Author: Samuel X. Cicci

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Cover Feature News Uncategorized

Late-Night Eats 2024

Night owls get hungry, too. So the Memphis Flyer once again selected a few places where those birds of a feather can savor delicious cuisine until midnight or later while the early birds concentrate on catching the worms.

We headed to three restaurants that don’t shut their doors at 10 p.m. These places accommodate people out on the town who might be hungry after a movie, a concert, or a play. Or even if they’re hungry again because their early dinner has worn off.

Madison Tavern

Madison Tavern was always supposed to be a place that could accommodate people who wanted to eat a meal later in the evening, at 10 p.m. or after.

Tim Quinn, who owns Madison Tavern (the former Local on the Square) with his wife, Tarrah, wanted the restaurant/bar at 2126 Madison Avenue to be available for people who might be hungry after they’ve seen a play or heard some music in Overton Square. It opens at 11 a.m., but people can order food until last call, which depends on how late they stay open. It could be 1:30 a.m. or later.

They feature “an America menu” with “Southern-influenced” fare, Tim says.

Previously, people could only order appetizers after 10 p.m., but Tim recently added a “late-night menu” with more items.

Our writers dug into Madison Tavern’s char-grilled fruit and a sausage-and-cheese board for late-night apps, and a bit of breakfast. (Photos: Michael Donahue)

On our visit for this story, we tried several culinary delights, including the sausage-and-cheese board, hot wings, and, my favorite, the “Char-Grilled Fruit Board,” which includes a grilled watermelon with agave syrup and finished with sea salt. It’s now one of my top favorite things to eat in Memphis. I want to fire up my grill and make these every night.

People can order all of their appetizers late at night. These include fried green tomatoes served with horseradish, pretzel sticks served with Dijon and queso, elote queso and chips, a fried shrimp basket served with cocktail sauce and house slaw, and cheesy toast served with marinara and a choice of shrimp or crawfish.

The tamales with a choice of queso, tomatillo, or red chili sauce, are no longer on the appetizer list. They’re now on the new late-night menu, and they’ve been improved. They still come with the same sauces, but the new ones are made by their chef, Jose Reyes. They’re handmade and come from Reyes’ grandmother’s recipe.

Tim recently began Tamale Tuesday, which features the new tamales.

The tamales on the appetizer list were replaced with braised beef egg rolls. Also on the new late-night menu are tacos, a smash burger, sliders, and their famous grilled cheese sandwich, which Tim describes as “a staple in American history.”

Tim began making grilled cheese sandwiches with Adam Hall and friends with their team at the Memphis Grilled Cheese Festival. Hall came up with the sandwich, which is made with grilled chicken, buffalo sauce, white cheddar cheese, and regular white bread. He puts a mixture of butter and Miracle Whip on the bread and toasts it.

Courtnee Wall, who was with us the night we dined at Madison Tavern, tried some of my “Breakfast Plate,” which is on the entrée list. You get a choice of steak (that was my choice, and it was superb) or fried chicken breast. It’s served with a waffle, eggs, and home fries. She thought that should definitely be on the late-night menu.

The happy news is I recently learned that breakfast is available all day. And Tim tells me that the steak I liked so much is “tallow-injected rib eye.” Tallow is beef fat. “The good fat.”

“We cut those to order,” he adds.

When I ask if people can order other menu items besides appetizers and late-night items, Tim says, “Hey, you know what? If it’s not busy and we’ve got the opportunity, there’s no reason to say no.

“Most definitely if you slide in there and you’ve seen a show at Lafayette’s and didn’t have a chance to have dinner — they have great food, but should you have missed out — if we can make it, why would we say no? We’d like to stick to our menu. That’s where you find consistency. But, hopefully, we’ve got enough talent in the kitchen to knock something out for you if we’ve got the demand.” — Michael Donahue 

Blues City Café 

In the quest for good grub during the wilder hours of the night in Memphis, one option is too often forgotten by anyone living east of Danny Thomas. Sitting at the entrance to the heavily peopled Beale Street, this fine eatery is so obvious that you might say it’s hiding in plain sight: Blues City Café. 

But if you’ve ever dined there while having a night on Beale Street, you already know that its name is synonymous with good grub; after all, it started out under the venerable name “Doe’s Eat Place,” back in the ’90s. At this café, as with all the joints on this late night eats quest, the food is dynamite. 

Another draw for me is that Blues City Café is on the periphery of Beale proper, and thus amenable to a quick bite or take-out order even if you’re not feeling Beale-tastic. If Beale is raging the way that only Beale can rage, but you’ve just had one of those days, you can simply pop into the restaurant’s Second Street entrance without running the gauntlet of the cobblestone crowd. Once you’re there, however, there’s no guarantee the convivial spirit and swinging, rootsy music won’t turn “one of those days” into “one of those nights,” and you find yourself feeling very Beale-tastic indeed. 

The food alone could accomplish that, of course, evoking as it does every backyard hootenanny and barbecue party of your dreams. I’ve dined at other establishments where that party could be from Anywhere, U.S.A., but it’s not for nothing that Blues City Café’s motto is “Put Some South in Your Mouth.” It’s a virtual tour through the Mid-South, with top-notch ribs, catfish, turnip greens, tamales, and a “Memphis Soul Stew,” but it also makes stops in Louisiana, for gumbo, and Kansas City, for steak.

Blues City Café is synonymous with good grub, like its tamales, cheese fries, and catfish. (Photos: Jay Adkins)

But I usually go for the Mississippi-Arkansas-Tennessee tamales. That unforeseen hybrid of Latino and rural Southern culture that became a thing in itself, the Southern tamale is a delicious echo of Mississippi Delta culture, and it pairs well with the music that fills the air at Blues City. That, in turn, goes back to Blues City’s very origins.

“Doe’s Eat Place” is a veritable institution in Greenville, Mississippi, at one time Dominick “Big Doe” Signa’s grocery store, morphing into a restaurant that challenged segregationist conventions due to the cross-cultural appeal of their food, especially their tamales. That reputation has carried on unabated in the hands of Big Doe’s descendants, as when Doe’s was named an “American Classic” restaurant by the James Beard Foundation in 2007. 

Entrepreneur George Eldridge was aiming to carry on in that tradition when he opened a new “Doe’s Eat Place” on the corner of Second and Beale in 1991. Though it was only two years before other investors joined and redubbed the place “Blues City Café,” Eldridge’s commitment to good tamales lived on. 

As Blues City general manager Jason Ralph tells me, “George Eldridge started serving the tamales, and he still has the Doe’s over in Little Rock. Then he has a place called the Tamale Factory over in Gregory, Arkansas. So we circled back to him a few years ago, and since then it’s come kind of full circle and we use tamales that he produces at the Tamale Factory in Gregory. That was a pretty cool day when we went back to serving the original tamales that they used to make here.”

So there’s a credible back story behind Blues City’s claim to serve the “World’s Best Tamales.” And I guess my purchasing habits would be Exhibit A in support of that statement. When I sometimes sit in on organ with Earl “The Pearl” Banks and The People of the Blues in the Band Box room (where you can dine or not, to your preference), I’m often picturing those tamales as my reward for a hard day’s night. Not only do you get three or six fresh corn masa tamales, steamed in their wraps, stuffed with beef, pepper, and spices, but you get homemade chili on the side. Hearty fare indeed for the people of the blues!

If you follow suit, look for Edgar among the servers there. “He has been here since the beginning. He tells me stories about it,” says Ralph. Edgar can also tell you about other favorite dishes at Blues City over the years, like the café’s most popular item, the pork ribs.

“The ribs came from chef Vonnie Mack, who was with Doe’s Eat Place originally as well,” says Ralph. “He developed the sauce and our style of ribs, and we kind of stay true to that. We slow smoke them in the smoker out back until they’re so tender they fall off the bone. The ribs are by far our most famous item, that and the catfish. And then for late night, people tend to order the golden fried chicken tenders or the catfish. Or lately we’ve seen a lot of orders of the cheese fries, where we put gumbo or the barbecue on top of it.”

Like I said, Blues City Café is the hootenanny barbecue party of your dreams, and they’re open Sunday through Thursday until 1 a.m., Friday and Saturday until 3 a.m. — Alex Greene 

Momma’s

The revving of motorcycle engines grumbled in the air as we moseyed into Momma’s on a balmy Wednesday night. The first, or last, bar in Memphis, depending on which way you’re headed, sits just off I-55 at 855 Kentucky Street, the site of the former Dirty Crow Inn, and close to the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge. We’d wandered in during bike night, with plenty of motorcyclists sitting in the patio corner enjoying plenty of brews. The trucker-themed bar sees lots of visitors who are just passing through (there’s plenty of space to park a semi), but the menu has something for everyone.

Momma’s serves up lasagna, a fried chicken sandwich, burgers, and lots and lots of coffee. (Photos: Michael Donahue / Samuel X. Cicci)

It was getting fairly late when we arrived, but we were in luck. For when the hunger pangs hit long after dark, Momma’s has you covered. The bar is open until 1 a.m. Sunday through Thursday and until 3 a.m. Friday and Saturday, and the kitchen keeps the griddle hot until an hour before closing. Anyone hanging out past their bedtime Downtown will have a much better alternative to Taco Bell.

The menu boasts plenty of easy comfort options; think all the dishes that, er, momma used to make. On Wednesdays, the chefs whip up their lasagna special, a comfortable glob that combines a warm blanket of ricotta, Parmesan, and mozzarella cheese, ably abetted by a smooth marinara sauce and a big helping of ground beef. Coupled with a small plate of deviled eggs, supported by bacon bits and a healthy sprinkling of smoked paprika, it made for a fine start to the evening.

Of course, with this being another late-night excursion, Michael Donahue requested several cups of coffee, while I deferred to the Express-O Martini for my caffeine kick, a mix of Smirnoff vanilla vodka, cream, Disaronno amaretto, and a ground espresso shot, topped with three coffee beans for good measure.

The main courses arrived to our table just as the toll of another after-hours jaunt hit our weary bones. There’s never not a good a time to order a fried chicken sandwich, but that crispy, spicy crunch just hits differently after wandering around Downtown hopped up on the buzz of a few beers. The Firebird slaps a hefty chunk of chicken between two buns and spruces it up with bacon slices, pickles, fried onions, melted Swiss and cheddar cheese, and slathers Memphis Mojo sauce atop it all. I needed another jolt to avoid a food coma, so my attention turned to the Diablo burger. Cooked medium rare, the patty provides the foundation for this “one hot momma,” mixing several different hits of spice with sauteed jalapeños and ghost pepper cheese. 

For those craving the most important meal of the day while under the moonlight, the Bacon-Egg-N-Cheeseburger comes as advertised, reminiscent of nocturnal treks to CKs or other all-nighter breakfast places. By the way, if you find yourself out and about so late that night has turned to dawn, Momma’s does have a full breakfast menu from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. 

A lot of truckers and bikers pass through, but weekly events have pulled back a decent group of regulars. There’s the aforementioned bike night, but Momma’s also holds Redneck Trivia (Mondays), Industry Night (Tuesdays), and Ladies Night (Thursdays), among others. And it’s safe to expect some sort of live performance most nights per week to offer late-night snacks and a show.

Momma’s fell off the radar a bit when it closed in 2021, due to a mixture of Covid and renovations. It opened back up in August of 2023 with a few improvements: namely, a much-expanded patio overlooking Kentucky Street, decked with extra tables and, crucially, a music stage. During our visit, singer-songwriter Max Kaplan took to the stage and serenaded diners with a mix of popular covers by request. It’s probably the first time I’ve heard a solo blues-tinged take on Britney Spears’ “Baby One More Time.” But there was no loneliness killing us, or any diners, as we all enjoyed smooth tunes, some fried chicken sandwiches, and a fun night out under the stars. — Samuel X. Cicci 

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Letter From An Editor Opinion

Meerkat Manners

Photo: Joeely | Dreamstime.com

Editor’s Note: Other Flyer writers will occasionally share this space.

During a 2014 advanced fiction workshop my senior year at Rhodes College, our professor stopped speaking mid-lecture and turned to look at me. For several uncomfortable moments, his gaze lingered on my frame, eyes raking up and down as I began to squirm in my seat. Had I done something wrong? Looked too disinterested? Started nodding off, perhaps?

“You are a meerkat,” said the late, great Mark Behr, in his inimitable South African accent, as I sat there looking like a, well, meerkat in the headlights. “You really look like one.” Another classmate also failed to escape animal classification later in the semester, drawing comparisons to an antelope.

I’m still not sure whether I took that as a compliment, an insult, or brushed it off as a simple in-the-moment observation. But that little tidbit has stuck with me for years. When Contemporary Media (the Flyer’s parent company) began using Slack in 2017, I had yet to procure a decent professional headshot. So, rather than dig up an old photo of higher-ed debauchery from my social media pages, I trawled Google until I settled on a fine-looking close-up of a majestic-looking meerkat, gazing determinedly off into the distance, to use as my avatar instead (more businesslike than the smiling meerkat pictured here). As the years ticked by, and Covid turned us from an in-office operation to a remote one, that little meerkat photo became the only visual component of my daily interactions with my colleagues. As writers left for different pastures and fresh journalists came through our “doors,” I started wondering if they even knew what I actually looked like. Or if their one visual reference, that darn meerkat, was how they pictured me.

It got me thinking of a show I used to watch as a kid, Animal Planet’s Meerkat Manor, which followed a specific family of mongooses (mongeese?) as they struggled for survival in the harsh Kalahari Desert of South Africa. Scrounging for resources, competing for territory … heck, it almost sounds like journalism in the 21st century. Maybe I am kind of like a meerkat, after all? Looking around at the industry, it’s a similarly bleak picture. Newsrooms are smaller, and it seems like you can’t go online without seeing news of another round of mass layoffs, or of writers replaced with shoddy AI application.

Others can talk about these sweeping issues more eloquently than I, so I won’t harp on it. But a smaller staff means more bases to cover per individual, and it got me thinking of the many hats I’ve worn in my near-decade at Contemporary Media. There’s the writing and editing, of course. But I need to remind myself that there’s been event planning, billing, mailroom management, accounting, social media, web management, photography, and plenty of other professional responsibilities that I’ve either forgotten or repressed.

It’s left me with quite a messy head of hat hair. And in a less amusing way to put it, having your focus split in so many different directions all the time can make it feel like the walls are closing in. But that’s the nature of the industry today, if you want to stay competitive. And it makes me truly appreciative of all the behind-the-scenes hard work that every member of our team puts in every day.

But the thing about meerkats (yes, them again) is that they’re social creatures. And while companies calling their staff “families” makes me want to hurl, this job has let me make a lot of really cool friends and connections, ones who will let me off with a roll-of-the-eyes when I make my fifth lame joke of the day on Slack, or never complained when I crunched on wasabi peas for hours at our old Downtown office.

All this is to say that this meerkat will be leaving the manor, with February 16th as my last day at Contemporary Media. I’ll be embarking on a new professional adventure later this month, so if you’re one of the several people that enjoys my weird brand of writing, stay tuned. It still hasn’t sunk in that I’m leaving what has essentially been 100 percent of my professional career, but here we are. It will be strange not logging on to Slack to Shara Clark’s “Good morning, all!”, or Michael Donahue constantly reminding everyone that his birthday is coming up on February 1st even though it just happened two weeks ago. But what I really look forward to is picking up the Flyer every Wednesday morning as a fan. And not having to worry about fixing a dang thing.

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Music Music Blog Music Features Opinion

Justin Timberlake Brought the Heat With Classics, New Music at Orpheum Show

Justin Timberlake performs "What Goes Around ... Comes Around" near the close of his free January 19th concert at the Orpheum Theatre. (Credit: Owen Schatz)

If I wrote you a symphony …

Wild shrieks ring out through the Orpheum, the high-pitched, gleeful wails emanating from an audience brimming with barely-restrained enthusiasm.

Just to show how much you mean to me …

The woman two chairs over from me nearly collapses, heaving herself forward onto the railing, breathless. The lady sitting behind me is dancing so wildly that her cup of wine flies out of her hand and completely spills onto the back of my sweater. On stage, Justin Timberlake launches into the chorus of “My Love,” and the crowd bays out the lyrics alongside him. The hometown son had returned, and Memphis was ready to welcome him back with open arms.

That people were out at all last week rockin’ to hits from Justified, FutureSex/LoveSounds, and The 20/20 Experience was a bit of a surprise. The January 19th concert, surprisingly announced just a week prior, was threatened by freezing temperatures, snow and ice that the city was ill-equipped to handle, plus low water pressure and a boil water advisory that ultimately rendered the Orpheum bathrooms unusable for the evening. 

Eager fans were able to request up to two tickets through a Ticketmaster lottery, with demand far exceeding the limited supply of around 2,500 seats at the Orpheum. Many users on social media bemoaned their ill luck, blaming out-of-town sharks for snatching up most of the available stock for a show they may not even be able to attend thanks to the inclement weather. Other, more intrepid fans decided to show up to the theater anyway, spending a lengthy wait in the cold in the hopes of snagging any leftover spots. And many were rewarded with tickets.

In hindsight, any questions about the show’s potential turnout were foolish. By the time Timberlake took to the stage around 9:30 p.m. – his first show in Memphis since a 2019 stop on his second Man of the Woods tour, and first ever set at the Orpheum – the crowd was ready to party. And as the opening brassy synth waves of the live rendition of “SexyBack” cascaded from the speakers and over the audience, it lit the fuse on what would be an exuberant, pop-fueled hour-and-a-half performance.

Justin Timberlake speaks to the crowd between songs at his January 19th free Orpheum Theatre concert. (Credit: Mark Nguyen)

The Orpheum setting created a much more intimate environment than the floor tickets I’d nabbed for his last two tours, but the smaller venue didn’t sacrifice any of the verve or energy his fans are accustomed to. Timberlake, backed by his exceptional Tennessee Kids band, ran through the hits to a wild crowd, throwing it back to the slick call-and-response of “Señorita,” slowing things down with the pop ballad “Mirrors,” and luring everyone in with the moody, spiteful “Cry Me A River” (which really dials up the suspense live). He even paid tribute to Al Green with a rendition of “Let’s Stay Together.” Notably, not a single track from the somber, Americana-tinged Man of the Woods made it onto the setlist at any point.

Fueling the crowd’s anxious delirium was a sense that they’d get to see something new. In the days leading up to the concert, Timberlake’s label RCA Records posted a graphic teasing “Big News,” conspicuously made with the same design, color scheme, and fonts as the initial concert announcement. The announcement of subsequent Timberlake bookings with Jimmy Fallon (January 25th) and Saturday Night Live (January 27th) only added fuel to the fire, and sure enough, he teased a few snippets from his upcoming sixth album, Everything I Thought It Was, set for a March 15th release.

There was a full reveal for new single “Selfish,” a slowed-down R&B track that provided several minutes of calmer head-bopping.

Midway through the show, when Timberlake jumped off stage and danced through the crowd to various hits from both his catalog and other (some local) artists, DJ Hypes played about 90 seconds of a second track, “No Angels.” The pulsating, bass-thumping beat harkened back to Timberlake’s early-aughts pop roots, when every song he slung from his repertoire had people ready to rock their bodies on the dance floor. (Short snippets of a third song, “Sanctified,” can be heard over ESPN promos). It’s a welcome return to form for the pop star, whose output since 2018 has mainly consisted of his work on DreamWorks’ Trolls series and an NSYNC reunion track, “Better Place.”

All indications are that the rest of EITIW will showcase Timberlake embracing his charming, hip-hop-inflected pop chops that made his early albums so popular. “It’s fun Justin,” longtime Timberlake collaborator Timbaland told Variety last April. “It’s like FutureSex/LoveSounds but nothing too heavy, just giving you what you expect from us. Music is a young sport — of course, we’ve both seen a lot of life, but you have to bring out the 13 year old kid again, you know? We had songs that maybe were too complicated, so we said we want it to feel like FutureSex part two, so we did songs that will fit that.”

In between the singing, the dancing, and the grooving, Timberlake paused several times to thank fans for braving the inclement weather, and to muse on how much he appreciated being back in Memphis. There was even time to lead the crowd in singing happy birthday to his mother, who was in attendance, and to shout out former NSYNC member Chris Kirkpatrick (also in attendance, but alas, no duet). 

If the mixed reception to Man of the Woods saw Timberlake’s star fade a little bit, he looks poised to bring it roaring back brighter in a couple months. After my own Covid-induced break from live shows, this performance reminded me why I enjoy excursions like this so much, and it has me excited to see what local Memphis musicians have in store for the rest of the year. 

As for Timberlake: “See you on tour,” he quipped as the curtain dropped for a final time.

Justin Timberlake performs ahead of the Tennessee Kids at his January 19th Orpheum Theatre show. (Credit: Mark Nguyen)
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Cover Feature News

Game On!

Players pack a full house at a Board to Beers game night. (Photo: Courtesy Board to Beers)

Taylor Herndon has a couple of board games that she’d like to recommend.

Or, rather, a couple thousand. The owner of Board to Beers, one of the first board game bars in the country, has steadily amassed a huge collection of games since opening its doors three years ago. And it’s safe to say that Memphis has embraced the concept, with eager gamers rolling through on a weekly basis for some competitive face time, whether it’s to challenge each other at Uno or pull one of the rarer games off the shelf. It has become a central hub for local board game enthusiasts, a place where aspiring creators go to pitch their own ideas, and a reflection of Memphis’ creative approach to friendly competition.

While a board game bar may sound like a niche concept to some, gaming industry statistics support the idea. According to Statista, the board game industry earned around $3 billion in revenue in the United States in 2022, and 2023 is shaping up to be even higher. Board games are big business, and people want to keep playing. Especially if it means sticking one over on that overly competitive friend (you know who you are).

Board to Beers owner Taylor Herndon at her mobile game trailer (Photo: Courtesy Board to Beers)

“People got stuck at home during the pandemic with their families, siblings, spouses … and board games,” says Herndon. “And we saw a huge increase in sales for games and puzzles. We opened in August 2020, and three years on, we get a lot of people coming in who show interest in games that might normally have flown under the radar. So we’ve become a spot where people can try new games before they buy. I think we’re up to around 2,200 games now, so there’s really something for everybody.” She and her husband Drew have put in the time to familiarize themselves with most of the games. They’re available to help new players understand complex rules or are simply on hand to recommend a hidden gem. This writer was introduced to Ice Cool, a large game where you use your finger to flick a penguin around a large mansion and collect materials.

The influx of new players has been larger than anticipated, which means Herndon is looking to upsize from her current location at 2867 Poplar Avenue. “We can hold 60 people, but we’ve had groups of 100-plus come out looking for a space to hang out.” A mobile game trailer allows Herndon to meet extra demand by traveling around to different breweries and other venues. A trailer dedicated to board games was another first by Herndon. “My insurance company didn’t know what to do with it,” she laughs, “so it’s insured as a boat.”

Jumping into the gaming industry in any capacity can be daunting. Beyond creative ideas, there are business challenges to contend with, like logistics and manufacturing. With that in mind, Herndon wanted Board to Beers to be more than just a space for gaming; this was an opportunity to connect with local makers and provide an incubator of sorts for their ideas. “I didn’t even know if there would be a large scene here,” says Herndon. But the section for local games at Board to Beers is chock-full of game boxes, a testament to how much the industry here has grown in a few short years.

Very Special Games founders Josh Roberts and Evan Katz (Photo: Courtesy Very Special Games)

Evan Katz and Josh Roberts were her first connections and can take a slice of credit for really getting the ball rolling on the interest in locally made games. Co-founders of Memphis-based Very Special Games, Katz and Roberts started swapping ideas back and forth on Post-it notes as colleagues at Southern Growth Studio (now Epic Pivot). Their first game, Charty Party, provided the duo’s first crack at card-based party games back in 2019. Similar to the gameplay of Cards Against Humanity, Charty Party consists of 44 chart cards, which include a trend line and labels for the X-axis. Players are dealt seven orange cards, all of which include a potential label for the Y-axis, and every round they pick one that they think the judge will find funniest. The judge reads through the options, and whoever’s card is picked gains a point. A simple, yet reliable, gameplay loop for those who spent many a night playing games in a college dorm room, but with a focus on witty quips over crass, or even offensive, humor.

Charty Party (Photo): Courtesy Very Special Games

Charty Party went up on crowdfunding marketplace Kickstarter, many creators’ best hope for funding, but also a notoriously crowded field. But if there were any concerns about Memphis’ and a wider market’s interest in their ideas, those fears were soon put to bed; Charty Party hit its funding goal within a week, and eventually hit five times the initial pledge request. Every game that Very Special Games has released since — Puns of Anarchy, Venns with Benefits, Ransom Notes, Abducktion — have all followed a similarly successful path to funding. Their upcoming sixth release, Tiny Laser Heist, rocketed well past its $10,000 pledge to plunder a total of $238,531, and is a pretty big clue as to how Very Special Games has blossomed into a multi-million dollar company.

“We’ve been very pleased with how things have grown,” says Katz. “It’s kind of a dream come true in a lot of ways to be able to work full-time on a company like this and be able to have people all over the country playing these goofy little concepts that we’ve come up with. And it’s definitely wonderful to be working on something every day that I think we both believe in and stretches our creative parts of our brain to their potential.”

Much of their early success came from party games based around witty wordplay, but their recent games have incorporated more of a strategic tilt, and some pretty snazzy looking physical pieces. Abducktion (featured in the Memphis Flyer 2023 Holiday Gift Guide) is literally a game about getting your brightly colored ducks in a row, or at least lined up in specific patterns to score points. Once that’s done, those same ducks are deposited into a large silver spaceship, a bold centerpiece for the entire game.

Tiny Laser Heist, their next release slated to ship in summer 2024, dials up the zaniness, requiring players to use a pair of tiny extendable hands to navigate through a 3D museum setup complete with lasers, padlocks, and other security hurdles, in under 90 seconds. Every successful heist ups the difficulty, and shenanigans will invariably ensue. While future party games aren’t out of the conversation, it’s probably safe to expect new products from Very Special Games that incorporate wild new gimmicks and rules.

“Some concepts that we have in our pipeline are departures from traditional party games,” says Roberts, “and those are the ones we have a lot of energy behind. I can go through all of our games and immediately point to cards I wrote, or what Evan did, and we don’t want to keep making the same jokes. So I won’t rule out another party game if we come up with a really fun core concept, but it’s exciting to be branching out into different directions as well.”

Abducktion and Tiny Laser Heist are fairly sizable departures from Charty Party’s initial simple setup. But that change perhaps reflects the surge in interest the board game industry has seen both locally and nationally (and internationally, too, with Very Special Games distributing to European countries, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand). And Very Special Games’ continued success is good for a Memphis gaming scene that continues to bring in new players and creators. “Evan and Josh reached out to me when I was running my own Kickstarter campaign for Board to Beers,” says Herndon, who now manages their email marketing and social media on the side, “and so they finished up the amount that we needed before our deadline. Without them there wouldn’t be a Board to Beers. And their only stipulation was, ‘Hey, let’s work together in the future.’ So whenever we can all gather, we’ll work on new game ideas, playtest existing ideas. And other people see that, and they start thinking about making their own game, and over the years they’ve come forward with their ideas.”

Chris Couch Gaming founders (l to r): Nick Willis, Chris Porter, Chris Clyburn, Daniel Voss (Photo: Courtesy Chris Couch Games)

One such budding creator that Herndon met at the bar is Chris Porter, creative director at Baby Grand creative branding agency. Porter eventually got bit with the design bug after several visits to Board to Beers and launched Chris Couch Games with his friends Nick Willis, Chris Clyburn, and Daniel Voss. Their first game, Kraken Skulls, successfully launched on Kickstarter earlier this year having reached 200 percent of its initial funding goal, and is expected to release sometime in Q1 of 2024.

“I initially got into this because we made a Marvel-themed board game as a wedding gift for my other friend Chris [Clyburn],” says Porter. “And we actually started trying to get that licensed, which didn’t work out. But Chris had this pirate-themed idea, so we started playing with that until we came up with the idea for Kraken Skulls.”

Kraken Skulls (Photo: Courtesy Chris Couch Games)

Rather than taking place on one board, Kraken Skulls has a variable setup, with each player controlling a ship that moves to different ports and participates in a selection of more than 20 mini games. The first player to earn six “dread tokens,” accomplished by winning mini games and battling other players, wins the game. But watch out for the pesky kraken and the appearance of the royal navy. It’s a versatile setup that allows for lots of variation each playthrough. And it’s a game that almost didn’t happen.

“Honestly, I was pretty overwhelmed by the idea of making a game,” says Porter. “It seemed really complicated and a huge undertaking, but I started to think about it a bit more when Covid hit. But what really got me over the line was when Reuben Brunson and Kyle Taylor released Rumors and Legends. I saw that regular people, if you will, could make games. You didn’t have to be part of a huge company. So seeing my friends do this and supporting them through it convinced me to really push forward.”

Porter calls working with close friends one of the most fun things you can do, but also one of the most stressful. But the payoff is worth it when he sees people gathered around a table enjoying Kraken Skulls. And that close sense of community is something he’s seen firsthand during his game’s journey from conception to production. “I think it was about a year from when we came up with the idea to launching on Kickstarter,” says Porter. “We did playtesting at Board to Beers, we had lots of input from Taylor and Drew, Evan and Josh. It’s about being plugged into the community and connecting with people, and there are so many communities here that are into board games and supportive of those who make them.

“Play as many games as you can, but play them with people in your community,” he continues. “So find your local game shops, swing by, and play with other people. That’s going to be way more important in the long run than just trying to make a product. You can make a crappy game and get a lot more support because you care about the community than if you make the best game ever and no one knows who you are.”

And there are plenty of spots to realize that vision along with Board to Beers. Black Lodge has an extensive board game collection available to rent, while shops like 901 Games provide a space to dive into extended sessions for complex games.

Expect the selection of local offerings to keep growing, too. During my visit to Board to Beers, Herndon pointed to her section dedicated to local creators. “That section has grown way faster than I would have expected,” she says. And a cursory glance at Memphis-made projects on Kickstarter shows that Bluff City still has a healthy appetite for games made in the 901. While it won’t always be the case in a congested games market, many projects far surpass their original goal.

“Memphis loves Memphis things,” says Herndon. “When there’s a new project, as long as people in Memphis know about it, it’s going to get funded if they’ve done their work and they’ve gotten it out. Chris [Porter] really tapped into that, he had a launch party here for Kraken Skulls, and a ton of people came out. That’s a win-win for us, for Chris, and for other creators who know there’s a community in place to help them achieve their goals. When I had my idea for Board to Beers, I reached out for help, but I think there was only one other place that had done this before, and it was tough. So we want to create that environment where advice and expertise is available if needed.”

Beyond upsizing, Herndon has her sights set on bigger gaming-themed programming. With conventions around the country acting as a robust network for creators and consumers, she believes Memphis can host its own in the next several years to spotlight local game makers. But until then, Board to Beers will continue to invite newcomers and veterans to test their mettle. And there will always be someone sitting across the table, ready for a new challenge.

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Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

Masquerade at Black Lodge Pours a Sip of Old Hollywood

Aaron Ivory and Annabelle Dorff sit on the patio outside Black Lodge (Credit: Samuel X. Cicci)

There’s a heck of a lot you can do at Black Lodge. Rent movies, play board and arcade games, sing the night away at karaoke, have a multi-course paired dinner, or even swing around a broadsword while encased in a full suit of armor.

Now, one of the last physical video rental stores lets you take a step back in time to the heyday of old Hollywood. The Masquerade at Black Lodge cocktail bar launched in early November, with a menu boasting a variety of both unique and classic craft cocktails, curated by Aaron Ivory, former manager at the now-closed Pantá of Overton Square. Diners who frequented the former Spanish tapas restaurant could expect fun, bold, and dramatic themed nights and dazzling colorful drinks with Ivory behind the bar, and that same energy has found itself a new home on Cleveland Avenue. But this time with a cinematic twist.

“We mostly want to focus on classic cocktails in what feels like a classic Hollywood environment,” says Ivory, “so things like old fashioneds, negronis, champagne cocktails, mojitos.” Behind the bar, a large TV screen matches the mood, showing old black-and-white movies.

“We’ve done a lot of different things here,” says Black Lodge bar manager Annabelle Dorff, “and this is just another way that we can incorporate bringing the movie scene into the bar industry and mashing those together. The moment since I started working here, I’ve been looking at this section [of Black Lodge] closest to Cleveland, and I thought it would be a great cocktail bar. Then Aaron came in with a lot of experience and knowledge and helped bring that to fruition.”

Aaron Ivory (right) pours a cocktail for Black Lodge bar manager Annabelle Dorff (Credit: Samuel X. Cicci)

For Ivory, Masquerade is a way to introduce new drinkers to foundational cocktails. But he also refers to it as the anti-bar of Memphis. “People like to go out on Friday and Saturday and pack bars, but we’re approaching it differently here, a Sunday to Thursday schedule that won’t conflict with weekend programming. We want this to be more of a chill spot. It gives people who want to go out, grab some good cocktails in a less crazy or calmer setting, or go on a date, a different option.

“I think of it like this,” he continues. “We’ve got a lot of great cocktail places popping up like Cameo, Inkwell, Art Bar. Let’s say, Cameo are the cool kids, the popular kids, and deservedly so. But we want to be that cool kid sitting over on the bleachers, smoking a cigarette. I want to hang out with that guy, and that’s the kind of vibe we’re going for here.”

Frequent patrons of Pantá might notice some familiar drinks on the menu, too. “There are cocktails that I created there that I wasn’t ready to give up yet, so I’ve retained a few. I also built up an appreciation of different types of wine working there, so we’ve got German, Spanish, Portuguese, and American vintages here.” For those in need of a slightly different kind of buzz, Masquerade serves coffee to perk up any drooping eyelids.

While there may not be a full food menu, Masquerade has several small plates to fix outstanding hunger pangs. “We’re looking at smaller plates for now,” says Ivory, “something to get salt on your palate while you’re drinking.”

Masquerade is open Sunday through Thursday from 5:30 p.m. to 1 a.m., and is designed as a foil to Black Lodge’s regular bar and restaurant on the opposite side of the building, which will continue to operate separately. Much of Masquerade’s programming going forward will happen on Mondays, oriented around service-industry workers’ schedules.

But Ivory is just happy to be behind the bar again. “I just love making cocktails for people. I love doing my part and giving somebody a great night.

“If all goes well,” he adds, “it’s another part of the effort to get Cleveland rockin’ and rollin’. You’ve got Flip Side, Art Bar, us, Hi Tone, Crosstown Brewery. I don’t see why it can’t be another South Main or Cooper-Young area.”

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Cover Feature News

Ramen Roundup

Photo: Samuel X. Cicci

The Memphis cold snap is threatening to roll through any day — or week? — now, and that means hungry Memphis minds will soon turn to hot bowls of soup to get through the long winter ahead. Rather than stick to the classic chicken noodle or tomato soups, we decided to pursue those of a more Japanese tilt. There’s been a bit of a ramen boom in Memphis in recent years, and we set out to try some of the different options. Alas, our stomachs are not bottomless, so we didn’t make it to every spot in town. But our adventures took us to several new and classic spots alike, all staking a claim to having the best bowl of noodles.

Coco curry ramen at Good Fortune Co. (Photo: Justin Fox Burks)

Good Fortune Co.

Got noods? Good Fortune Co. certainly does, and the Downtown Memphis restaurant has been drawing in oodles of diners since it opened in 2021. Co-founded by Sarah Cai and Arturo Leighton, Good Fortune Co. has become more than just an eatery. With its neon “Send Noods” sign hanging near the front, an enormous pastel-bright Ghibli-inspired mural stretching across a full wall, and the always photographable fish-shaped taiyaki desserts, it’s a Downtown destination at 361 South Main Street. Want to have a great time? Start your night at Good Fortune Co.

Leighton and Cai have the food to match those pulsating vibes. What sets Good Fortune apart from other ramen joints is a fervent commitment to make everything by hand. That’s right: Every noodle and dumpling that comes out of the kitchen was made from scratch, and such an approach isn’t for the faint of heart. That means extra hours of prep work every day to make sure there’s enough for the dinner rush. The whole venture is a labor of love, as the two have often said.

My personal favorite at Good Fortune Co. is the coco curry ramen, a delicious, heady dish that incorporates more than 20 different ingredients. In my second life as food editor for Memphis Magazine, the coco curry made it onto my top new dishes list for this year, and got the gears rolling on pursuing a ramen feature here at the Flyer. An OG menu item, the coco curry is perhaps the neatest encapsulation of Good Fortune’s ethos as a restaurant. “[Curry ramen] is not something we’ve seen that people are making from scratch here in the city,” Leighton told me over the phone after one of my many visits to Good Fortune in 2023. “We knew if we were going to put one on the menu, we knew it would follow the ethos of what we do, which is ‘scratch-made’ food. So we make our curry paste from scratch using galangal, ginger, lime, plenty of things like that to give it a unique, Southeast Asian flavor profile.”

The coco curry is served with tofu in lieu of pork, chicken, or other meats. That almost came about as a happy accident during the R&D phase when Leighton and Cai were coming up with a menu. “We’d finished the recipe and found that we had a fully vegan dish, and we thought it was good enough already,” said Leighton. “All the ingredients that go into the curry are totally vegan, there’s no pork fat, no animal fats, it’s just coconut and some amazing aromatics. We thought adding a meat component to it would distract from all of the great flavors we’d put in there.”

And stay tuned: There may be some changes to Good Fortune’s menu next time you walk through the doors. One new item to look out for is the birria dumplings, an Asian-Latin fusion dish. Stop on by to see what other surprises have been cooked up, and enjoy a piping hot bowl of noodles while you’re at it. And don’t forget to order the wings, either. — Samuel X. Cicci

Spicy chicken ramen at Collierville’s Kami Ramen Bar (Photo: Michael Donahue)

Kami Ramen Bar

Regan Chen believes ramen is so good, he and his business partner opened four locations of Kami Ramen Bar in the Memphis area and two in Houston, Texas.

That’s been since the middle of the pandemic.

“First of all, I’ve been a huge Japanese ramen fan from back in the day when I was living in China,” says Chen.

Ramen originated in China, says Chen, but the formula went through several stylistic changes when the idea was taken to Japan. “When the Japanese took Chinese ramen back to Japan, they developed their own Japanese-style ramen in some ways.”

Instead of the way some dishes are “Americanized” when they arrive in the United States, Japan took Chinese ramen and “Japanized” it, Chen says.

Tonkotsu ramen broth is primarily made with pork neck bone, Chen says. “They simmer the bones with all kinds of vegetables over 10 or 12 hours to get the condensed, really creamy broth. That’s the key to tonkotsu.”

Chinese ramen broth is “made with all kinds of bones, like chicken bones, pork bones, beef bones. All kinds of bones. Different regions of the China area have different kinds of ramen.”

Chen got the idea to open an authentic Japanese ramen restaurant when he moved to Memphis five years ago. “Back in the day when I was in Houston, I liked trying different ramen places. Some of the ramen is really good. When I first moved to Memphis, I was trying to find a good ramen spot.”

But he couldn’t find exactly what he was looking for. “So, I decided to open my own ramen spot.”

Chen says he wanted to bring “the real, authentic — and I think it’s great — ramen to the Memphis people. So, I got excited and then I started doing my homework. I was a cook for almost 10 years back in China, so I know how to do Japanese ramen with the help from Japanese friends who own ramen shops in Japan. They taught me the recipe and how to do it.”

Chen opened his first location, Kami Ramen Bar — East Memphis at 5865 Poplar Avenue, Suite 110 — in the middle of the pandemic. Business wasn’t great. That changed about a year later because of word of mouth, he says. “Everyone was coming to try it. A lot of people liked it. We took off.”

On a recent chilly afternoon, I opted for the spicy chicken ramen over the “Slurp Up Cilantro” chicken ramen dish at the Kami Ramen Bar in Collierville. I eat cilantro, but it isn’t on my top 10 list of favorite herbs. According to the menu, the spicy chicken dish is made with chicken stock as well as chicken chashu, spicy bean sprouts, marinated egg, and green onion.

I ordered mine mild instead of the spicy or hot options. The noodles were tasty and the broth was so delicious. And soothing. The perfect dish — along with a pot of hot green tea with lemons — for a cold day.

Some customers prefer the chicken ramen dishes. “The broth is more smooth compared to pork broth. It [pork broth] is creamy. But the chicken broth is smooth and clear.”

But whether they’re ordering the chicken, pork, vegetable, or seafood ramen, Chen says, “Above all, it’s the freshness.”

Chen personally likes the texture of the noodles, which are cooked al dente. The noodles are firm. So, they can be chewed while eating the broth. — Michael Donahue

Shoyu ramen with pork at Alchemy Memphis / Salt|Soy (Photo: Samuel X. Cicci)

Alchemy Memphis / Salt|Soy

There’s a new arrival to Memphis’ ramen scene in Cooper-Young.

Nick Scott now features shoyu ramen on his menu at Alchemy Memphis. According to the menu, the dish is made with a “rich pork broth, wood ear mushroom, marinated egg, green onion, chili crisps, nori, and katsuobushi.” Diners can add tofu, pork belly, and beef hanger steak.

Scott, Alchemy Memphis’ owner, and ramen go way back to when he was a teenager “living on a budget.” “When I didn’t have any money we were buying Top Ramen and really dressing it up.

“This sounds crazy — my daughter is into this — but if you make straight Top Ramen, cook some bacon in it, and throw a piece of sliced American cheese on top of it, it’s fantastic. The cheese kind of melts into the ramen and everything. That’s truly a broke person food.”

Scott began cooking Asian-style cuisine at Wally Joe, which was owned by chef Wally Joe, now owner of Acre Restaurant. “It wasn’t exactly Asian food, but there was always an Asian influence there. He took French and Southern and threw some Asian in there and kind of melded it together.”

Scott went on to do more Asian cooking at the old Bluefin and the old Dough restaurants.

He began cooking shoyu ramen at the old Salt|Soy pop-ups at Alchemy during the pandemic. “It worked well as a to-go food.”

Scott then added it to the menu when he moved Salt|Soy into a brick-and-mortar location on Broad Avenue.

When the Salt|Soy lease on Broad was about to come to an end, Scott decided to combine Alchemy Memphis and Salt|Soy into one restaurant. The Salt|Soy part of the restaurant is the food — “the South meets Japan kind of thing. And Alchemy is the cocktails. We’ve added an Asian influence to some of those cocktails to kind of complement the food.”

Scott’s version of shoyu ramen was a bit different from the one created by Alchemy Memphis chefs John Green and John Taylor.

The version made by Green and Taylor is “very similar” to the one at Salt|Soy, Scott says. They’re both “based on a traditional shoyu ramen. You kind of build it to make it your own. Add proteins and tofu.”

Originally, Scott’s shoyu ramen was “more churched up. Where you take pork belly, roast it, roll it up, slice it, and add the slices.”

Now, he says, “We do a pork belly skewer yakitori style.”

That adds the smokiness to it, he says. “We grill it on the konro grill, which is the traditional grill” in Japan.

Ramen is “a fairly easy dish to pull off. The trick is getting the broth right. You want those noodles to be chewy. There’s a trick to that. Get it out and eat it quickly.”

The ramen in Japan is “unlike the ramen that everybody is accustomed to in America. The noodles aren’t dried. They’re fresh. They get blanched very quickly, rinsed, and then poured into the broth.”

Whether fresh or dried, Scott says, “You don’t want to overcook those noodles. You want them to have an authentic kind of ‘to the tooth’ chew to them.” — MD

Spicy Korean ramen at The Crazy Noodle (Photo: Samuel X. Cicci)

The Crazy Noodle

It seems like The Crazy Noodle has always been there for me. When we needed a quick dinner option that everyone was happy with, we picked The Crazy Noodle. When a snowstorm during college forced most businesses to close their doors, I defrosted my FJ Cruiser, cranked up the four-wheel drive, and braved the icy streets until The Crazy Noodle’s lights shone through the darkness, beckoning us towards bowls of Korean ramen that kicked the spice up a notch and fogged up our glasses.

There’s always a bit of a wait at The Crazy Noodle at 2015 Madison Avenue, but anyone who’s been knows that it’s always worth it. I almost always order the jjamppong (a super spicy seafood soup that catapults the tastebuds straight into the fires of hell, in a fun way), but for the sake of journalism, this time I plumped for the spicy Korean ramen. Korean ramen, I’ve been told, generally uses simpler ingredients than its Japanese counterpart, and the spicy Korean ramen made for an excellent evening of comfort food, just like so many of the other delectable options. The smooth, peppery broth with onions, carrots, zucchini, cabbage, and green onions, mixed in with a little egg, is easy to inhale even as the spices tickle the back of your throat with a light, pleasurable burn.

For a unique dish, try the cheese ramen, boasting a broth made with a mix of shredded mozzarella and mild cheddar, and topped with a fried cheese mandu (dumpling). It was like a grilled cheese in a bowl: simple, delicious, and soul-warming all at the time, with a thicker consistency that reminded me almost of egg drop soup. I tend to stick with spicier options, but when the snow finally rolls in, I may have to make a return trip for more cheese. — SXC

The aforementioned restaurants are but four establishments that serve up a delicious bowl of ramen, but there are plenty of others that deserve a visit, such as Overton Square’s Robata, the two Flame Ramen franchises in Midtown and Downtown, or Subarashi on Highland. Once you’ve tried ’em all, local markets like Viet Hoa have all the requisite ingredients in case you want to try making your own bowl. Whatever the case, don’t be afraid to slurp!

Categories
Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

Old Dominick Distillery Teams Up With Bain BBQ

(Credit: Bain BBQ)

Starting Friday, your glass of Old Dominick Distillery bourbon may come with a side of barbecue.

That’s Bain BBQ, to be specific, as Old Dominick announced that it would introduce a food offering from the Cooper-Young restaurant beginning October 27th at its Downtown distillery at 305 South Front Street.

“Our partnership with Bain BBQ creates a delightful food offering for our guests,” Ben Brown, director of guest experiences at Old Dominick Distillery, said in a statement. “Starting October 27th, you can savor the best of both worlds, with their culinary offerings paired with our premium spirits.”

The Distillery had been without a food component since Andrew Ticer and Michael Hudman’s Gray Canary, which opened in 2018 inside the Old Dominick building, closed in January this year.

Bain BBQ’s menu at Old Dominick will include a range of sandwiches, including turkey breast, pulled pork, and brisket, and available sides like coleslaw or chips. And save some room for the Texas Twinkies (basically poppers), a combo of bacon, jalapeños, and cream cheese.

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Film Features Film/TV

Gran Turismo

Gran Turismo stars Archie Madekwe as Jann Mardenborough and David Harbour as Jack Salter.

Hollywood has found itself on a bit of a hot streak in terms of video-game-to-film adaptations. The Last of Us’ zombie apocalypse tale garnered several Emmy nominations for HBO, while The Super Mario Bros. Movie continued to smash those gold question mark blocks to the tune of almost $1.4 billion at the worldwide box office. With those recent successes in mind, executives must have been salivating at the prospect of transforming more recognizable IPs into oodles of gold coins. If you regularly watch television or scroll through social media, it’s more than likely that a ceaseless barrage of Gran Turismo ads has bombarded your screen in recent weeks. But that brand isn’t very recognizable outside the gamer-sphere, which begs the question: Who was this movie for, exactly?

Gran Turismo is a racing simulator video game series that’s been a staple for car enthusiasts since its first installment came out in 1998. The brainchild of Kazunori Yamauchi, the Playstation series is renowned for cutting-edge graphics, faithful digital renderings of a large number of officially licensed vehicles, and an adherence to incredibly accurate driving physics.

I’ve never booted up one of the Turismo games (I prefer my races with a few more bananas and blue shells), but the surging popularity of F1 makes it the perfect time to cash in. And as fortune had it, there was a ready-made underdog story thanks to Jann Mardenborough, who utilized his childhood love for the Gran Turismo game series to become a bona fide professional formula racer. But despite the backing of devoted car fanatics and the narrative trappings of a classic sports biopic, Gran Turismo, the film, more closely resembles two siblings fighting over the only Playstation controller.

Mardenborough’s real-life story is truly quite impressive. Having grown up playing Gran Turismo, he signed up for the GT Academy competition — a joint effort by Sony and Nissan to let gamers compete for the chance to become an actual motorsport driver — during a gap year in college. Mardenborough became the youngest participant to win the competition and has since carved out a respectable racing career.

The movie follows a heavily fictionalized account of Mardenborough’s (Archie Madekwe) rise as he transitions from gamer to driver. But under Neill Blomkamp’s direction, the movie is constantly at war with itself. Important milestones in Mardenborough’s life are chopped up and rearranged to formulate your standard sports drama narrative, and much of the story feels as if it’s drawing from a premade sports checklist. An underdog protagonist, a gruff mentor, and bitter rivals tick all the boxes, even if most of the characters end up as one-dimensional stand-ins along Mardenborough’s journey. Balance that hollowness with the movie’s requirement to double as a glorified commercial for the eponymous simulation series, and there are just too many competing interests for this to be a coherent package.

Despite the script’s scattered approach, the cast does the best they can with the limited chances they’re given. The film centers almost exclusively around Mardenborough, but he spends plenty of time working with his coach Jack Salter (David Harbour), a former racer who never made it to the top. Salter is the archetypal surly mentor, but Harbour balances his tough love approach with an inherent warmth. Orlando Bloom makes a return to movie screens as Danny Moore, a Nissan marketing executive and business-minded foil to Salter as part of Mardenborough’s support team. While there’s none of the stylish charisma of, say, a Legolas or a Will Turner, Bloom props up Moore with a smarmy confidence befitting someone crazy enough to pitch the idea of GT Academy.

In another film, Moore might be set up as an antagonist, but that duty here falls to Nicholas Capa (Josha Stradowski), a hot-headed racer representative of the old-money European motorsport elite, and a character who has no other characteristics or personality traits beyond that. Djimon Hounsou and Geri Halliwell-Horner (Ginger Spice!) are trotted out for the emotional beats as Mardenborough’s parents, but like the rest of the supporting cast, they don’t have too much to do, making them feel peripheral.

The first hour or so, centered almost completely on “the brand,” was almost excruciating. I turned to my left to see that my father had dozed off, missing out on a Moore monologue that was a not-so-subtle sales pitch for the game series. Moore even exclaims “this whole thing is a marketing extravaganza” in one early scene, lest we forget what the heck is going on here. But once the movie moves past the dull table-setting, the second half reveals a competent racing film that hits most of the right beats and provides plenty of vehicle glamor shots.

Frustratingly, the frequent cuts and different camera angles during races remove viewers from the visceral thrill of the competition, making it seem more like a procession than the dangerous and exciting showdown it should be. But a couple shots that settle back into the driver’s seat offer a candid glimpse at the physical toll these races take on their drivers. It’s worth reiterating that Mardenborough’s personal story is quite impressive, but the movie’s competing interests don’t let it shine as it should. Despite the late surge, Gran Turismo loses too much ground at the start, so there’s no chance of a podium finish for this flick.

Gran Turismo
Now playing
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Categories
Film Features Film/TV

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

Cowabunga! Mutant Mayhem shows off the best versions of Leonardo, Michaelangelo, Donatello, and Raphel in years.

I had one eyebrow raised as I walked into Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem. I’d been burned by the turtles before. I watched the classic ’80s cartoon as a kid, but their previous big-screen offerings have featured bright green costumes that seemed more the stuff of nightmares than a stylish interpretation of their indie comics origin.

Mutant Mayhem, luckily, has no such missteps. Director Jeff Rowe and producers Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, and James Weaver embrace the good kind of weirdness that comes with the turtle territory. The success of Into the Spider-Verse has opened the door to fresh approaches in animation, and Mutant Mayhem takes full advantage. The visible brush strokes in an early shot of the moon over New York City set the mood for a film filled with jagged, scratchy lines. The artistic mayhem captures both the glamor and grime of the city’s sidewalks and sewers, while adding an air of controlled chaos during the rapid movements of combat scenes. Mutant Mayhem’s doodle aesthetics harken back to scribbled drawings in the corners of middle-school notebooks.

As baby turtles, our quartet of heroes are exposed to radioactive ooze which transforms them into humanoid form. Their adoptive father Splinter (Jackie Chan), a rat who was also exposed to the ooze, discovers them in the sewers and trains them in martial arts. Leonardo (Nicolas Cantu), Michelangelo (Shamon Brown Jr.), Donatello (Micah Abbey), and Raphael (Brady Noon) sneak their way through the streets of New York City to retrieve vital supplies like toilet paper and Cool Ranch Doritos. They watch humans from afar, idolizing Ferris Bueller during a movie night in the park and dreaming of one day joining the paradise that is high school. Like normal teenagers, they do things like bicker and film themselves as real life Fruit Ninjas slicing watermelons with a sword.

But the turtles are tired of living in the sewer. Their new human friend April O’Neil (Ayo Edebiri) needs to do something great to distract her classmates from an embarrassing high school moment. They hatch a plan to record the turtles performing heroic deeds and package it as the news story of the year. Luckily for their plan, a villain known as Superfly (Ice Cube) has been stealing fancy scientific equipment from armored cars around the city and needs stopping.

Sure, there are superhero elements, but Mutant Mayhem is a high school soap opera about a group of outcasts who just want to fit in. The turtles aren’t ready-made heroes or defenders of New York. Their teen angst eventually spirals into a large-scale city conflict, but it’s this grounded take that makes this the best TMNT film ever. According to Rogen, this is the first time that all the titular characters have been voiced by actual teenagers. It’s easy to tell when the voice actors are freed to riff off script, improvising with one another and bantering like kids at school.

Other longtime TMNT stalwarts pop up, including fellow mutants Rocksteady (John Cena) and Bebop (Rogen). As a fan of the original cartoon, I missed their arch enemy Shredder and members of the Foot clan, but really, they’re not needed here. Teen melodrama, cool visuals, and fancy fisticuffs earn Mutant Mayhem a deserved “Cowabunga!”

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
Now playing
Multiple locations

Categories
Cover Feature News

Late-Night Eats Vol. 2

Michael Donahue chows down on caviar at Tiger and Peacock. (Photo: Samuel X. Cicci)

Breakfast might be the most important meal of the day, but there’s just something special about the midnight snack. It could be a scarfed-down handful of Goldfish or a drunkenly crafted peanut butter sandwich, but sometimes that late-night munchie hits just right. Of course, there’s no need to restrict yourself to chips or microwavable meals. Memphis restaurants are here to pick up the slack with some inspired menus. It’s not just bacon and eggs or greasy burgers (although we love those, too). Last year’s late-night dining adventure included visits to old favorites like Alex’s Tavern and RP Tracks, and relative newcomer Pantà. This time around, we found that Memphis’ nocturnal kitchens continue to whip out a wide variety of after-dark cuisine, from tater tot nachos to caviar, with a little bit of traditional Irish cooking in between. This year, our Flyer food writers had themselves another late night to check out three restaurants that cater to the hungry insomniacs and night owls among us.

Matt Martin, Zach Miller, and Chad Allen Barton in the Black Lodge kitchen. (Photo: Michael Donahue)

EAT at Black Lodge

There’s a lot of things you can do at Black Lodge. You can watch or rent movies, of course. You can play a wide assortment of board games. You can participate in a medieval combat tournament or hop on to an arcade machine. Or you can just hang out with your friends.

But something else that you can do at Black Lodge is EAT. And there are plenty of fun snacks to be had from the menu the longtime video rental store launched last year. And with a midnight closing during the week and a 3 a.m. cutoff on Friday and Saturday, it might be a Midtowner’s best bet for a late food run.

Zach Miller, kitchen manager and chef at Black Lodge, began working at EAT a year ago. As for creating dishes, he says, “I was going off what was created by our guest chef and co-owner James Blair. He’s like our special guest chef. He comes in for dinner and movies and for special things. Or catering, as well, for parties as such.”

Blair and Chad Allen Barton, a Black Lodge owner, came up with the basic menu, Miller says. “And I kind of went off of that and I created my own things.”

Miller has a philosophy about what kind of dishes he creates for Black Lodge. “I don’t want to create something that looks complex on the plate. Something that is complex, for sure, but it looks simple. I don’t want people paying attention to their plate. I want them paying attention to the screen.”

Blair came up with the name EAT for the restaurant, Black Lodge owner Matt Martin previously told the Flyer. He described it as “one part kind of a throwback name” to those “little diners that say things like Eats or Joe’s Eats on Times Square, mostly in older movies.”

The name also was inspired by John Carpenter’s 1988 movie, They Live. “In that movie, subliminal messages are hidden behind everything.” Roddy Piper, who plays the main character, uses special glasses to see through everything, Martin says. “When he looks at a menu he sees the word ‘food.’”

When we looked at the Black Lodge menu, we saw a variety of tasty treats just waiting to be ordered. Breakfast is served all day, including the delectable chicken and waffles. The breakfast sandwiches, in a fun twist, use waffles instead of bread or biscuits to make for some sweet snacks. The waffle grilled cheese, for example, combines melted Brie with chopped nuts, tamarind sauce, and a drizzle of honey. But the more savory option tosses bacon, ham, or tofu with cheesy scrambled eggs and house sauce.

Tot-chos at Black Lodge accompanied by a Ron Swanson cocktail (Photo: Samuel X. Cicci)

The most exciting item, perhaps the crown jewel of Black Lodge’s menu, is the tot-cho bowl. Think nachos, but with … tater tots? The salty, crispy tots provided the perfect bedrock for helpings of nacho-ey goodness, with slices of bacon and jalapeños decorating our bowl, along with a healthy portion of avocado and sour cream. Our forks flew wildly through the bowl, and we found that we’d demolished the dish before the Lodge’s featured movie, Studio Ghibli’s Ponyo, even made it through the intro.

Black Lodge is located at 405 N. Cleveland.

Let’s Get Layed caviar and chips at Tiger and Peacock (Photo: Samuel X. Cicci)

Tiger and Peacock

Ride the elevator to the top of The Memphian hotel, and prepare to set foot in a bar that our colleague Bruce VanWygarden once described as looking “as if Alice in Wonderland fell down the rabbit hole, met Jerry Garcia at the bottom, and they decided to form an interior design team.” There’s a full assortment of funky decorations at Tiger and Peacock, from Debra the zebra standing behind the bar to oodles of anthropomorphic portraiture and bright, snazzy colors. It’s the perfect place to throw back a cocktail.

But people do eat, as well as drink, at Tiger and Peacock. Manager Harvey Grillo describes it as “a relaxing and upscale lounge. Almost like a speakeasy.”

“The tables are smaller,” he continues. “It doesn’t really warrant a full dinner atmosphere. It’s light bite snacking. The plates aren’t full entrees and things like that.”

It’s not a restaurant like the hotel’s Complicated Pilgrim downstairs. “It takes a little bit of trying to get full upstairs since they are small bites,” says fellow Tiger and Peacock manager Cat Turowski.

And, she adds, “Because the table space is pretty small, usually they’ll get a plate or two. And they’ll get another plate or two. And then get another plate or two.”

But, Turowski says, “Primarily everybody comes up there to enjoy the atmosphere, enjoy the decor, and have a good time.”

Not all Tiger and Peacock dishes are small, though, Grillo says. “There are dishes that push more toward the dinner option.”

The sake marinated short rib is one of them, he says. “It’s my personal favorite and it’s everyone else’s personal favorite,” Turowski adds. “The sake glaze gives it a little bit of a sweet taste and the sriracha aioli gives it a little bit of zing. And it’s very tender and moist. It kind of checks all the boxes.”

Scott Donnelly, executive chef of Complicated Pilgrim at The Memphian, also makes the cuisine for Tiger and Peacock. Asked his inspiration for the Tiger and Peacock dishes, Donnelly says he didn’t want the “usual rigmarole of sliders” and other typical items on the menu. He wanted “something different and somewhat quirky. Like the tiger and peacock.”

The blueberry grilled cheese is a good example. “When I got there, they had a patty melt, which I wasn’t too fond of.” He wanted an “elevated version” of a grilled cheese sandwich. “I’m like a grilled cheese junkie.” So, he added the blueberry ginger jam, which they make in house, to green apples and Brie cheese. That jam really “sets it off.”

For a fancier midnight feast, look no further than Let’s Get Layed, Tiger and Peacock’s classy solution to the late-night munchies. The dish matches premium caviar with a bag of good ol’ salty Lay’s potato chips. That might seem like a weird pairing, but the odd couple has long made for a formidable duo in caviar circles, with the salty, almost buttery crunchiness of the chips balancing out caviar’s brinier tendencies. For a couple of sweet hours, it felt as if we occupied a higher tax bracket. While caviar might not be our go-to snack every night, Tiger and Peacock embraces a creative, refined approach to late-night dining that offers something unique to Memphis.

The kitchen is open until midnight at Tiger and Peacock. “I’ve seen folks order food at 11:45 on weekends,” Grillo says. But, he adds, Tiger and Peacock closes at midnight in consideration of the hotel guests beneath them. “We allow folks to wrap up what they’re doing while we start the closing process.”

They have a grace period of about 30 minutes while he starts making his rounds, Grillo says. “Thanking everybody who’s been there. And if they are hotel guests, they’re welcome to take drinks and things back up to their room.”

Non-guests can take their food and drinks to the lobby. “Food is a little bit more messy to transport down the elevator, but I’m here for it. I’m able to help.”

Usually, he says, “They end up taking a cocktail or a bottle of wine downstairs. Especially old friends who haven’t seen each other for a while.” They also can relocate to “late late late bars near us like Zebra Lounge.”

Tiger and Peacock is located at 21 Cooper St.

Fish and chips at Bog & Barley (Photo: Bog & Barley)

Bog & Barley

If you need a bit more Ireland in your snacks, you’re in luck. D.J. Naylor, co-owner of Celtic Crossing with his wife Jamie, cut the ribbon on his East Memphis venture Bog & Barley several months ago. And the new building is spectacular, an upscale Irish pub that has soaring wooden ceilings, plenty of Irish art and knickknacks, and a 24-foot-long bar on the ground floor. Everything in the space was sourced from Ireland, with Naylor looking to his roots when creating his new Irish pub.

“It’s an Irish restaurant, but we wanted it to be totally different from Celtic Crossing,” says Naylor. “It’s more upscale, we’ve focused on providing a high-quality experience, but it’s also a really approachable spot to either grab a drink or celebrate a special occasion.”

Open until 11 p.m. during the week and midnight on Friday and Saturday, Bog & Barley provides an Irish alternative to late-night diners. Reny Alfonso created the menu and looks to mix traditional Irish staples with his own personal flair. “You’ve got the typical dishes that people might think of: shepherd’s pie, bangers and mash, fish and chips,” says Alfonso. “So I left those alone. So we’ve got those Irish ingredients, but we’ve got a lot of global influences too, harkening back to a kind of bistro mentality. I use a lot of French techniques here.” Alfonso’s style can be seen in many of the restaurant’s entrees, from jumbo lump crab cakes to beer cured salmon, and his creations merit multiple revisits to Bog & Barley.

But when in Ireland, they say, do as the Irish do, so we plumped for the bangers and mash, which uses sausages from Newman Farm in Missouri. “I only get pork from Newman Farm,” adds Alfonso. “The quality is amazing.” And he’s right. The sausages pack in a soft freshness, juices sizzling out and dripping into the velvety mashed potatoes they sit atop. A blanket of caramelized onion gravy adds a nice finishing touch to the whole thing, the perfect cherry on top for a meal that could go easily with a couple of beers.

Auld Bog stout at Bog & Barley (Photo: Bog & Barley)

Or one beer, in particular: Soul & Spirits Brewery created a signature beer, the Auld Bog, as the restaurant’s house brew. “I might think of it as a lighter version of Guinness,” says Naylor. And a special print behind the bar can create foam images in the beer’s head, akin to latte art. Mine was served with the Bog & Barley logo, but Naylor said that it can do custom images as well. But sorry, readers, no Michael Donahue beer art just yet. Maybe during our next late-night adventure.

Bog & Barley is located at 6150 Poplar Ave., Suite 124.