This must be karma or something, but the real irony of my Mississippi barbecue tour is that the best sandwich I’ve eaten in the whole series, (and probably the best in Mississippi, although the state of Mississippi barbecue makes me think this may be like being the best gumbo in Kansas) is from Tallulah’s Kitchen right here in Oxford. And it’s not just good-for-Mississippi, it’s a good barbecue sandwich I can recommend.
Tallulah’s is a lunch place (also open until early evening) being run by Laurie Stiratt. It’s on University Avenue up the hill from Kroger’s and on the other side of the road. They daily have red beans and rice, jambalaya, chicken and sausage gumbo, and the like, along with some vegetable choices. It’s where Catfish One used to be. The last two day’s, I’ve had pulled pork sandwiches and enjoyed them.
Extra added virtue: You can ask them to substitute fried okra for french fries as your side, and you get an excellent mound of fried okra.
The meat is a mixture of inside and out, with plenty of smoke flavor, some crunch from the outside and plenty tender. They toast the buns, which is nice and gives them more character. They have outdoor seating on a roofed-over deck on picnic tables, and the weather has taken a wonderful cooling turn that makes it quite pleasant to sit out there, eat some barbecue, and enjoy the breeze.
Recommended.
I haven’t been there in almost a month, but this summer they had a daily recession special which was one of the best meat and twos (drink included) in town for five bucks. They will be in heavy rotation again once it gets a little cooler as all the seating is outdoors.
They also do a great job with catering.
Laurie is a wonderful person and also happens to be a great musician. She and Cary Hudson are the main players in Blue Mountain. I’m glad to hear that her restaurant is doing well.
Concur on quality of Tallulah’s. The corndogs they make by hand are by far the best I’ve ever had and are also beautiful.
The recession special rocks on.
I hitch-hike by the place daily and rides often comment, “That’s some good food right there.”
Never mind how it tastes — is it cooked over a pit?
It’s cooked in metal rig with hardwood over indirect heat.
After all those frigging electric-ovens-with-smoke I was delighted to have something cooked with real fire. They don’t have a pit at Tallulah’s.
This summer, in my effort to try Mississippi barbecue for a project, I’ve eaten bbq sandwiches in at least ten places in six different counties, including a number suggested by folks in comments on this blog, I think it may have been more than ten, but I’ve lost track.
This was the best in Mississippi I’ve eaten this summer.
I’ve worked my way through Tallulah’s menu over the past six months. The fried catfish is perfectly crisp though it steams in the takeout plate so I open the top and let it sit for about five minutes after I get it home. The butter burger (grilled onions) is sinful. The veggie burger is good, though it is messy and doesn’t hold together very well. I agree that the hand-dipped corndog is exceptional, attributing it to the peppers in the batter. The only thing that I haven’t tried are the friend Oreos and Twinkies, and, strangely enough, the BBQ and the gumbo.
As for Blue Mountain, I sat on a rug at Turnrow Book Company in Greenwood last Friday night, only a few feet from Cary Hudson while he jammed. Had many “wow” moments. Incredible talent. He has a new CD coming out in the late fall.
I’ve only had the catfish sandwich there, but it was very good each time. I’ll have to expand my horizons and try the BBQ. Sounds good. I also like the little outdoor seating area — it will be even better this fall as the weather cools off a bit.
I concur with the comments. Laurie and Carl are a talented team, their staff are super friendly, and I have yet to have a bad food experience there. Or, I should say, everything I have had is excellent. The hamburger is by far and away the best in town. Hands down. Her catering is also totally reasonable, dependable, and a good way to make friends with whomever is lucky enough to be invited to the party. We’re lucky to have this place. if you haven’t been — go; if you have — go oftener so we can keep her in business.
Cool. Thanks. I’ll try it next trip to o-town.
Tallulah’s catfish has become a weekend ritual around here. Excellent!
After reading this and all the comments, I feel like I have missed out on the rest of the menu due to an obsession with their catfish. We will see what we can do about that.
We ordered ahead and took Laurie’s jambalaya and red beans and rice to the Grove last year for home football games. It was a hit!
The ongoing search for the best BBQ and the comparisons with foods you have eaten earlier in your life have one important variable not associated with the preparation or the cooking style. It’s not pit vs ring, dry vs wet or direct heat vs indirect. It’s about aging, and no, not the meat or style of meat being eaten either,
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/004013.htm
Razor– but you learn things, you learn to distinguish differences from experience, and you learn by comparison.
I think there’s also a factor that involves loving what you got used to early– otherwise, no one would eat a slugburger.
Returning to the first but, though: While my idea of what is good barbecue hasn’t change a lot, my understanding of why and what goes into it has changed a lot. I understand what various ways of cooking produces, etc.
I agree on the slugburger. But certainly foods and their textures and our like/dislike and preference bias’ change with time. Anecodally, I’ve eaten some foods as I’ve gotten older that never quite taste so good as I remember them from when I was a child. And others, I wonder how I ever swallowed them.
I agree that over the course of a summer you can choose the better tasting, to you,, since there is not much differentiation in your taste buds. However, unlike liquors which appear to improve with each drink, food becomes less tasty, not moreso. To test my assertion, let me know if the first sandwich tastes different than the third one if eaten fairly close together. Hunger and hydration play a major role in what tastes good at a particular point in time. That’s all my point is. It was an attempt to goad to all of us that reminince of good foods or drinks we’ve had in the past.
I’ve grown to prefer the meats prepared on my metal rig and indirect heat perhaps for no other reason than it is more efficient to start and clean up afterwards. Part of it may be a bias towards efficiency. But that wouldn’t stop me from enjoying and bragging on your meats cooked on a pit all night if all I had to do was show up and not clean up afterwards.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haggis and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrapple
And here are two of the foods I encountered as a child that make me want to upchuck as I type this. They don’t print enough money to make me eat these again. Ever.
I’m not sure how to respond to your comment-before-last. I have a pretty concrete memory of tastes going back a long way, I think, and find it pretty easy to compare things I’ve eaten over time. And, no, a second sandwich doesn’t taste different than the first. It can vary by how focused I am.
I’ll give a concrete illustration: I tried for a long time to figure out what was distinctive about one particular Memphis bbq sandwich. Some of what went into it was painfully obvious, and I talked to a lot of people, some of them decent cooks, but no one could really guess their way to an answer. One day, I figured it out, and could taste the different parts and how they were put together. After that, I couldn’t eat the sandwich without that understanding in my mind, and the different parts are much clearer to me, allowing me to recognize small variations and no what they were. Similar things are true of dishes I cook regularly when I eat them out.
I kind of like scrapple, at least the couple of times I had it in Pennsylvania Dutch country. Didn’t love it, and wouldn’t set out to make it, but I thought it was ok.
There are always exceptions to the general rule of aging and its effects. Additionally, some people are more sensitive to variations in all the senses and can notice very minute differences. The rest of us, we’re somewhat tone deaf, losing our sense of smell and taste and can’t appreciate minuscule differences measured in micro drops or eighth notes. You are the exception, which is why, for an example, I will defer to you on a half vs a whole garlic clove in a recipe. It all tastes like garlic to me. And the music all sounds good to me, etc…
Your explanations and writings on these are the primary reasons I appreciate your writings.
P.S. SFT is great in her writing skills. You need to provide a link on the left side.
I’ve had Tallulah’s two days in a row now. With four in the family it was easy to have a good variety to sample from. Most of the food has been great. The jambalaya, fried okra, catfish and veggies are all well worth a return trip. However the hush puppies were not the same the second trip. They were really good the first time but a disappointment today. Also the barbeque was reminiscent of some sort of saucy pork simmered in a crock pot all day. Flavorful, but certainly not what I was expecting.
Interesting about the bbq, jusstthefacts– that was my reaction early this summer, but I’ve had it several times this week and been happy with it.
Yes, they are holding it, but it’s clearly been cooked properly. Sorry you were disappointed.
I had the barbecue at Tallulah’s Saturday and it was extraordinarily good. The meat was perfect to my buds, the sauce was perhaps my favorite ever, ditto the slaw. The bun was also very far up and beyond the call of a mere delivery vehicle. Even the fries were close to perfect, and I rarely meet such that isn’t a waste of potato.
Now, if only I could buy a beer there.
And being a non-felon, voting, pro-business capitalist, I’d sure like to buy one there on Sunday.
New place opened about two weeks ago on the Coast called Mississippi Barbeque Company, Hwy 49/25th Avenue in Gulfport, about half a block north of Pass Road. I age the Ribs and they were really tender and good. Big Smoker out back!!! A sweet barbeque sauce, but owner said he had a spicy one also.
Try it if you are nearby!!
The Tupelo Daily Journal is going to publish a large story on Tallulah’s Kitchen this Wednesday.
Ginna Parsons in the Tupelo Daily Journal today writes about Tallulah’s Kitchen:
http://chickasaw360.com/bookmark/9424731
We had jambalaya when we came through, and it was absolutely top-notch. I hope Oxford supports this restaurant in droves so that it’ll be there and booming the next time we come through town. Thank you, Laurie!