I'm Only Here for the Food!

Memphis Blues Barbeque House
4 Locations in BC
1342 Commercial Drive (Location visited)
Vancouver, BC

Barbeque, BBQ, Q, whatever you want to call it – that one topic where everybody has something to say, not to mention, depending on where you are, there might be different ways to cook it, what meat to cook and so on. After my visit to Bandana’s Bar-B-Q while on a business related trip, I knew I should search for local BBQ eateries. One of the best known in Vancouver is Memphis Blues…

I went for a late dinner and, after circling around to find parking, I ended up in the restaurant around 9:00 p.m. There were a couple of tables occupied but, otherwise, it seemed somewhat quiet. Not sure if that was a good signal or not…

Now, I have been here previously and each time ordered something different. However, this time, I wasn’t really sure what to order. What to do, what to order… In the end, I looked at the specials and that’s what I ended up ordering.

What is this? Ribs? Well, yes and no. Ribs, yes; however, these are no baby-back. Instead, it
was listed as buffalo ribs. Hey, why have the usual items if you can have something different? So, ribs it was, which came with an assortment of sides:

Collard greens and coleslaw

Collard greens, coleslaw, baked beans and BBQ sauce

In general, the sides were OK, though I found the baked beans to be a bit too sweet to my liking. The collard greens was interesting in the sense it did not had the bitter taste I have had from similar cooked greens. And the coleslaw tasted like an afterthought. However, I was not here for the side but the BBQ. Does it follow the fall-off the bones mantra for BBQ?

The answer would be… No. While it was tender, the meat was still partially clinging to the bones. Taste-wise, it was not that different from regular ribs; in fact, if it wasn’t because I ordered it as buffalo ribs and the size of the ribs, I could have been given other type of ribs and wouldn’t have been able to tell. However, there was one thing that distracted me completely: there were charred portions. And we are not talking just a sliver of burned meat. We are talking about a couple of inedible blobs.

Overall, if it wasn’t because I have been there previously and had decent experiences, I would have said I would not be back. In other words, either it was a bad day or I ordered the wrong item from the menu. Would I go back? I guess I can give them another chance. And here is the other question: How does it compare to Bandana’s Bar-B-Q? That’s a though one. It might be on the lines of comparing apple to oranges (specially considering I ordered different meats). What I can say is that dollar for dollar, Memphis Blues is more expensive. But, I won’t hold it against Memphis Blues as BBQ is something more dominant in Missouri than here in BC (where there are only a handful of these shops).