I didn’t eat lunch today, so a nice dinner was in order. “What do you think?” I posted on Facebook. I asked if I should try one of the two new Flying Saucer menu items I hadn’t tried yet, the hummus and pita bread or the pork belly sandwich, or go somewhere else.
I got several replies. One of the replies said he eats the pork belly sandwich all the time. Granted, it was from a very biased source – the GM, Kirk. But I’d heard from several people at the bar, as well as the bar’s staff, that it was good. I decided to give the pork belly a try.
It was very good, but I discovered a secret that I don’t think even Kirk knows. Rather than getting it with fries, I asked for a side salad (there’s a third option, hot German potato salad, as well). I got it with the jalapeno vinaigrette dressing. I dipped the sandwich in the dressing. It was pretty awesome. It consists of shredded pork belly, ham and bacon with lettuce and tomato on a sandwich bun. Pig x 3, how can you go wrong?
Time for bed. I have 18 hours to change my mind, but I’m leaning toward poker at Max’s tomorrow evening.
If you watch sports on TV, you’ve probably seen the commercials featuring Windell Middlebrooks. He’s the High Life guy who is seen delivering beer to businesses, and removing it from those he does not think are worthy of carrying Miller High Life. Friday night at 8:30, you’ll have the chance to meet Windell in person. He’ll have a bunch of High Life swag with him so you’ll be able to load up. In honor of his visit, High Life is $2.50 at Max’s through Friday night.
The Brass Door has announced their music lineup for their alley party this Saturday:
Forklift will open for Myla Smith at 3:00
Jeremy Stanfill at 5:00
The Candy Company at 7:00
WALRUS at 9:00
Irish band Big Betsy to close
Uh oh… I have a scheduling conflict. The Arkansas-Alabama game is at 2:30 and I can’t miss my Hogs. Most likely I will watch the game at Max’s Sports Bar then head north to the alley party, which would put me there about 6 I suppose.
The Spaghetti Warehouse saw that I posted a coupon of theirs yesterday. They emailed to tell me it’s Warehouse Wednesday, where you get spaghetti with a choice of meat sauce, tomato sauce or marinara, along with a garden salad and bread for $5. No coupon needed and this is a weekly special.
The Metal Museum will have a free day from 10 to 5 this Saturday, September 24.
Memphis’ own Jerry Lawler was legitimately injured in a spot on WWE Monday Night RAW this week. The new World champion Mark Henry attacked Lawler during an in-ring interview, and performed his signature move, the World’s Strongest Slam, on the King onto the announcer’s table. The table, however, was not a gimmicked table designed to break easily. It was a standard hard table. Neither Lawler nor Henry knew this and went through the spot with full impact. Lawler had to be taken to a hospital after the show. That’s gotta suck, to be 61 years old and get slammed onto a hard table by a 400-pound man.
Breaking news: R.E.M. just announced that they’re calling it quits after 31 years.
Plans for tonight: No idea, but I’ll be out somewhere on this beautiful fall day. Skipping lunch so I can have something good for dinner Downtown tonight.
There’s a coupon on Facebook for Spaghetti Warehouse, good today only for $5 off spaghetti and meatballs or any other original recipe spaghetti. You can get it by going to their fan page and “Liking” the restaurant.
Tickets will go on sale next Friday, September 30, for the American Queen’s maiden riverboat voyage in April. The CA has the details here. Wow those river cruises are not exactly cheap, but I guess you get first-class treatment like you would on any cruise ship.
Christine by Shelton Clothiers will stay open late this Thursday, and from 6 to 9 PM you’ll get 30% off everything in the store. For every purchase of $50 or more, you’ll get an entry into a drawing for a print by local artist David Lynch. Wine and appetizers will be served. Free food? Wonder if the Nuh-Uh Girl will show up.
That’s all the news I’ve got… the only other piece of news is that the Muppets will host WWE Monday Night RAW on Halloween night. Maybe the Flying Saucer will show it on the big screen, with sound. I mean, heck, nothing else will be on, just some football game nobody cares about.
All right, time to go to Fazoli’s and try to steal the mayorship back… outta here for now. Not sure if I’m going to go to trivia tonight. If any of the team decides to go, shoot me a text.
Something I’ve been thinking about recently… I last changed my blog’s profile pic (and on Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare) in December 2007. Since then I have not come up with anything that says ME as much as the current image. Last week, though, I dressed up as “PBR Man” for the Silly Goose’s superhero party. That may be a winner. What do you think? Time for a change?
There will be those who object, “But Paul, don’t you think ‘PBR Man’ will make a bad first impression on new visitors to your blog?” Those people fail to realize that I’ve had a Santa hat and I Love Romanian Girls shirt on my profile pic for almost 4 years now. Clearly I’m not too worried about first impressions.
The Saucer showed the Charlie Sheen roast, with sound, tonight. They could have showed Monday Night Football with sound but chose not to.
You know what? It’s time for a quick rant. They want to be an “American restaurant” ala Gordon Biersch. That works for most of their locations but the Memphis Saucer is a block from Beale. It’s a huge venue unlike most of the other Saucers. It’s a bar not a restaurant. It’s time they realized that and stopped doing stupid shit like Charlie Sheen night.
How was the crowd? Well, the past three Mondays I’ve constantly had to maneuver to get out of people’s way so they could order. Not this Monday. It was deader than an doornail.
Saucer corporate: Not all your venues are the same. Take maximum advantage of each, instead of expecting them to all conform. Want profit? Show MNF. At least at the Downtown Memphis location.
I want to open this post with a huge CONGRATLUATIONS to my friends on the Squeal Street BBQ team. They competed in the Smokin’ Aces regional BBQ championship this weekend in Tunica, and took home numerous prizes, including FIRST PLACE in People’s Choice! They also got 4th place for the Exotic category (they cooked alpaca), 5th for beef, 5th for mustard, and 10th for ribs. Great job!
Very, very important announcement, so important that it deserves bold type: Bardog Tavern is selling all the beers in the house for only $2, all day today until 3 AM. Although they had their birthday party at the end of August, today is their actual third birthday. I will be late getting to Pint Nite at the Saucer this evening, because I will be at Bardog after work enjoying some $2 beer! The lovely Melissa will be at the bar for happy hour tonight. Now the only question is what to drink – do I stick with my usual (PBR) or mix things up a little?
The Green Beetle sent me an update with their activities for the week. Here’s the list:
Monday: Monday Night Football with $10 domestic buckets, $13.99 import buckets
Tuesday: Steak Night 12 oz Ribeye, 12 oz Fatty Natty $12.99 w/ Blake Ryan Acoustic Set 6-10
Friday: Fish Fry Friday Catfish plate $7.99 w/ The Dave Experiment 8-12
Saturday: Klint Kilmore 8-12
The Beetle has $2 Fatty Natties all day, every day. Personally, I’ll pay a dollar more for a PBR, but if value drinking is your goal, the Natties are the deal for you.
The Peabody will have $3 martinis in the Corner Bar tonight 5-7. Four martinis to choose from: Caramel Swirl, Blue Coconut, Berry Bliss, and House Gin.
The Flying Saucer will have a Roast of Charlie Sheen watch party tonight at 8. Heck if I understand why they’ll turn on the sound for that, but not for football. Most drafts $3 all day today for Pint Nite.
Long Sunday Fun Day yesterday. I started with brunch at the Majestic as usual, then moved on to the Saucer and played pool with our inspirational leader/father figure. After that we went over to Local, where his daughter was working, and enjoyed drinks and shots on the patio. Later I was back at the Saucer for round 2, then finished the evening with a Dapper Dan Dog (chili + cheese + bacon bits) at Bardog.
Majestic was super crowded with people dining before the Les Miserables matinee. I think from now on, when there are major shows at the Orpheum with a Sunday matinee, I’m going to take the week off from brunch.
I have to rant for a minute on a disturbing trend I’ve been noticing: Two of the past three Sundays, someone has walked into the Saucer carrying a murse, a purse designed for males. This is a disturbing trend. It’s worse than fanny packs. I don’t care if they do it in Europe, I don’t care if hipsters think it’s cool… it needs to STOP. Death to the murse.
That’s all for now. I’ll be at Bardog around 6 for some $2 beers.
Before I get started on this post, I want to wish a very happy birthday to our inspirational leader/father figure. He doesn’t like having his name published on the blog, but if you’ve spent any amount of time around our group, you know who I’m taking about. It’s been a pleasure to hang with him at Sleep Out’s, to shoot pool with him at the Saucer, and just to know him in general. In recent years his girlfriend has become a mother figure to the group as well. Happy birthday!
Just wanted to let everyone know about a couple of new things going on this Sunday. First of all, Max’s Sports Bar will be open early today and will have all the NFL games on. This will be the first NFL Sunday with Whitney behind the bar. Whitney worked at the Saucer from 2006 until recently. Here’s a pic from Rajun Cajun Fest ’10:
Geez… not my best pic. Apparently I forgot to use sunscreen and drank about 32 beers before this was taken. Note that Whitney has a tube top on. Anyway, she’ll be there to open, and then about 4:30 Michele will take over as usual.
Another new thing going on is the bottomless mimosa at the Silly Goose. According to info I got from one of the servers, it will run from noon to 3 today and cost $15. Since a bottle of champagne + OJ costs about $14 at most bars that do Sunday brunch, this is a good deal if you can put away more than one bottle of champagne in three hours. When I went to Sleep Out’s, I’d sometime run through two bottles in that amount of time. One Sunday years ago I went through 4 bottles at the Monkey, but it took me 10 hours.
If mimosas aren’t your thing, the Goose also has a make-your-own Bloody Mary bar for $3 per glass. Try my recipe: Zing Zang, sriracha, a dash of horseradish, and generous shakes of celery salt and black pepper, garnished with a celery stalk, olive and piece of okra.
In other news: Good CA article about R.C. Johnson’s current situation. Time to retire, R.C. Then you’ll have more free time to buy hair spray and hang out at your beloved Memphis Airport.
I got 6 PBR koozies at CY Fest yesterday. If anyone wants one let me know.
Time to get the day started! With perfect weather and a birthday in the group, this should be a good one.
Yesterday I was walking around Cooper-Young Fest with some friends, and we happened to see this sign in an artist’s booth:
Not the same John D as our friend who has a breakfast named after him at the Majestic, but we still thought it was funny.
Later in the day we ran into the man himself.
Hey, now!
This was the first Cooper-Young Fest in nearly 20 years that I’ve hung out with a group of friends the entire day, rather than wandering around from one group to another all afternoon. One of my friends commented, “Probably the most fun Cooper-Young Festival ever,” and I’d tend to agree. Perfect weather, fantastic art for sale, great food (I had to have my Athenian gyro or the festival wouldn’t be complete). Good to have my friends at the festival the entire day – that usually doesn’t happen.
I got to try two new bars yesterday: Sweet Grass Next Door and Slider Inn. I was really impressed with Sweet Grass Next Door. TVs all over the place with all the games on. I enjoyed a $2 PBR tallboy while watching Vandy kick Ole Miss’s ass. I didn’t get a chance to try the food but it looked outstanding.
As for Slider Inn, given that Aldo owns it, I knew it would be good. After the festival, we sat on a large bench on the patio and continued our drink-a-thon. I had the mushroom swiss silders which were delicious.
One of the others in our group got the Double Deuce, massive double-decker sliders.
Slider Inn
Although we sat outside, I went inside to check out the interior. Small but comfortable. It reminded me of a bar that I went to last year on my trip to Savannah, a little bar called Pinkie Master’s which was described to me as “the ultimate dive bar.” I was told it was where the locals drink. Many celebrities and dignitaries including Jimmy Carter have been in the place. I went in there wearing one of my club shirts that I got from Shelton Clothiers, which was way too much. When I walked in, I could feel several of the regulars looking at me and thinking “who told this tourist douchebag to come here?” But I sat at the bar, watched TV, chatted with the bartender, and eventually the regulars must have figured out, “oh okay, this guy gets how to hang out in bars” and by the time I left I must have met half the people in the place, which meant I met about 15 people (small bar). Anyway, I see similar “ultimate dive bar” potential in Slider Inn.
Only downside was Brooke wasn’t working. She had the day off. I miss sitting at her bar.
As we were chatting, we commented, “We need to take a road trip to Midtown one Saturday to do some day drinking.” (Yes, Downtowners consider Midtown a road trip.) We could hit up Slider Inn, Sweet Grass Next Door, Celtic Crossing, the Deli and wherever else we feel like going. One of our group is a student and he takes the #2 bus from the Downtown core to Cooper-Young all the time. He said it’s on time and dependable, which is good to hear. If no one wants to be DD we could take it down there.
A fun fall Saturday. Congrats to the Hogs on beating Troy. Time for Sunday Fun Day!
