You might truly make the point that if I was going to be in Louisville, I could have visited one of the city’s many iconic or vintage or awesome and independent restaurants. Good grief, the nation’s only remaining Ollie’s Trolley is in Louisville, and surely I should see that. But this was a very rare trip for me to a city that I do not love, and I had places in western Kentucky waiting for me. My daughter and I love Cincinnati-style chili, and so we beat a path to a Skyline, and I dropped her with her people, and I moved on out of town. Continue reading “Skyline Chili, Louisville KY”
McNamara’s Irish Pub and Restaurant, Nashville TN
I love it when a newspaper puts together a nice and entertaining backstory about a restaurant. A few months ago, Brad Schmitt at The Tennessean did a nice little writeup about Sean and Paula McNamara, and the story of how the two met, he a singer who was performing about 300 shows a year around town, and she a visitor from Northern Ireland who came by Mulligan’s, where Sean fronted the house band, and happened to hear him sing. They married three years after that and opened their pub, McNamara’s, a little more than a decade later. Sean still sings with his group Nosey Flynn four nights a week in the main room of the large restaurant. If this were not a weekday evening and our hosts had to get up at disagreeable hours and go to their jobs Friday morning, I’d have liked to have stayed and heard them play. Continue reading “McNamara’s Irish Pub and Restaurant, Nashville TN”
Ed’s Fish and Pizza House, Nashville TN
When you read article after article about hot chicken in Nashville, you’re certain to find references to hot fish as well. There are a few older restaurants that serve both of these, including a couple that have been on my wishlist for an age, but I still have a little daydream about tackling several of these joints, one after another, on one glorious and possibly painful Saturday. Continue reading “Ed’s Fish and Pizza House, Nashville TN”
Center Point Pit Barbecue, Hendersonville TN
After lunching in Chattanooga, my daughter and I continued up I-24 listening to her Eighties Alternative station on Pandora, prompting her to note, after the station played “Blue Monday” and “How Soon is Now” back to back, that songs were really long in the 1980s. Our next stop was in Antioch, where we picked up our friends Brooke and Matt. Regular readers might recall that the last time we were in the Nashville area, it was to attend their wedding. They helped schedule an afternoon of shopping and finding a few vintage and thrift places for my girlchild to look at clothes. Appropriately, considering how she’s been enjoying New Order and The Smiths, she picked up a very, very 1980s sweater. Continue reading “Center Point Pit Barbecue, Hendersonville TN”
The Yellow Deli, Chattanooga TN
Since 2012, I’ve taken five “circumnavigations,” little two-day eating fests around areas that we don’t often visit. I checked the calendar, and another one was coming up on the horizon as a maybe, and my daughter expressed a desire to see her mother in Kentucky for a little while. I decided to turn the traditional circumnavigation into a drop-off trip instead and expanded it with extra time in Nashville on the way up and a great big wonderful detour on the way back. Continue reading “The Yellow Deli, Chattanooga TN”
10th & Piedmont, Atlanta GA
Last week, Marie and I were invited to 10th & Piedmont to meet Executive Chef Javier Rivera sample some of this two year-old restaurant’s popular menu items. It’s in a really lovely space on the corner of… well, you know… in the former home of a bookstore, OutWrite. It’s more than just a restaurant; every other Wednesday evening, they open the huge windows and move some of the tables around for a painting class! Co-owner Gilbert Yeremyan was there to talk with us as well, His company, Communitas Hospitality, also owns two sister restaurants in midtown: Hobnob, which is on the corner of Monroe and Piedmont, and G’s, which is in the space next door. Continue reading “10th & Piedmont, Atlanta GA”
Bill’s Bar-B-Q, Hull GA (take two)
The only really disagreeable part of this hobby is noting when a restaurant that we’ve visited has closed. It’s especially irritating when it’s a place that we never really gave a fair chance. Many years ago (mid-nineties, I guess), I decided that Bill’s Bar-B-Q in Hull, just north of Athens, wasn’t quite as thrilling as Zeb’s, about twenty miles up the road. Over time, this deteriorated in my dingbat head into thinking it wasn’t all that good. We revisited the place in 2011, and I was half-aggravated about how I gave them a shorter shrift than they deserved, and half-thrilled by how good it was. Continue reading “Bill’s Bar-B-Q, Hull GA (take two)”
Marie, Let's Eat! 