USA 11 - Blues City Cafe, Memphis

We bloody love Memphis.

Mindblowing, mouthwatering Memphis - a hotbed of gourmet gossip.

In the words of the great HOS (as we ordered our first ever deep fried hamburger tonight, and that was after a lunch of the most lush BBQ ever), "Food here doesn't make any sense at all".

You're so right, HOS.

It all started last night with a trip to the Blues City Cafe - it's right on the corner of the famous Beale Street. A classic Memphis diner. So, we ordered classic Memphis food.

I saw Tamales on the menu, and after reading a book recently which featured these morsels I knew nothing about, I had to order them, with a bowl of Chili (pic above). HOS ordered Gumbo. Everyone else had huge platefuls of ribs with slaw and beans!

Now, tamales, for the uninitiated come from Mexico I believe - they are like nothing else I've had - a filling wrapped around a thick cornmeal layer - wrapped in baking paper and boiled. The ones I had last night had a beef, chili like filling inside. And they were strangely good. I love love love the cornmeal texture on the outside and the chili inside was yum - it is strange though, it's sort of like a dense gummy, yet dry polenta I suppose wrapped around a beef filling, that's as close as I can get to explaining it. I will keep trying them as I go. The Chili was FANTASTIC (HOS was most pleased).

But...DRUM ROLL PLEASE...the most ridiculous, out of control, "awesome" thing was dessert. HOS believes it's "the best dessert he's ever eaten". See it above? It's an Apple Dumpling - it comes out sizzling on a searing hot skillet - bubbling caramel, dumpling dough, which is sort of like a cross between a partially cooked thick gooey shortcrust pastry and apple crumble topping, and hot hot hot baked apple - all in one gooey mess, topped with vanilla ice cream that oozes all over as it melts.

OH MY GOD. To avoid major burn scars in our mouth, we impatiently waited for it to cool a little...then we tentatively went in. OH MY GOD AGAIN. You have no idea how good this was. We just looked at each other over the skillet, eyes glazing over in a sugar and fat dream as the sweet, dense, gooey, wet mess hit our tastebuds...HEAVENLYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY.

We were silent as we ate. And ate. And ate. Then HOS stopped, looked at me and said "it's the perfect dessert...it's like apple pie but there's no waiting to get the right ratio of apple to pastry in your mouth - no uncomfortable moment when the pastry and apple isn't right. It's already mixed." The man was a genius. That's exactly what it tasted like - gooey gooey pastry mixed with apple and a little burnt caramel flavour with the icecream leaking through. It was already mixed.

We devoured the whole skillet, waddled back to our room at the Peabody Hotel, a Memphis institution, and slept the sleep of the contented dumpling eaters!