Arriving in Memphis after our three-hour mini road-trip from Nashville – via a bizarre lunch stop at Loretta Lynn’s diner and the world’s most racist, wi-fi enabled gift shop – it was time, apparently, for more food.
Sarah was keen for Peter and me to experience her favourite fried chicken place – Gus’s Famous Fried Chicken – and more importantly to compare it with Princes in Nashville. Comparing like for like was tricky, given that I’d had to experience Princes’ chicken reheated in a hotel room microwave, following my enforced Chicago stop over. My feeling, acknowledging the unfairness of the comparison, is that Gus’s chicken was considerably less spicy and, by a nose, slightly more delicious. But only slightly.
What really clinched it or Gus’s, though, was dessert: a local specialty called ‘Chess Pie’. Apparently – and this comes from Wikipedia so you know it’s true – the dish was so named because the woman who invented it was once asked “what kind of pie is this?” to which she answered “it’s jus’ pie”. Which became ‘jess pie’ which became ‘chess pie’. It’s stories like that which earn a restaurant – and a town – valuable extra points.
But the excitement of Chess Pie soon paled in comparison to checking in to the Madison Hotel: no sooner had we dropped our bags than we were turfed back on to the streets because the building’s lifts elevators were on fire.…
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