Leaving Mississippi was hard but it was time. This did not mean we had to quit eating.

Our last day in Ocean Springs was spent riding our bikes along a quiet beach road in the morning, then having a last lunch at BB’s Po’Boys. This day in addition to gumbo
they had two kinds of soup that sounded great. We couldn’t make up our minds
but there was a solution: a sampler of three soups. We still couldn’t make up
our minds which was best: the gumbo had a dark rich taste, the shrimp corn
bisque was lightly flavorful and the crawfish bisque had a wonderful zing to it. Such a treat to find a small restaurant that can actually make three soups that taste completely different. Of course we had shrimp po’boys, one apiece despite our vows to go lightly. At least we didn’t have dessert.

Our next goal was Memphis TN and the Germantown Commissary which was mentioned as one of the best BBQs in the country in an article in Playboy. We got there so early they didn’t even look like they were open, but Al stuck his head in the door and the man said come on in. It was only 10:30 but I told him it was never too early to eat BBQ. The one waitress was still working on her early lunch so the two of
them chatted with us while we waited for the food. Side benefit of being early. It
is a really tiny place and it did in fact start filling up around 11. Our waitress
suggested that we split a combo plate so we could both sample ribs and the
pulled pork. A plate comes with beans, coleslaw and half a deviled egg plus a
nice white dinner roll. We ordered additional sides of Brunswick stew and pig
sticks, which I had seen mentioned in one of the reviews. Pig sticks turned out to
be thick sweet potato fries which had been dipped in a flour batter seasoned with
sugar and cinnamon, then deep fried. You get a little container of a honey-
mustard dip to eat with them. These may have been the best part of the meal.
The Brunswick stew may or may not have been authentic but it was wonderful
also. The pulled pork was good but I’m not sure how one can differentiate that
much between versions except maybe for the sauce. The ribs were probably not
as good as the ones I had in Luling, certainly not as meaty but that’s the cut.
Two kinds of sauce, both quite dark, one mild, one hot. The building is an old old
grocery, thus the name, and I somehow forgot to get a photo. Inside, it’s brick
and dark and smells like hickory smoke. The man told us that if we had come a
noon, we would probably have had to wait outside (in the heat) for a table and we
certainly wouldn’t have gotten a place in the parking lot. As it was, we had a
hard time getting out of the lot because people were stacking up. Definitely
worth a minor side trip just for the experience. The best part for Al was the fact
that this was one of the smallest lunch bills we’d run up, and the satisfaction and entertainment quotient was quite high.

Other than the one good meal, the trip from Ocean Springs to St. Charles MO was unremarkable. Now we would have to break out the bikes and get serious about some exercise.