We continued to be blessed with great weather. Autumn at its best, with the foliage falling behind us. Sunday on the road in less populated areas, especially on very good roads makes the day an easy one. The goal is to sneak into the Little Rock, Arkansas area and visit the Clinton Presidential Museum. Our route from Mississippi to Arkansas took us through a corner of Tennessee and a city we've explored 4 years ago. What we didn't know then was that our computer could connect with http://www.flavortownusa.com/, hosted by Guy Fieri, seen on The Food Channel, a favorite of Doris.
As you know, on this trip, we've wallowed in troughs of Midwestern beef, corn on the cob, Chicago "dogs", Vermont syrup & donuts, Maine lobster, Rhode Island clams, Maryland crab, Virginia ham, "down home" Georgia cookin', Alabama ribs. You'd also think that we've "oink, oinked" enough and should have started a starvation diet so that we'd be ready for the upcoming Thanksgiving stuffing ... of turkeys and ourselves.
But NO! Tennessee said it's time for Sunday lunch. While I'm driving toward Memphis, Doris searched the website for a good representative of Memphis dining. She came up with ribs or fried chicken. Memphis ribs we'd done 4 years ago and gagged. Dry rubbed ribs meant they'd been cooked and the spices dry rubbed onto the ribs, afterward. Yuck.
So, it was chicken this time and Food Channel's Guy Fieri said the best in town were at "Uncle Lou's Fried Chicken" on Millbranch Street. We tuned in the GPS and soon found ourselves skirting Memphis' airport and driving into an area that most of us would not choose at nighttime, especially if one had seen it in bright daylight, just as we were. Assuming Guy did not have heavily armed guards and lived through the experience, we slowly motored deeper into the area of less fortunate folk, finally locating the strip mall that accommodated the kitchen with the best fried chicken on earth. The parking lot was nearly empty of cars, but not of wandering young men. Uh oh. A nail shop, a hair salon, an ethnic grocery selling chitlins and collard greens, etc., plus several empty store fronts. And "Uncle Lou's".
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| "Uncle Lou, Dude your chicken is so off da chart. Keep cookin'" |
Inside this restaurant with rolls of paper towels on plastic covered tables, our order taker spoke in "southern black", a language that might as well have been Sanskrit, but we got our order placed and then waited. With a blaze of laughter, a young black man storms in and starts talking to everyone, a real charmer. Seems he's related to the real Uncle Lou and loves to share how wonderful the food is, what a great guy Uncle Lou is, and then proceeds to serve us, adding extra chicken because we told him we traveled from California because of what we saw on TV. Other people strolled in, some from St. Louis, others from New York, even a "local", and we all shared the same reason. It was a fun cross-cultural experience, just talking and taking pictures together while we waited and ate.
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| Uncle Lou's Sunday public relations "dude" greets another customer. |
The chicken? Unbelievable. The promotion was absolutely spot on. We all agreed it was the best we've ever had. (In fact, I never before enjoyed so much a meal at a restaurant highly praised by the media.) If you don't believe us, grab a flight to Memphis, take a short cab ride and treat yourself. Just be sure to bring home an order for us.
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| Chickens cluck. After an Uncle Lou's over sized Sunday fried chicken lunch, his customers "cluck" high praise. |
By the time we finished our Sunday chicken in Memphis, the drive to Little Rock took longer than expected and once again, Walmart provided overnight parking. President Clinton would have to wait for us to inspect his memorabilia (or what remains after the XXX portion was removed). After that fried chicken lunch, our Walmart parking lot Halloween trick-or-treaters were given free directions back to Uncle Lou's. Someday, they'll appreciate our Halloween "treat".
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