Interstate Bar-B-Q / Memphis, Tennessee / December 31, 2009

It goes without saying that there are many famous barbeque restaurants in Memphis. Jim Neely's Interstate Bar-B-Q falls in that group. We have eaten at Interstate once before, in January of 2002, on our first trip to Texas. At that time we had almost no barbeque experience, and so we just looked in the Memphis Yellow Pages and went to a place that sounded promising. Since then we have seen this establishment featured on several television shows and in many reviews of great barbeque houses in the US. As an aside, Jim Neely is the uncle of the Neelys who have a weekly show on the Food Network.

Interstate was our second choice today. We attempted to eat at the equally renowned Rendezvous in downtown Memphis, only to find it closed for the entire New Years weekend. Memphis barbeque is quite varied with some dry rubbed only, some rubbed and sauced and some with sauce only. We're also told that the Memphis sauces are quite varied, as compared to Texas or the Carolinas where they are somewhat more uniform. The Rendezvous is famous for their dry rub, and the fact that they use charcoal only – no smoking wood. Tasting their offerings will have to wait for another day.

Jim Neely's establishment is on a main street, in a very urban area, about 2 miles straight south of downtown Memphis, and in the quadrant of the city as Elvis's mansion, Graceland. The restaurant was moderately busy at 1 PM on this New Years Eve, but the take-out counter was doing a very brisk business.

We ordered a pulled pork sandwich, a signature item at Interstate, pork ribs and beef ribs. The sandwich ordinarily comes with sauce and coleslaw on it. I ordered both on the side, probably a mistake. I wanted to taste each separately, but I suspect I was too tentative in my tasting and missed the big messy tasty sandwich that made this place famous. The sauce leaned toward the spicy edge of the sweet/vinegar/spice triangle. The pulled pork didn't seem to have much smoke flavor, but the pork ribs did, and they were cooked to fall apart doneness. We found the beef ribs forgettable. The beans were great and rated a 4.5. We gave the pork ribs a 4, the beef ribs a 2.5 and the pulled pork sandwich a 3 – this latter probably not a fair trial.