Andy's Rest. Scorecard: Carnival Food Year Round - Action News 5 - Memphis, Tennessee

By Andy Wise - bio | email

NOTE:  Otho Sawyer, assistant manager for the Memphis-Shelby County Health Department's Environmental Sanitation Division, said the Tennessee Health Department has finally renegotiated its contract for computer management of each county's restaurant inspection scores. 

Action News 5 hopes to have the regular posting of the Memphis-Shelby County scores back on the Scorecard web page by the first week of October, the date Sawyer told us to expect them.  Thanks!  - Andy

THIS WEEK'S BIG TIP:  Carnival Food Year Round, 1134 N Germantown Pky, Suite
107, Cordova, TN, 901-755-4040, http://carnival.food.officelive.com/default.aspx

It's name is its menu.

Fair food, without the fairgrounds. 365 days a year.

Even employees from Malco's Cordova Cinema next door hustle over on their breaks to sample the stuff the theater doesn't have!

"We don't have cotton candy," said Malco's Jessica Maharrey, eyeing the cotton candy spinner in Carnival Food's lobby. "It sort of just melts in your mouth.

"Funnel cakes!" shouted Malco's Melvina Kirk. "Big ole' home-style double burgers!"

Sno-cones. Turkey legs. Deep-fried Twinkies. Deep-fried Oreos. Deep-fried ANYTHING.

"It's something nobody else is doing here," said owner Lynette Hill, who recently sold her original location on Covington Pike in Raleigh to open the Cordova shop. "In the whole United States, nobody sells carnival food all year round."

Hill said she and her husband Eldrid came up with the idea of a carnival restaurant after the Mid-South Fair ditched the Mid-South Fairgrounds for Desoto County, MS.

"The fair left, and we got to still support our people in Memphis, so we decided to do it year round," Hill said.

Funnel cakes and corn dogs are Hill's big sellers, but she has lunch and dinner fare, too. Burgers, Philly cheese steak & chicken sandwiches, hot wings -- even large chefs salads.

"Barbecue nachos, whole jumbo wings, turkey legs on Saturdays, we do everything," she said.

All the good fair fare -- without the rides and carneys!

WHAT ANDY LIKES:  Deep-fried Twinkie, Philly Cheese Chicken Sandwich (Great Onions & Peppers!), Turkey Leg (Saturdays Only!) 

Copyright 2010 WMC-TV. All rights reserved.