off a dense chestnut mousse. Very rich, of course, and interesting, but not up to the rest of the evening.

Service was slightly chaotic, sort of in synchrony with a busy, loud dining room. Still, the food and drink, not to mention the people-watching, made for a worthy visit.

 

Yauatcha

15 Broadwick St., London, W1

020 7494 8888

www.yauatcha.com

Tube: Tottenham Court Rd. or Picadilly Circus

Lunch and Dinner daily

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Poor

Smoking: No

Dim sum: 5-14 pounds