Roadfood_ Revised Edition - Jane Stern [82]
The Cupboard
1400 Union Ave.
901–276–8015
Memphis, TN
LD | $
The Cupboard is a hugely popular restaurant in what used to be a Shoney’s, where a sign outside boasts, “Freshest Veggies in Town.” Proprietor Charles Cavallo is a fresh-food fanatic, a joy he credits to his uncle, who sold watermelons. “One day when I was twelve, he gave me a few he had left over. I sold them by the side of the road, and from that moment, I had the passion.” He drove a produce delivery truck for ten years, and in 1993 bought the Cupboard with the goal of making it a showcase for vegetables. Tomatoes direct from the field in Ripley, local squash, crowder peas, onions, cabbage, and sweet potatoes appear not only on the menu (which features a five-vegetable, no-meat meal), but also on the floor of the restaurant, in the vestibule and around the cash register, from which they are sold by the peck and bushel when they are in season.
One of the best cooked vegetables here is the simplest: a whole baked sweet potato, starchy sweet and soft as pudding. And the Cupboard’s full-flavored turnip greens are made without pork or poultry, just boiled and seasoned. “My greens taste like greens,” Charles states the obvious. “Sometimes I have people who come in and say, ‘You’ve changed the recipe. These are different.’ Yes, they are different, I say: maybe younger, maybe winter greens, which have a softer taste, maybe they are from Georgia instead of Tennessee. Every bunch has a flavor of its own.”
Non-vegetable notables at this high-spirited eatery include fantastic corn bread gem muffins and yeast rolls, warm fruit cobbler, and brilliant lemon icebox pie.
Dixie Barbeque Co.
3301 N. Roan St. (Kingsport Hwy.)
423–283–PIGS
Johnson City, TN
LD | $$
Dixie Barbeque’s menu notes that its ribs are “meaty pork ribs (not wimpy baby backs).” They are hefty bones with a real chew to their meat, and a deep satisfying character that only hours over a smoldering pit can produce. When we asked proprietor Alan Howell what kind of wood he prefers for his barbecue, he answered “tree wood…whatever blows down…hickory, mostly.” Other than ribs, there’s pulled pork (inside white and outside dark), smoked chicken, and pulled beef.
To gild the meats, Dixie Barbeque offers a dizzying array of sauces: East Tennessee Red, classic Carolina Vinegar, Devil’s Dew, South Carolina Gold, Alabama White, Texas/Oklahoma Style, and Sauce from Hell, all of which are made on premises, plus Richard Petty brand sauce and Maurice’s Gourmet Sauce from South Carolina. Any or all of them are brought to the table by your waitress, who patiently explains the fundamental qualities of each. We like most (except the bizarre mayonnaise-based white sauce: fie on it!), but for a true local experience, try the cinnabar-red East Tennessee sauce. Unless you say otherwise, this is what comes on sandwiches.
Although barbecue is serious business in this establishment, the ambience is plenty goofy, including sports-team pennants and amusing vanity license plates plastered all over the walls and a rack of fabulous rebel-themed bumper stickers for sale. (We could not resist plastering our bumper with one that says “Don’t Make Me Open This” next to a can of “Whoop-Ass.”) Loud shag music blasts over the sound system, providing perpetual-party atmosphere, and dual television sets run continuous tapes of The Andy Griffith Show.
Dyer’s Burgers
205 Beale St.
901–527–3937
Memphis, TN
LD | $
A modest-size round of raw ground beef is held on the cutting board under a spatula and the spatula is whacked a few times with a heavy hammer, flattening the meat into a semicompressed patty at least four inches wide. Now, the good part: the patty is submerged into a deep, black skillet full of bubbling-hot grease, grease that the management boasts has not been changed since Dyer’s opened in 1912! It’s the grease that gives a Dyer’s burger a consummately juicy interior while it develops a wickedly crusty outside and a unique, shall