Memphis City Blues

 Second Stop: Memphis! We may have only stayed one night but there was plenty of food and merriment in Memphis. The Peabody was another old hotel with opulent architecture. We started our night with some cocktails followed by southern comfort food.

Mint Julep

Watermelon Martini (essentially liquid jolly rancher!)

A Canadian Restaurant!! 

Blues City Cafe was our eatery of choice, Julia and I shared ribs and fried catfish. The side of beans were the stand out. They were creamy and vinegary with a hint of smoky bacon. A local Memphis favorite is sausage, cheese and pickles. I was a little sceptical of how tasty this would be but the BBQ sausage was smoky, contrasting the creamy cheese and tart pickles. There were also stuffed mushrooms and succulent broiled shrimp in garlic butter.

           

Graceland: the home of Elvis Presley. To see Graceland you buy your ticket, get your audio guide, take a shuttle to the mansion, follow the designated pathway, no backtracking please, return your audio guide and go home. A place full of memorabilia and stories but not the atmosphere you would expect.

Typical family moment: Julia is spaced out, Colin doesn't want to be here and I'm taking a picture of it all!

 

After that long, information packed excursion, we were all famished for some BBQ. But the Food Gods were against us because when we got to the restaurant it was closed until 4pm! It felt like we had been fighting the Food Gods for a few days, every time we went to a restaurant it wouldn't be open. Hopefully we'll be back in their favour soon so the rest of our trip goes smoothly.

Nashville, Tennessee

First stop: Nashville, the home of country music! When walking up and down the main drag, every other building has a bar and floating out of every bar are the sounds of a country music band. Our hotel lobby used to be a railway station and they have kept the grand ceilings and ornate decorations but have given it a warmer, cosier feeling.

The lobby of the hotel

We ate dinner at Merchant's, a diner-style restaurant. In true southern style, all of our appetizers were fried. Let the gluttony begin! They included fried green tomatoes, duck fat fried tater tots, fried okra, fried oysters, fried catfish and fried pickles. That is a lot of batter!

For the mains we tried to avoid more fried food but that is easier said than done. We had blackened catfish, french dip, and fried shrimp tacos. Almost no fried food!

     

 Since we felt our calorie consumption in one meal was not large enough we had to add dessert. A large, creamy root beer float and piping hot peach cobbler with butter pecan ice cream topped our calorie count.

 The next morning we did some sight seeing to try to burn off some of the million calories we consumed the night before. We visited Grand Ole Opry where we perused some cowboy hats and saw our first 'no guns' sign.

For lunch we had our first BBQ meal! I had a sweet and tender smoked pork loin sandwich. We also ordered pulled pork, pulled chicken and fried catfish. Add liters of refreshing sweet tea to wash it all down and you have a typical Nashville meal.

 After that monstrous lunch we all succumbed to food comas on the drive to Memphis. Hopefully we can be resuscitated on arrival!