Neely's Bar-B-Que
Not long ago in response to the naming of Patrick Neely as restaurateur of the year, EC and I visited Neely's West for lunch. I've been a few times over the years and enjoyed the food, but it's not a common hang out. They were packed at lunch time. Service was a bit slow, but friendly and accurate. I ordered a small sandwich and beans. EC had beans, fries and a sandwich sans slaw. I spent the entire meal chastising him for that, so I won't do it here. In fact, I'm not really a fan of their slaw. It's too green. I probably wouldn't put them in my top 5, but we had a good meal. I really liked the beans.
The main impetus for this review is to point out an interesting characteristic of their BBQ sauce. It tastes of prunes. Neely's grocery store sauce was widely panned by the participants of our recent tasting, but the restaurant sauce was much more pleasant. I think that trying to replicate that prune-like flavor for the bottle is what makes the store bought sauce so unpalatable. I don't want The Sauce to taste of prunes, but I now have an idea involving molasses, pomegranates, some string, a two-by-four, and the element of surprise.
BTW, It's very dark in there.
1 comment:
Yeah, I don't go the slaw route, but perhaps I should have tried it to balance out the prunes. Overall, not a bad sauce, I just prefer mine a bit less pruney. Of course, my favorite sauce remains that of Demo's Bar-B-Que in Jonesboro, AR, which I spent much of our lunch touting as I recall. Demo's sauce is perfect. Worth the drive over from Memphis... EC
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