The flashing neon lights can be seen down all of Broadway. The smell of pork entices one to enter. Jack’s Bar-B-Que is a dive BBQ restaurant in the heart of Nashville, TN.
Being a novice in the large world of barbeque, I expected to enter Jack’s and to be mesmerized by a large menu selection. Actually, I was pleasantly surprised. At Jack’s, there are only six items on the menu (including Tennessee Pork Shoulder, Texas Beef Brisket, Smoked Turkey Breast, St. Louis Pork Style Ribs, and Smoked Chicken), along with a few delectable side dishes.
For the past few days, I have had a strange craving for a pulled pork, so I went for the Tennessee Pork Shoulder sandwich. Being a New Yorker, I expected (and wanted) there to be a spicy sauce on-top, instead it was just pork, and you had the option of putting sauce on yourself.
I took a bite, and I was simply blown away. It was the most tender pork I have ever dug my teeth into. It was also very tasty (even without sauce).
Jack’s Bar-B-Que is a must-visit establishment for any barbeque enthusiast traveling through Nashville.
Max Murphy, host and producer of Mac News Weekly, is on a 3000 mile road trip with his dad and brother, Sam. On the road he is BBQ blogging for Carnivore and making us all really hungry!
When we started producing GeekBrief.TV, we were living above a store we opened for Extra Space Storage in Highland Park, IL. At the same time we opened our store, Jim Lederer and Chef Dave Teichman opened Bluegrass, a neighborhood restaurant with beyond words amazing food. Jim and Dave fed us well, served us great martinis and kind of turned us into food snobs (in a good way). Chili’s and Red Lobster is awesome until you know better. Thanks to Jim and Dave … we know better.
This morning we got a dire notice in the Inbox about a BBQ Emergency:
Bluegrass Restaurant is having a BBQ Fest to combat the constant construction on Old Deerfield Road. Chef Dave has decided to get out the BBQ and do some real smoking with his grills. We will be BBQ’ing for two weeks straight to get the word out that we are still here. If you see smoke please be aware it is only our smoker smoking the Ribs.
You don’t have to know us very much to know THIS kind of humor is OUR kind of humor. We’re rallying around our friends, packing our bags and heading to Chicago. This is a BBQ emergency and we can’t resist.
We’ll be blogging about the trip here and at BigTrip.TV. There will be video and if you can make it to Highland Park to join us, there will be meat.
The official meetup will be at Bluegrass in Highland Park, IL at 5PM (July 27, 2008). Please leave a comment on this post so we can let Jim and Dave know how many people to expect. I’m going to try and get my sister to come!
Chapps Cafe’s slogan is “Burgers to die for,” but for me…not so much. I had a bacon cheese burger with swiss cheese and it wasn’t bad. It wasn’t great either. The only thing that stood out for me was that it was extremely filling. I only ate half. Of course that could have been more about the side order of cheddar fries Cali and I shared. That’s about all I can write about it. It’s just an average tasting burger.
Chris Christensen, The Amateur Traveler, was in Dallas for business, so Cali asked him to stop by for an interview and dinner. In preparation for our Big Trip to all 50 States, frugality has been the watchword, so yuppie burgers have been nearly banned from the options list.
Dinner with Chris was at State and Allen Lounge, an urban bistro in Uptown Dallas. Having not reviewed a burger in over a week, I felt obligated to order a Mushroom and Swiss burger, which came with a side of fries.
I need to do some morethinking to make a call about the importance of Burger to Bun Ratio (BtBR). For now I’ll just throw out the ratio that feels right in my heart. The burger experience is at least 60% about the meat, 15% about the toppings, and 25% about the bun. Feel free to weigh in with your thoughts about the proper BtBR in the comments.
The Mushroom and Swiss burger I ate at State and allen Lounge last night flips my loose BtBR on it’s head. This burger might be as much as 60% about the bun. The bun had to have been made with a good amount of butter because that was the taste that made this burger experience so uniquely good. The meat was excellent, although, I have yet to eat a burger in Dallas that is served truly medium. Medium in Dallas tends to be what I would call medium-well.
State and Allen has a very strong yuppie vibe. Dogs are welcomed at outside tables. Service is great, and they offer an impressive a la carte cheese and meat board.
This might be my second favorite yuppie burger, ever. The first is the Bluegrass Burger from Bluegrass Restaurant in Highland Park, IL. Dave, the chef at Bluegrass is THE starting point for most of what I believe about burgers, and he knows what it means to cook a burger medium.
It’s off topic here, but there are three places in North America with unforgettable Mac and Cheese. One is Nob Hill Restaurant in the Mark Hopkins Hotel in San Francisco. It is served with Blue Cheese crumbled on top. One is The Beaconsfield on the corner of Beaconsfield Ave. and Queen Street W in Toronto. It has a chipotle corn flake crust. The other is this place, State and Allen Lounge. State and Allen’s Mac and Cheese has toasted croutons on top.
Cali ordered the Al’s Love Love Spicy Chicken Bowl. It’s worth mentioning because of the name. Chris Christensen picked up the tab so our Big Trip frugality could remain in tact. Thanks, Chris!
I’m not a burger snob, but as a rule, drive-through burger dinning should be reserved for emergency situations where there aren’t viable sit-down alternatives. My favorite burger from a drive-through is the Olive Burger from Burger Street. It’s a regional chain operating in Dallas, Fort Worth and Tulsa.
I order the Olive Burger just as it comes. It has two patties, no cheese, and it’s topped with mayo, lettuce, tomato and sliced green olives. I think of it as a cool, refreshing, almost light burger. It’s especially nice on a hot Dallas afternoon.
Burger Street is also the best place for Southern Sweet Tea. It’s $0.99 for a large cup of Southern goodness.
Chicken ‘n’ Dumplins aren’t really a carnivore thing at all. It’s basically dough soaked in Chicken stock, so it’s carbolicious. Mama’s Daughter’s Diner in Dallas sells southern cooking in the most non-pretentious setting you can imagine.
I’m writing about the Dumplins because they’re too good not to write about. I compare them to my memory of my grandmother’s dumplins and that’s very different than comparing them directly. My grandmother’s dumplins don’t live up to my memory of what they were like when I was little. I don’t know if it’s a white-washed memory, if my grandmother has lost something along the way, or most likely, has just changed the recipe.
Mama’s Daughter’s Dumplins live up to my MEMORY of my grandmother’s, so I just had to share.
We softly launched Carnivore.TV as a blog last year when we first started talking about the idea of taking GeekBrief.TV on the road for a year. We’ve named the road trip, The Big Trip, and the goal is to get started sometime this summer. We’ll be shooting GBTV as usual, but we’re also going to be producing travel stories like this one we shot at the Fish Wharf in Washington, D.C.
Our friends are supporting The Big Trip by buying pixels at PaidByPixels.com. Several people have asked us for a Web badge they could use to show support for the trip, and we aim to please:
<a title=”I Support The Big Trip!” href=”http://www.bigtrip.tv”><img src=”http://www.bigtrip.tv/assets/bigtripbadge.png” alt=”" width=”175″ height=”175″ /></a>
In-N-Out Burger is legendary. Burger aficionados make annual visits to the West coast just to get a fix of one of the best fast-food burgers anywhere for any amount of money. In-N-Out is a regional chain and those of us out of the region are usually left to just long for the next time we’ll be near enough to drive through and use our secret menu ordering skills.
Mooyah Burgers and Fries in Texas is the closest thing to In-N-Out I’ve ever tried, and it’s pretty clear why. They use the same high quality ingredients. The burgers are fresh and never frozen with no additives, fillers or preservatives. The fries are made from potatoes cut fresh the same day. The buns are baked fresh every day and the shakes are made from 100% pure ice cream. When you visit a Mooyah, it even looks a little like an In-N-Out. The employees are friendly and the menu is almost as simple as the published In-N-Out menu.
The regular Mooyah burger, the one I always get, comes with a default of two patties that are also very reminiscent of In-N-Out. My standard order is a Mooyah Burger with swiss cheese, bacon, onions (sometimes raw and sometimes grilled), and mustard. Burgers are thoughtfully wrapped upside down, so when you turn them over to unwrap them, they are ready to eat, right side up.
When we go to Mooyah, we rarely order fries. It isn’t because they aren’t good. They are. We just don’t have appetites large enough to accommodate more than a Mooyah burger. Mooyah fries are cut from fresh potatoes and served in cups. When we DO spring for fries, a regular order is plenty for two. Mooyah gets extra points, from me, for including Malt Vinegar as a condiment beside the ketchup dispenser. A carny once told me, when I was little, that Canadians put vinegar on their fries, and I’ve preferred them that way ever since.
I wouldn’t dare proclaim a Mooyah burger to be as good as an In-N-Out burger, but it’s so close I no longer miss In-N-Out when I’m in Texas. The thing missing most from Mooyah, apart from years of history, is a secret menu!
Burger Town - a documentary
