If you like barbecued meats cooked Memphis style, slathered with a sweet tomato sauce and smoked many hours in a pit, you won’t be disappointed
Mia Stainsby
Sun
Julie Chung with a ‘Memphis Blues platter’ at the recently opened Memphis Blues Barbecue House on Lonsdale in North Vancouver. Other Memphis Blues restaurants operate on West Broadway and Commercial. Photograph by : Mark van Manen, Vancouver Sun
When Memphis Blues Barbecue House first opened on West Broadway in 2002, I was a devotee and would leave with barbecue sauce smeared on my face, hands and clothing.
“Fred Flintstone-style dishes, piled with ribs, pulled pork, sliced brisket, smoked sausage and chicken. The boys who run this barbecue joint know the art of succulent seduction,” I wrote. “The barbecued meats, infused with cherry, apple and maple wood smoke, really are delicious.”
Four years and two more restaurants later, Memphis Blues is still a boisterous, busy place, appealing to young and old; skinny and fat; slobs and snobs.
After Broadway, another opened on Commercial, and my colleague Linda Bates reviewed it and liked the meats, if not the struggling service. I visited the latest family member in North Vancouver and left wondering if it was an adopted sibling.
The barbecued ribs were big, messy, tender and thoroughly flavourful but the non-barbecued dishes were seriously underwhelming or inedible. In the Oyster Po’ Boy, oysters were encased in a hard tack shell of cornmeal and the bun turned mushy from moisture. A plate of mixed greens looked like pond weed, with absolutely no crispness, lots of wetness. The cornbread was dry and hard.
I ordered a peach pie, remembering a wonderful peach cobbler from my 2002 visit, but alas, it was actually an inedible pie, with a few fingers of canned peach immersed in a cornstarchy medium. The crust was soft without a trace of flakiness.
Still, the place was packed and jumping thanks to the slow-cooked meats coming out of the barbecue pit. The coleslaw and beans that accompany most dishes were fine.
I went to the West Broadway location for comparison and the salad was crispier, the oysters bigger and fresher tasting and the cornbread wasn’t as withered.
But if you like barbecued meats cooked Memphis style, slathered with a sweet tomato sauce and smoked many hours in the pit, you won’t be disappointed. It’s even cooked in a barbecue pit made in Missouri and can cook up to 500 pounds of meat at a time. They’ve got ribs, sliced brisket, pulled pork, Cornish game hen, smoked sausage and if you want, they’ve got platters, heaped full of meat for an event. Think Super Bowl. Think Canucks games. Think guy food.
The Memphis Feast, $32.95, comes fully loaded with all the meats; the Elvis Platter holds the same, except more of everything ($64); and the Priscilla has even more plus oysters, shrimp and catfish and feeds up to 12 guys a-bonding. Next to Father’s Day, the Super Bowl is the busiest day at Memphis Blues, apparently.
Check out the great bourbon list, including a 20-year-old Pappy Van Winkle and 12-year-old W.L. Weller and enjoy the great blues music.
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MEMPHIS BLUES BBQ
Overall: 3
Food: 3
Ambience: 3
Service: 3
Price $
1629 Lonsdale Ave., North Vancouver, 604-929-3699. Open 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., Monday to Thursday; noon to midnight, Saturday; noon to 10 p.m.,
Sunday. No reservations.
Restaurant visits are conducted anonymously and interviews are done by phone. Restaurants are rated out of five stars.
© The Vancouver Sun 2007
