As tasty as a homespun church supper
Fainmous BBQ meats and sides sing; peach cobbler is second to none
Once the pint containers of sides from Fainmous BBQ were set out on my friends’ long wooden table, it felt like the three of us had been invited to a church supper.
There was barbecue, of course: pointy diagonal slices of spicy sausage; a sandwich spilling over with crusty rib tips; hacked-up piles of pulled pork and chicken; neat pork spareribs and sliced brisket, all done in the Tennessee flavored style that Jamie and Karen Fain grew up with in the Knoxville area.
But what made the meal so special were the homespun side dishes that tasted like some church ladies had been working their magic in a vestry-hall kitchen. Corn salad the color of a bright-yellow taxi cab sported peppers in green, red and orange, all etched by a sweet-sour tang. Rich spinach casserole bound with cream cheese wore a mesh of fried onion strings on top.
Fat elbow macaroni basked in a suave, salty cheese sauce. Sweet and porky baked beans — the
little, old-fashioned kind — were tempered by a very laid-back, crunchy cabbage slaw. Green beans surprised with a sly, peppery afterburn. And potato salad, too often a barbecue disaster area, was the real homestyle deal, spiked with just enough pickle relish to give it a bounce.
What a feast it was, a sort of mini Thanksgiving that came as an unexpected blessing at the end of a very stressful Houston week.
We finished with what may well be the finest peach cobbler in town, made with fresh peaches, so there’s a trace of tartness under the sweet, and pie-crust rectangles that float like soft, flaky dumplings through the fruit.
I would patronize Fainmous for the peach cobbler alone. It is that good.
I had been wanting to catch up with the Fains in their new Sawyer Yards space, between Old Sixth Ward and the Heights, where they were recruited to relocate from their Westbury shop after a nine-year run.
Their move came at the worst possible time. In March, when lockdown orders were issued, they were almost finished working on the cool, fresh space, with its amazing black-on-white gel-pen mural — done by a Tennessee artist friend — of a bucolic Smoky Mountains landscape.
Their paperwork for an SBA disaster loan got lost. The dining room sat unfinished. But the Fains persevered, opening their doors for takeout in early
June in an airy room that sits between the Urban South Brewery and City Orchard Cidery.
It’s a charming place. Industrial venting and hammered-brass pendant lamps on high contrast with weathered wood accents and farm antiques below, including an ancient ox yoke and vintage kerosene lanterns. You can see the crinkles at the corners of Jamie and Karen’s eyes above their masks, too, and imagine the smiles underneath.
Ordering with their online system is easy and well detailed, down to whether you want spicy sauce, mild sauce or a mix of the two. You can’t specify a later time (or at least I couldn’t figure out how to do that). So wait until you’re ready to leave to submit your order, which will be ready in 20 minutes.
There’s a tip prompt, which I really appreciate in these days when I’m called to support restaurant workers who are laboring under difficult circumstances. There are even weekday vegetarian lunch specials, some (such as lasagna and stuffed peppers) made with vegetable-based beef crumbles, a thoughtful option for a barbecue spot.
There’s no curbside service, however. You’ll have to go inside to pick up your order, which I’d rather not do these days — although I was mighty glad to see the Fains, and happy that all four staffers inside the restaurant wore masks.
I think some of the barbecued meats, mainly the brisket, would have been better had I picked them up earlier in the day rather than near the end of service. But I enjoyed the pulled pork and chicken a lot, even though I wished the buns hadn’t been so big and poufy they threw off the meat-to-bread ratio.
And the rib-tip option is really special. I love those crusty end pieces whenever I can get them, which is not often enough.
And I definitely want tall styrofoam cups of the Fains’ sprightly pineapple iced tea — trust me on this — and delicate fresh lemonade, too. I wish I had pitchers of both in my refrigerator right now, as the temperature climbs toward triple digits yet again.
Cheers, y’all, and amen.