When Guy Fieri Gets a Quadruple D Déjà Vu in Memphis
“Wait a second, south of Beale? You ever have a Triple D déjà vu? That’d be like a quadruple D, not a triple D!” Guy Fieri found himself standing on Main Street in Memphis, Tennessee, with a strange feeling of familiarity. Turns out, he wasn’t imagining things — he’d shot at this exact location back in 2012 for a different restaurant called South of Beale. The owners bought the building, rebranded, and now it’s Good Fortune Company, a noodle joint hand-making their pasta and fusing Memphis attitude with Southeast Asian flavors.
The Big City Bowl: Handmade Noodles Worth Slurping
The star dish Guy tackled was the Big City Bowl — a chicken and chicken broth ramen that had him declaring it “lights out noodles.” But what makes these noodles different from any other ramen shop? Owner Sara and chef Auro Leighton walked Guy through their meticulous process.
They start with high-gluten flour mixed with an alkalized solution of potassium carbonate and sodium carbonate — this changes the molecular structure of the noodle. After whisking in salt and mixing for 10 minutes, the dough gets sheeted through a compression machine that Guy noted “you get sucked into that thing, you’re dead.” The sheets get joined, fed through multiple times, then cut and dusted automatically. The noodles rest overnight before cooking.
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The chicken broth takes equal care: chicken bones boil hard for 15 minutes, get skimmed, then hold at 160 degrees for about 5 hours. The chicken thighs cure overnight with sugar and salt, get par-cooked at low temperature, then deep-fried to crisp right before serving.
The Show Yu: A Month-Long Infusion
Perhaps the most impressive component was the show yu — Japanese for soy sauce — that forms the bowl’s flavor base. This isn’t something they whip up in an afternoon. Dried shiitake mushrooms, dried anchovies (niboshi), and kombu (dried kelp) infuse for a full month. Then they heat it, add bonito flakes with brown sugar and salt, simmer for 20 minutes, and strain everything off.
The finished bowl comes together with duck fat, hondashi, marinated menma (bamboo shoots soaked overnight in soy, sake, and mirin), boiled corn, thinly sliced scallion, and a hardboiled egg placed strategically toward Guy. “The real ones slurp,” they told him — and he delivered.
Crawfish Dumplings: Rangoon-Inspired Memphis Magic
Guy also dug into the crawfish dumplings, which customers apparently line up down the street for. These are inspired by shrimp rangoon but take it further. Cream cheese gets whipped with fish sauce, lime juice, lime zest, and Thai basil before folding in crawfish. The wrappers are house-made with tapioca starch between layers to prevent sticking.
The dumplings get fried, then tossed in a house-made togarashi seasoning — red pepper, Sichuan peppercorn, black and white sesame seeds, mustard seed, garlic powder, orange peel, ground nori, and gochugaru. Served with a sweet chili sauce made from rice wine vinegar, lime juice, both brown and white sugar, Korean chili flakes, and finished with a cornstarch slurry.
“The togarashi seasoning on the outside is awesome,” Guy said. “You can really taste the crawfish in there… right down to the sweet chili sauce — dynamite.”
Like a Peruvian Chicharron Sandwich or Crispy Pata, these crawfish dumplings prove that the best Triple D finds often come from chefs willing to blend traditions in unexpected ways.
Find Good Fortune Company and more spots Guy has visited in our restaurant directory.
