Famous Dave's

After taking a tour of the Hermitage, Home of President Andrew Jackson while down near Nashville in November, we were all unbelievably hungry and wanted to stop somewhere to grab some dinner. I'm a sucker for good BBQ and have never been to a Famous Dave's (I live in the UP of Michigan, give me a break!), and of course I want to visit somewhere that slathers half of their menu with BBQ sauce, I would be crazy not to.

For an appetizer, we ordered two different things that looked mouth-watering on the menu. The picture on the left is of their "Burnt Ends". They weren't as burnt as I thought they would be. I love char from BBQ or when they let the BBQ sauce caramelize until almost black on the edges. These were pretty tasty pieces of Brisket though. They were tossed in a sweet and zesty BBQ sauce and also came with a side of pickles, pickled onion, and shoestring onion rings.

The picture on the right is of their BBQ Nachos. The crispy chips were loaded with beans, Famous chili, jalapenos, their "Rich and Sassy" BBQ sauce, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, sour cream etc. You can choose your meat and we decided to go with the brisket. It was such a weird combination that it worked fantastically. So good in fact that I was told I need to try and re-create these at home.

I ordered the "Two Meat BBQ Combo", which comes with your choice of two meats, two sides and a corn bread muffin. For my meats, I ordered the BBQ roasted chicken breast and the Texas style brisket. The brisket was smoky and tender and amazing. You could see a nice pronounced smoke ring and a little bit of char on the outside crust. I wish I would have ordered something else instead of the chicken. It wasn't bad, but for some reason in my mind I was hoping or thinking it would be pulled chicken off of the smoked breast. The meat was slightly dry, and I hate dealing with chicken bones but I doused it in different kinds of BBQ sauces that they have at the table and it was good. For my sides I ordered the mac and cheese, which was gooey and cheesy like it should be, and the garlic red-skin mashed potatoes. I am also really picky when it comes to cornbread because although it's supposed to be slightly "crumby", I still like it to be sticky enough that it holds together when you try and eat it. This corn muffin did just that.

I don't remember what my husband ordered exactly, I just know that I think his eyes were bigger than his stomach in this case, bless his little heart. It was two slices of bread topped with brisket, ribs, corn bread muffin, corn on the cob, potato wedges, baked beans, and coleslaw. He ate a pretty good chunk of it, which I was impressed with, and ended up taking the rest home, along with about half of my brisket that was left. I don't like coleslaw normally but I stole a bite of his and it was really creamy and not overwhelmed by mayonnaise. 

 

For dessert, we ordered the bread pudding that was doused in a pecan praline sauce and served with vanilla bean ice cream. Yum!

How did we fit in any kind of dessert you ask? I really have no idea. I do know we ended up practically rolling out of the restaurant but at least we had a 45 minute drive in the car afterwords to process this giant meal. My hometown that I grew up in is slowly expanding in the stores and culinary world department and if we ended up with a Famous Dave's (which is pretty far fetched), I would not be sad in the least. My stomach might hate me, but man would it be worth it to have a BBQ place like this!

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