People always ask me where they should eat, because why not, right? It’s my job to tell them, and I’m glad to do it even when I’m not officially working.

Some years ago I started returning the question, asking them where they like to eat. I’ve come across some good leads like that and this is one that panned out.

I’m having a kitchen remodel and the guys doing the work asked for a suggestion on their first day here. They wanted Mexican and I sent them for enchiladas rancheros at The Crazy Cactus (where they’ve gone back and ordered the same thing several times). In return, they turned me on to the plate lunch at Broadway Pizza on Mendenhall.

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Yep, the same place that serves that topping-heavy, Memphis-style pizza. The one that also has a burger loved by many and the one that I’ll go back to for the club sandwich I saw being served to someone else.

That one.

It’s not unusual to find places that have a special every day. The Belmont, just next to Broadway Pizza, has a plate lunch selection daily. But Broadway has — get this — a menu of 24 proteins and 23 side dishes.

Alas, though we were told that they were all available when we first looked at the menu, they’re not all cooked every day. But a still-impressive eight proteins, 15 sides and five varieties of bread were ours for the choosing, so we got to work picking out what to try and went with this:

Country fried steak with roasted potatoes, fried okra and hot-water cornbread on one plate, and fried catfish with mac and cheese, spinach casserole and jalapeno cornbread on the other. It’s one main, two sides and bread for $10, and the portions are hearty.

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We could’ve chosen meat loaf, a pork chop fried or smothered, spaghetti, chicken or eggplant parm, hamburger steak or grilled tilapia. Vegetable choices went on, from pinto beans, green beans and black-eyed peas to fried green tomatoes, yams and cabbage.

We were happy with our choices, though I didn’t like the unexpected bacon in the spinach casserole. There’s a good chance you would find this a plus, but I like bacon where I can see it, not that sneaky stuff.

The catfish was hot, flaky and enrobed in a very crisp coating; nothing not to like there. The mac and cheese was creamy and a little gooey — also good. Roasted potatoes are by their nature fairly ordinary so they’re not anything to get excited about, but they were good. Fried okra was almost certainly pre-breaded, but better than average.

And the country fried steak was the crisp kind, served with white gravy on the side. Some would call this chicken fried steak as it wasn’t cooked in gravy, and while they have a good argument, I come down on the side of calling it country fried steak. It seemed fresh, not a frozen product, which was confirmed by our server.

The plate lunch isn’t served at the Broad Avenue location, just on Mendenhall, Monday through Friday 11 a.m.-3 p.m. A few of the items are available at dinner, including the hamburger steak, the catfish and the spaghetti, and as they have them both anyway, a catfish/spaghetti combo.

Broadway Pizza, 629 S. Mendenhall, 901-207-1546.