This Post Has Nothing to Do With Nashville

 But it should be of interest to anyone in Nashville — and beyond — who eats. Word is traveling around the internets that someone(s) torched 6,500 GMO sugar beets in Jackson County Oregon, early in June of this year.
     The Oregonian broke the story on June 20th, with info that an agritech-friendly NGO has posted a $10,000 reward for info leading to arrests.
   As you might imagine, food activists are cheering on the matter, while noting the interesting lack of interest in the story from major media, other than a short AP article when the Oregonian broke it (and ain't it interesting to note the FBI was called in to investigate this local matter?) and a blip in the Spokesman Review. The other fun thing, in the few mainstream outlets that reported, is the reader comments. With that many people unashamedly cheering on arsonists ...

Look Who Got Instagram

Let the food porn commence!

   From Toyama, a new Japanese place at Nipper's Corner that's getting rave reviews on Yelp & Urban Spoon right now. Morning traffic guy Michael Higgins says it's his new favorite. This very attractive dish was his, actually, and I got a Fire-something roll. It was all quite yummy.

This is a spread I put together, courtesy of Whole Foods. Figs, roasted garlic, olives + tapenade, St. Agur & Buttermilk blues, Robusto cheese, a crusty loaf. The smoked wings aren't exactly in the Mediterranean diet, but they were divine, nonetheless.

We Say It "Leh-zhure"

 Offerings at the Nashville Garden & Antique show, the tony annual fundraiser for Cheekwood.

     Some inhabitants of the town I call home are “Bless their heart”-ing Travel & Leisure magazine right now; Nashville was recently named on its list of America's Snobbiest Cities (we're number 13!).
  
   Hold your outrage for 10 seconds, and think about that, Nashville: a magazine named Travel & Leisure thinks our city is snobby.
 
    Now, I'll say it with you: what the fuck? Sans the f-bomb, that translates to: exactly what parameters are the magazine's editors using to make this determination?

In the annual America’s Favorite Cities survey, we asked readers to rank 35 major metropolitan areas for features such as trendy food trucks or good-looking locals. To determine which city has the biggest nose in the air, we factored in some traditional staples of snobbery: a reputation for aloof and smarty-pants residents, along with high-end shopping and highbrow cultural offerings like classical music and theater.
But we also considered 21st-century definitions of elitism: tech-savviness, artisanal coffeehouses, and a conspicuous eco-consciousness (say, the kind of city where you get a dirty look for throwing your coffee cup in the wrong bin).

     
         People have long been bemoaning the dumbing down of America. The Closing of the American Mind was written in 1987. You know things are going really downhill, though, when someone names Nashville “Snobbytown USA,” partly because people are standing in line at food trucks. Come check out Nolensville Road, y'all, we stand outside there, too.
     
        Good looking locals? Things must really have changed on Dickerson Pike since I last travelled that road.
       
        Aloof? Okay, I'll cop to that, but I spent the first 30 years of my life in NY and VT, and sometimes I still can't stop people from telling me more about their personal lives within 5 minutes of an introduction than they'll learn about me in 5 years.
       
        Metro's public schools critics would be delighted to have a talk about “smarty-pants” residents. Travel & Leisure is actually right about that; I can't count how many times I've overheard a conversation between a 5^th grader, trying to show off what they learned in school that day, only to be silenced by being told, “well aren't you smart ...”
       
        Yes, we have a Le Creuset store, and now, a Nordstrom's. But most of my friends and I do our shopping at TJ Maxx & Goodwill. I do have one acquaintance who has more than one pair of Imogen + Willie jeans and he got them free, for modeling. Gee, maybe we do have good looking locals, after all.
       
          Classical music? Okay. We love our Schermerhorn and our Symphony, even if they are having some financial difficulty at the moment. When our city flooded, our Symphony moved its show outdoors and played for free. What did yours do, T & L?
        
          Yes, we have theatre. That's theatRE. Unless, dear Travel & Leisure magazine, property of American Express Publishing Corporation, you're that afraid of showing your Gold Card roots. I'd like to move on, so let's just say: “everything else is priceless,” and skip on to why Nashville, specifically wound up on list.

“Long before the Grand Ole Opry came to town, Nashville was known as the Athens of the South, with its well-heeled and distinctly un-hillbilly crowd. Today, the foodie culture sometimes attracts celebrities; at sushi bar Virago, in the Gulch, you might see famous residents like Nicole Kidman or Sheryl Crow. Nashville also extends the red carpet to compulsive email-checkers: it won the survey for its excellent wireless coverage.”

         Wow. Nashville has excellent wireless coverage. How terrible? And seriously, is it so awful for a city to be called “home” by successful artists? When did that become a bad thing? How many young people flee their hometowns because the best jobs going are behind a counter at Golden Corral?
        
         Either “snobby” doesn't mean what these editors think it means, or somehow, it lost its negative connotations. Aspiring to something better is never going to be a bad thing, as long as you've got supporters who want to go with you. It'd be a bit disturbing to think the editorial staff at a magazine called “Travel & Leisure” didn't want America's cities to have any kind of cultural enrichment opportunities for the average Joes & Joans wouldn't it? Especially since the hotel that keeps earning the top spot(s) on their annual “Best of” list goes for $2k a night and offers rustic experiences that leave people breathless:

“The leopard hunt was the highlight of this safari for us. Even though we came back a little late in the evening the excitement didn't stop there. The lions were coming through the camp so we had to scamper to our tents very quickly. Lots of hippos outside as well and the elephant in the backyard never even bothered with us.”

         Okay, so maybe it's true. With an editorial agenda like that, maybe having a world class Symphony, with its own performance hall and cushy seats, does leave blue blood splattered all over downtown Nashville.
        
         I take it all back. Pass the Dom Ruinart, someone. And if there is none, I'll take a Yazoo. The criteria didn't say anything about craft brew. 

How To Choose An Ear of Corn ... for reals

One day last summer, when I was in the supermarket shopping for corn and peeling back a few inches of husk on a few ears, a 30-something looking woman approached me and asked me what I look for when I buy.

I was a little dumbfounded; it's not something that was ever explained to me in words. I learned by watching my mom. Often she let me ride shotgun to the base of West Mountain, where a small farm stand opened every July-August. She'd grab an ear, peel back enough husk to view about 25% of the surface, and if she wanted that ear, she'd throw it in a paper bag.

By watching, and often by being given shucking duties (it was great fun and a privilege to be handed such an important task under age 10. Later on, not so much) I learned to recognize what she was looking for and what the final product would taste like when the crisp, bright, green outer leaves, the  softer, lighter inner husk and silk were done away with.  What came to the table was a super sweet and mildly savory cob with a light crunch and clean finish.
 
It seemed like such a natural thing, I thought everyone learned the way I did. So when that woman at Harris Teeter was in standing front of me waiting on a good answer, all I could think to say was something along the lines of, "well, it's hard to say, exactly ... I like small kernels." Which is true: I do look for ears with smaller kernels. The skin isn't as thick and maybe that gives it that tell-tale translucent look that the ear is ripe, and its sugar hasn't turned over to starch. If you take a good look at the above pic — from this afternoon's stop at a West Meade area farm stand — you can get an idea of what I mean.

I'm a honey & cream fan. If there's no mix, I'll go with yellow; I've been told that white corn, Silver Queen is what we have in the Nashville area, is sweeter but only in 1 out of 5 tries have I ever found it to be so. Cobs with super-bright, big yellow kernels are what my mom would have called "cow corn," destined to wind up in feed lots. My mom was far more discriminating about corn than cows are.

And so am I. Pass on that stuff.

A Locally-sourced, Grass-Fed Burger in Antioch? Yes, Antioch!

Michael Higgins photo

360 Burger, in their own way, are the true revolutionaries right now in the Nashville restaurants'  burger business. 12 South, East Nashville, Sylvan Park, all have restaurant and tavern owners who set up their shops in firmly foodie-educated, BoBo territory.  The scions of the Swett Family, David & Patrick, come from a family of restauranteurs with 60 + years of Southern cooking under their belts, in neighborhoods many don't like to step into until gentrification is already well underway. The Swetts have traversed from the North to the South side, and brought good burger along with them.

 I neglected to bring a camera; my burger buddy Michael Higgins may save the day, yet. Here's going for the score, in the meantime:

Juiciness - 6.  
Kind of on the low side, here. The burger was plenty moist, but not exactly juicy. On the plus side, you won't have to worry much about dribbling.

Flavor - 9. 
Wow, really big beefy flavor, with a little kick that makes me wonder if there isn't a tiny amount of additive, along the lines of an onion soup mix.

Attractiveness - 7. 
360 offers a near picture-perfect burger. I'm not a huge fan of pretzel-dough buns, though, and there was the issue of pre-shredded lettuce.

Atmosphere - 8. 
Nice looking tavern that gets plenty of light from the front window wall. Because this is Antioch, after all, I'm not removing any points for it being in a strip mall.

Digestivity - 10.
While we all love good burger taste, no one really wants to taste it for the rest of the day. I've been to 360 twice now, and the star attraction went down clean and stayed clean, each time.

Overall - 8.
Congratulations Antioch! If you wish to say now, that you have a burger joint for hipsters, you can. Other bonuses: Yazoo on tap, and great service, too.

Note on the sides: I've tried the fries, chili cheese fries ("what was I thinking?"), and one of Michael's onion rings and wasn't very impressed with any. OTOH, I went for the burger. 

360 Burger, Hickory Hollow Pkwy.

 

Enter the Noodle: Otaku South Stirs Pop-up Debate

Sous chef William Gentry

   Yes, we are excited about all the buzz on the Nashville restaurant and food scene - why not be? In addition to the great restaurants that laid the foundation for the attention we're getting, like City House, Margot & Capital Grille, and even Whole Foods & Turnip Truck, the last two-three years have brought an infusion of foodie-biz entrepreneurs who are as creative with their business model as they are with their product. I'm honestly not sure which came first: the upscale food truck, or the pop-up restaurant.

   Yet, with it all, comes some debate. When the NY Times recently sent their Atlanta bureau chief to do a write up on our food scene, for many it read like a collection of back-handed compliments. Or even just the back-hand, with no less than 9 mentions of "hipsters." I couldn't blame her, too much; we do have a good amount of signal: noise.

   Take Nashville's publicist-per-capita ratio and add it to social media flacks reaching for cool-by-association as one part of a tripod; for the second leg, consider locals who look back on Jody Faison's restaurants with nostalgia for the actual food; for the third, everyone who's eaten on the coasts and major heartland cities where food gets shipped to, as distribution points. Then sit back and listen to the debate: "they want how much for that grilled cheese sandwich?" That's basically what happened in the pages of the Nashville Scene last winter, not long after the pop-up Otaku South appeared on the map.

     I haven't gotten around to very many of the food trucks; I did once give into childhood longings at an entertainment event and order up a mocha-flavored sno-cone. As I was gulping it down, another patron commented on how awesome they were. I agreed, but questioned whether they were really $4 awesome. "But that's real coffee in there," he pointed out. I also did have the wonderfully sloppy cheeseburger. You know the one. I may again, one day.

  The crux to me, and others whose food experiences did not begin in or remain limited to Middle Tennessee, is this: authenticity and freshness never seemed really high on the priority list of the average Nashville restaurant until ever more outsiders connected and made our homes here. Now that entrepreneurs are finally picking up on and exploiting that, the ball is in our court whether or not to support them.

   I suspect a large part of the reason Nashville was always so notorious for mediocre restaurants, among the better-travelled, is because of Tennessee's bar and restaurant laws; if you serve liquor, you can be penalized for not also serving enough food. Result? The haunts that really wanted to be bars became restaurants. Wonderful places to hang out with your friends; and if the salsa was the best thing on the menu, if it actually was a particularly fine salsa, that alone could make it a great restaurant in the minds of heavily social types who chose that particular hang-out because it was, simply, a cool place to hang out with their friends and drink.

In upstate NY where I grew up, a night on the town started with dinner and then moved to your nightclub of choice. Sometimes, in reverse. In Nashville, because of liquor laws, you can head straight to the nightclub and, instead of having an aged steak or hand-made ravioli, there's a big soft pretzel waiting for you, with honey-mustard. Or maybe something more substantial - like a turkey wrap.

What this new generation of restauranteurs, especially the truck operators, is offering Nashville is an emphasis on the food experience, rather than the drinking one.

Enter the noodle. Here's what the Scene and others have already told us about Sarah Gavigan's history with ramen.

Now that I've finally had the much-hyped and, considering what's available in Nashville, maligned Otaku South noodles - two different flavors - here's what I will tell you: this is the good stuff. Everything in the bowl tastes remarkably clean, in the way that oysters taste clean if they get to you within 24 hours of the harvest. If you went to a high-end restaurant that paid real estate taxes and anchored neighborhoods, and ordered a bowl of these noodles, you'd probably get 1/3 to 1/4 size the serving at half the price. You would not blink. Neither would I.

Which leads to another question: like the way Tennessee liquor laws encourage us to lower the bar for what we perceive as good restaurants, what good thing might we discouraging when we promote, as a trend, creating an upscale, nomad, restaurant business out of a one-course meal?

Otaku South Extra Large pop-up at Marathon Music Works

 But I don't really want to wrestle over that one, today. Today, what concerns me is the question, "is it really $16 awesome?" I have to say "yes." If you're a schlep like me, go ahead and split it if you can. There is more here than noise.

Coda: ML Rose Pub

Although Higgins and I have long since agreed Burger UP is  the best Nashville has for red-meat patties long ago, and it's still pretty much true, I thought I'd come back and update you with one or two we didn't get the chance to hit at the time, and also put some time in for the new kids on the block.

The Melrose Pub (or as it's now officially known, M.L. Rose Craft Beer & Burgers, for expansion outside of the Melrose neighborhood in Nashville's untrendy South side) was already known to have a wonderful burger for some time and, in fact, Higgins and I were headed there to confirm it the fateful day we instead wound up in 12 South, chowing down on Miranda Pontes' creation. This nod is way overdue.
 

Nearly mooing

 Juiciness: 7. The burger was incredibly moist (cooked rare-medium-rare), with very little meat juice — maybe a few drops. There was more grease, though not overwhelming.

Flavor: 6. Most of what I tasted was the surrounding enhancers; cheddar cheese, mustard, bacon, bun. They were all good, though.

Attractiveness: 10. Come on, look at those pics — and that's only a bright-normal phone. I also need to bring up texture on the ML Rose burger. Its tenderness reminds me of the kind of burger I'd get back home in the Adirondacks, in a town too small to have a Sysco Foods store. The menu claims their meat is local and I've got to give them props for apparently going a step beyond: if I had to guess, I'd say this is one of the few burgers you could get in Nashville where the meat wasn't smushed (go read what Alton Brown has to say about meat proteins and texture) and frozen. At least, it looks and feels like it.

Atmosphere: 10. ML Rose has the look and feel of a blue-collar tavern, but white-collar eaters look like they belong there just as well (unless they're coming in pre-tanked from a $300 a plate fundraiser in the more tony section of Franklin Road, but that's a whole 'nuther episode).

Digestivity: 9. Very little in the after-effects & after-taste department.

Overall experience: 8. The burger rocks, true, but $4.50-$5 for a pint of Yazoo? Really?