The Philadelphia Inquirer's notorious food critic Craig LeBan had some kind words to say about the Memphis Taproom...
"Kimball's menu focuses on exploring regional American pub food using good, fresh ingredients and no-shortcut preparations." Sounds tasty, but screw that dude, we needed to find out for ourselves.
A crew of us, including several new Brunch Clubbers, headed to "Port Fishington" for our Memphis breakfast. We eventually all arrived shortly after 2pm. The place was hoppin' which is usually a good sign. Right off the bat the staff was cool, nice, and accommodating. They got our party of 7 seated as fast as possible and slapped some bloody marys on the table lickety split.
We all decided to kick off our brunch with a few orders of fried pickles. We we are so hungry that we dove right in as soon as the pickles hit the table and despite the warnings, none of us waited until they'd cooled off. Therefore, every single one of us burned the roofs of our mouths so severely that the skin peeled off. OUCH! Nevertheless, I think it was worth it...those pickles were damn tasty!
Fig 1:
On to breakfast!
Between the 7 of us we didn't order too many different dishes. The veg-heads were slightly disappointed because they were sold out of Chicken Fried Seitan... they opted for the "Egg-less omelet" while Justin, Patrick and I all opted for the "Tailgate Chilaquiles" and Alycia went for the "Pumpkin-Stuffed French Toast." I had big aspirations for this stuff and I wasn't let down but I wasn't blown away either. Everyone chowed down and seemed to enjoy their food but upon further investigation I came to find out that most everyone did not think the food was that incredible. The french toast was a bit dry, the egg-less omelet has a bizarre texture and was generally lacklustre and the chilaquiles was unlike most other versions of chilaquiles [though I found it really tasty!]. However, we all had a great time. The service was wonderful, the beer was abundant and it was a generally cool environment.
Besides, we didn't even get a chance to try their lunch or dinner menu! I have certainly NOT given up on the Memphis Taproom, in fact I can't wait to return and eat more.
Check out the Memphis Taproom online-- for directions, menus and other info:
www.memphistaproom.com
I don't want to be a downer but if not for our crowd, I'd have had a much worse time. You didn't mention my frittata, which was the most lackluster I've ever had. I loved the pickles though, and the accompanying horseradish sauce made up for how sad I was that they for some reason didn't want me to have butter on my sourdough. I think for the cost, the wait (40+ minutes), and the port fishington location I wouldn't recommend it for brunch. I would give lunch or dinner a chance though. Oh yeah, good friendly service and the bloody mary's were totally passible but nowhere near as good as the one's Joey made us at Grace afterwards.
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