Monday, April 27, 2009

Rambling in Memphis

I took a quick, unplanned trip to Memphis this weekend. I called a friend up there on Friday evening and said I was thinking about coming up and we went from there. I got into town early Saturday afternoon and visited the zoo. If you've never been, it is worth the trip. They have a nice large and beautifully maintained zoo.
After spending the afternoon with the animals we went downtown to see the other animals, the ones that hang out around Beale St. We started with a couple of nice cold beers at the Flying Saucer, then strolled around down town deciding where to eat supper.
Now David is a sometime chef and full time food lover ( I can't spell connoisseur) :-) so he took me around telling me about the different places, the chef's that work there and the style of cooking they do. Finally, we decided on Bluefin, an Asian sushi lounge downtown, right next to the Majestic, that I wrote after my last trip. I have never had sashimi before so was interested in trying it. We started with a cold saki, a Nagori which is milky white looking. Very good.
Then we started with a spicy Dragon roll while they made the Supreme Sashimi assortment, which is 30 pieces of fresh tasty fish along with the different vegetable sides. I know it included tuna, salmon, and octopus but there were several other types of fish that I didn't know but it didn't matter. Yummy!
It would be hard to top this. Fresh sashimi, cold saki and good friends sitting at the outdoor tables downtown on a beautiful spring evening. I highly recommend this.

We spent the rest of the evening on Beale St. enjoying the crowds, being asked to pose for pictures because we were kilted and finding out just how overpriced the drinks are at Coyote Ugly. My advice is stick with the beer, it's pretty cheap. The booze, not so much.
David and I stopped in the Majestic before heading home for a quick appetizer of Spinach and Artichoke dip with their amazing garlic crostini.

Sunday we started with breakfast at Perkins and then spent the afternoon at the Flying Saucer in Cordova. The lovely Roma was our beer goddess and took good care of the small contingent of DEKS that were there-me, David and Steve. Steve told us about his trip to Europe and gave me lots of good advice about traveling in Scotland.

All in all, it was a wonderful weekend.