Best of Nashville
Best Restaurant That Deserves More Fuss: Parco Café
Calling Chun and Tsuo Fu’s basement restaurant the most elegant thing in Printers Alley is a bit like praising the tasty pork chops on a strip club’s all-you-can-eat buffet: the surroundings don’t exactly elevate the compliment. So howzabout we call this one of the best restaurants downtown, period—a place where the exquisite presentation runs neck-and-neck with taste and pleasure, from the justly famous desserts to a seafood soup that arrives crested with a billowing cloud of pastry. Fans of the Fus’ tiny Farmers Market lunch kiosk can’t help but wish they’d moved almost anywhere other than downtown, with its parking hassles and traffic congestion. (Thankfully, Mr. Fu’s renowned veggie burger—you heard me—made the trip unscathed.) But the rewards begin the moment you descend the steep steps to a windowless dining room awash in deep warm reds and wooden fixtures. By the time you’ve had your first sip of bubble tea, the outside world has disappeared—one more reason the Life & Casualty lunch crowd should beat a path to Parco. —JIM RIDLEY
Best New Restaurant, Classic: Watermark
Opening a restaurant was a long-held dream of successful health care executive and Nashville native Jerry Brown; Watermark, which he opened late in November 2005, was a most generous gift to his hometown. Within the gorgeously realized two-story space that converted a former print shop into an elegant restaurant, Watermark embraces its guests with an engaging marriage of Old South manners and grace and New South energy and verve. As he no doubt learned in the business world, successful ventures are team efforts, and Brown drafted wisely when he recruited Nathan Lindley as general manager and Chef Joe Shaw to create the menu and run the kitchen. Both came with references from Birmingham’s acclaimed chef and restaurateur, Frank Stitt. Lindley runs the front of the house with cool class and calm confidence, while Shaw warms the soul with thoughtfully simple foods flavored by seductive Southern chivalry. Whether gathering with family and friends for a leisurely meal in the serenely sophisticated dining room, rendezvousing in the sexy bar for cocktails or dining al fresco under the stars on the patio, Watermark has made an indelible mark on the city’s dining landscape. —KAY WEST
Best Cheap Restaurant to Take Out-of-Towners: Arnold’s Country Kitchen
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For culinary adventurers, the idea of the nondescript-looking dive that serves legendary regional chow beckons like a grail—and is usually about as easy to find. Seek ye no further than Arnold’s on Eighth Avenue South, where 8 bucks’ll get you homemade pecan pie, homemade lemonade that’ll dissolve your tooth enamel, and (depending on the day) your choice of plump garlicky roast, fried oysters, chicken and dressing, fried green tomatoes, gooey mac ’n’ cheese or turnip greens doing the backstroke in fatback, accompanied by moist corncakes the size of flapjacks. Every Thursday is Chicken Liver Day: only a fool or a tenderfoot would fail to mark his calendar. —JIM RIDLEY
Best New Restaurant, Cutting Edge: Radius10
Jason Brumm exudes self-confidence. Some might call him cocky. While that might not be what you’re looking for in a pastoral counselor, when it comes to divorce attorneys and chefs, self-esteem is a trick of the trade. To open his own restaurant last December, the young Brumm had to use every trick he could pull out of his toque—not that he wears one, favoring ball caps over old-school chef headgear. Radius10 was one of a dozen upscale restaurants to open last year, and the third of three high-profile restaurants to open in the Gulch in the last three months of 2005. On the ground floor of a nondescript corner building, his is rather out of the inner loop and takes some effort to locate. But once found, Radius10 becomes unforgettable, thanks to its dazzling white-on-white, modernist urban interior, ridiculously attractive staff, incredible view from the patio, action-packed chefs’ bar, and food that delivers on Brumm’s vow to tantalize taste buds and raise the dining bar in Nashville. In less than a year, he has established several menu items as signatures, among them fried calamari fingers, Kobe beef short ribs with black truffle grits, seared skate wing and banana beignets with chocolate-peanut-butter ice cream. Brumm may be the new kid in town, but he’s got the chops of a seasoned pro. —KAY WEST
Best Hot Chicken to Rival Prince’s: 400°
For crystal, there’s Waterford; for chic menswear, there’s Armani; and for hot chicken, Nashville’s proudest regional delicacy, there’s Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack—the atomic cluck by which all others are measured. But this Clarksville Highway upstart has muscled its way to the big boys’ table with a bird that gives Prince’s its fiercest competition yet. Deep-fried, unlike Prince’s skillet-fried fare, the chicken at 400º has a thicker crust and similar flaming proportions of paprika and cayenne, guarded by proprietor Aqui Simpson as jealously as the Manhattan Project. If it’s not quite as juicy as that at Prince’s, it also doesn’t leave the same scalding all-day burn—more afterglow than scorched earth. And Simpson ups the ante with pork chops as thick as a Bebe Moore Campbell novel and twice as spicy. The place is even smaller than Prince’s (two tables plus one narrow counter), and the handmade specialties take just as long to prepare: fast food this ain’t. But you can’t rush hot chicken any more than you can speed up tantric sex. —JIM RIDLEY
Best Hookah: Funkoush’s, 821 Murfreesboro Road
Stepping onto Funkoush’s big wooden porch, with its colorful cloth canopy, is like entering a Bedouin tent. The sweet, pungent smell of tobacco smoke fills the air, along with the throbbing drums and plaintive wailing of Arab-language music videos playing on a giant screen TV. East African, Egyptian and Arabic men—the place is almost exclusively patronized by men—sit on comfortable cushions drinking sweet, strong, mouth-scaldingly hot tea and chattering in exotic languages on cell phones. The hookahs themselves—actually called hubble-bubbles by Middle Eastern devotees—are filled with lumps of thick-cut, sticky, flavored tobacco, known in Egypt as shisha. Funkoush’s also has a full menu of Egyptian delights like roasted chicken with hot sauce, kabobs and homemade hummus. Open from early evening until 5 a.m., the place is packed all night with a veritable U.N. of local cabdrivers. Attached to a scummy Best Western, the building might be on Murfreesboro Road, but the atmosphere is strictly Cairo. —P.J. TOBIA
Best Hot Wings: Nuttin’ But Wings
Wing joints have sprung up faster than kudzu in every strip mall from Bellevue to Antioch, but so far there’s only one Nuttin But Wings, worth the haul out Clarksville Highway to its hard-to-see home in a small shopping center at 3538 W. Hamilton Ave. At Walter Box’s chicken coop, you’ll find uncommonly toothsome wings, neither undercooked and rubbery (a sign of hurry you get in some high-volume wing-eterias) nor overcooked until they’re hard to tell from the bone. And even the maximum heat setting, the aptly named “Nuttin’ But Hot,” doesn’t scald your tastebuds so thoroughly you can’t enjoy the tangy subtlety of the sauce—although the “Honey Hot” has even more flavor and cumulative heat. Pain was never so pleasurable. —JIM RIDLEY
Best Alternative to Fast Food: Kalamata’s
The next time you spend 20 bucks on a bag of fries and reconstituted chicken parts for your family supper, think about this: for relatively the same amount, you could eat a fresh, healthy and interesting meal of Middle Eastern fare like falafel, salads, grilled chicken, lamb sausage, marinated vegetables and baklava. With takeout and casual dining in, Kalamata’s is fast, fresh and delicious. Plus, when chef Maher Fawaz scolds you for always ordering the same thing, it makes you feel like one of the family. No one in the Big Burger industry gives a McCrap if you eat a Quarter Pounder every meal of every day, but Maher cares. He doesn’t want you eating a lamb gyro plate all the time. That gets boring. He wants you to try a kabob or the tuna special. After all, you deserve a break today. —CARRINGTON FOX
Best Side Item: Deviled Eggs, BrickTop’s
Thoroughly retro, steeped in nostalgia, the humble deviled egg is the backbone of countless community suppers, picnics, holiday buffets and funeral suppers, yet rarely does it appear on contemporary restaurant menus. Bricktop’s, newly opened on West End Avenue, shoots an arrow of love from the kitchen straight to the heart of diners with the inclusion of deviled eggs among its sides. According to deviled egg purists—no contrived interpretations or fancy add-ins please—Bricktop’s gets it exactly right, just like Mom used to make. —KAY WEST
Best Breakfast: Silver Sands
Nellie McAdoo’s cinderblock soul-food joint off Jefferson near the Farmers Market is a glutton’s paradise, especially in the early morning hours when truckers, regulars with folded newspapers and red-eyed working men line up cafeteria-style at the kitchen window. Behind the window, there may be three women standing shoulder to shoulder, somehow managing to fill plates in all directions without bumping a single biscuit into the country-ham pan. Not that I’d mind if they did: the puck-sized biscuits are all buttery golden crust on the outside and steamy-soft inside, perfect for sopping up drippings. On the off chance my beleaguered cardiologist is reading this, I won’t own up to downing two scrambled-to-order eggs, creamy grits, biscuits, thick hash browns crusted in miracle-elixir bacon grease, and a shoe-sized slab of the salty country ham—certainly not in one sitting, and absolutely not for about 7 bucks (plus orange juice). Hey, doc, it’s a living—however foreshortened. —JIM RIDLEY
Best Restaurant Bargain: Molly P’s Leftover Pastries
If you study traffic patterns closely, you might notice a late-afternoon parade of cars circling Molly P, the newest enterprise of chef Martha Stamps. That’s when the eclectic restaurant packs up its pastries—cookies, croissants and muffins left over from breakfast and lunch—and sells them for $3 to $5 a box, depending on what treasures are inside. Far from stale bread, the assorted packages make for thoughtful gifts or creative afternoon snacks. —CARRINGTON FOX
Best Homegrown Chain: J. Alexander’s
Yes, it’s a chain, but it’s our chain, homegrown in Nashville and slowly spreading its successful recipe to other cities. We’ve even got a new Jack’s on West End Avenue, with a slightly more downtown vibe than White Bridge Road, which is still the family headquarters. The chicken fingers—among the best in town—are a perfect meal for the little guys, and the ahi tuna salad will have their chain-hating parents eating their judgmental words about corporate cuisine. Try the salsa, a rich, chunky concoction that could double on the menu as gazpacho, and the guacamole special, with decadent chunks of fresh avo. The Alex salad, with generous piles of bacon, diced cucumbers, tomatoes and cheese, comes with honey-drizzled croissants, but you have to ask for them—possibly the best-kept restaurant secret. —CARRINGTON FOX
Best Nashville-Made Savory Food Product for Retail Distribution: Savory Secret Cheesecakes
There’s no factory churning out these robustly flavored cheesecakes, just two female caterers—Amy Hakola and Susannah Calloway—who decided to turn a buffet staple that had won raves for years from clients into a nationally marketed and available product. The golden-crusted rounds come in seven flavors—including mushroom and fontina, Gorgonzola and pear, and sun-dried tomato and basil—and are purchased and/or delivered frozen, then heated in your home oven and served with their other product, Spicy Crisps. Available online at www.savorysecret.biz and through Plumgood Food home-delivery grocery store. —KAY WEST
Best Not-So-Cheap Restaurant to Take Out-of-Towners: Loveless Café
When visitors (especially Northerners) mention “home cooking” and get that faraway gleam in their eyes, they don’t mean they just want a plate of meat-and-three, however divine (see Arnold’s above, or Swett’s, or Silver Sands, or the Kleer-Vu in Murfreesboro). They want to be the motorist in that Andy Griffith Show episode who breaks down in Mayberry and is forced to succumb to the locals’ hospitality and relaxed lifestyle—in short, they want their nostalgia confirmed for something they’ve never experienced firsthand, if indeed it ever existed. The closest they’re likely to get in Nashville is the Loveless, which now has cooking to match its reputation and down-home ambiance. Thanks to the irresistible photos of visiting dignitaries and the new surrounding annex of shops in the old Loveless Hotel facilities, the (likely) wait for a table only enhances the experience: the place practically asks, “What’s your hurry?” No hurry at all, now that the famed fried chicken, country ham, biscuits and pies are as good as customers 10 years ago wanted to believe. —JIM RIDLEY
Best Vietnamese Vermicelli: Miss Saigon
A bowl of cool, delicate white rice noodles, pickled vegetables, mint, peanuts, thin chunks of marinated, charbroiled chicken, beef, pork or shrimp, all covered in a punchy sauce of garlic, fish sauce and chiles—does it get any better? Vietnamese vermicelli is one of the most versatile meals around: light and refreshing as a summer treat, but hearty enough for a winter evening—when the mint and crunch are welcome reminders of earlier, sun-filled days. Here in town, Miss Saigon does it best, with meat that’s tender and salty and nuoc cham sauce with just the right amount of throat-tickling heat. Best of all, you can get a huge, healthy meal for under 6 bucks. —LEE STABERT
Best Squid: Siam Cuisine
Nine times out of 10, when you can get squid in the city, it’s fried, which kills the flavor. The sushi emporia around town step it up, certainly, providing more options, but no restaurant delivers more consistently delicious squid, prepared with just the right amount of time, love and spice, than Siam Cuisine. Good squid is tender, not rubbery, and the way that the chefs at Siam Cuisine serve it up is majestic, resplendent, in spicy sauces and submissive vegetables. It keeps the squid-lover in me coming back again and again. —JASON SHAWHAN
Best Meal When You Have a Cold: Mojo Wings, Mojo Grill
When you’ve got a solid brick of congestion lodged in your temples, the last thing you care about is taste. You just want to stick a shotgun up your sinuses and blast a clear path out the other side. Conventional wisdom says go with Noshville’s chicken soup and toss in a fat matzoh ball for comfort, but contagion wasn’t meant to be coddled. Instead, make your body as inhospitable to hostile bacteria as possible—and nothing says, “This will not stand” like emptying a full clip of Mojo’s fieriest wings into a cold. The sauce’s delectable molasses-sweet base is appreciated in every finger-sucking drop—but really, it’s just a layer of M&M candy coating on a bullet. —JIM RIDLEY
Best Mobile Taco Stand: Tacos y Mariscos Lopes 2
Get in line behind paint-splattered, Spanish-speaking day laborers for one of the best burritos in town. Just $4.50 gets you a torpedo of deliciousness, full of fresh cilantro, beans, pico de gallo and your choice of meat and served with a big hunk of lime and cool sliced turnips. A giant black drum-like smoker/grill sits in the parking lot where amazing puerco asado and juicy char-grilled chicken are prepared alongside a full menu de mariscos. (Try the shrimp.) Open late during the week and till at least 2 a.m. on weekends. —P.J. TOBIA
Best Chocolate Milkshake: Noshville
Nashville Scene writers have conducted the definitive straw poll of chocolate shakes, and the winner is Noshville, with its recipe of Purity ice cream, milk and Fox’s U-bet chocolate syrup imported from the Big Apple. At just $4 for a large, the Noshville shake is not only the best in town, it’s also a relative bargain. —CARRINGTON FOX
Best Gift-Basket: Plumgood Food Basket of Bliss
Looking for something to say Thanks, Good Luck, Sorry, Get Well? Nobody ever ate a greeting card, and who’s got time to make a casserole? Plumgood Food, Nashville’s organic grocery delivery business, makes it easy to act on your good intentions without having to leave your house or bake something at 350 degrees for an hour. Order up a Basket of Bliss, an assortment of healthy snacks, fruits and chocolates for about $30, and the purple Plumgood truck will deliver the next day. While you’re shopping for your gift basket, check out the groceries and prepared foods available at www.PlumgoodFood.com. —CARRINGTON FOX
Best Place to Get Drunk on a Monday Night: Mercy Lounge’s 8 Off 8th
There two especially laudable things about Mercy Lounge’s weekly 8 off 8th: it’s free and you never have to sit through more than three songs of a band you can’t stand. These Monday night lineups, which usually feature eight acts, can encompass everything from local buzz bands to singer-songwriters to nascent side projects. The atmosphere is upbeat and relaxed and the room is filled with people patting themselves on the back for making it out on a Monday night. —LEE STABERT
Best Mexican Boxing Restaurant: San Jose Fiesta
Working for Don King, Jose Arelleno has been a corner man for some great—and not so great—fighters. Now Arelleno, who also owns a very good restaurante y bailaria on Nolensville Road, has opened a Mexican restaurant with a boxing arena. The food’s good and the fighting’s just getting started at 99 Wallace Road, across from Hooter’s. Though Arelleno’s first card featured mostly female and amateur fighters, he’s worked out a deal with Spanish-language TV to broadcast his fights around the globe. That should attract bigger name boxing talent to complement the tasty tortas, burritos and sopas on his menu. —P.J. TOBIA
Best Iced Coffee: Kien Giang
It’s really rather simple. A small-brew pot of coffee, drained into a cup with just a bit of condensed milk at the bottom. You remove the pot, stir the coffee, pour it over ice, and the end result puts the endless permutations of iced coffee available everywhere (including McDonald’s) to shame. When sugar and caffeine play nice together, as they do here, the end result is simply sublime. Refreshingly cool, but with the sure-handed stoutness that good coffee brings. —JASON SHAWHAN
Best Nashville-Made Sweet Food Product For Retail Distribution: Nashville Toffee Company
Attention food distributors: if you are sending product for sampling to the Nashville Scene, please include enough to feed 75 to 100; when it comes to edible deliveries, staffers are like buzzards on road kill. It’s not pretty. Only because I dropped by the Scene’s Eighth Avenue South headquarters within seconds of a drop-off by a representative of the Nashville Toffee Company did the small package of Dark Almond Chocolate Toffee make it from the front desk to my car. As I was exiting the parking lot, I popped a piece in my mouth, where it melted into a trance-inducing tongue-puddle of sugar, butter, chopped almonds and dark chocolate, tempered by just a hint of saltiness—which is where its evil genius lies. Immediately, I put the car in reverse, grabbed the bag, burst back into the building and took the stairs two at a time to the breakroom, where I left what remained of the toffee on the table and got the hell out of there. An ounce of prevention is worth the pounds I would have added to my hips had I not extricated myself from the vicinity of this slyly irresistible ambrosia. Made by Christina McCoy Cohn from her grandmother and great-grandmother’s recipes, Nashville Toffee is available in dark or milk chocolate, by order, at www.nashvilletoffeecompany.com or at about 30 local retail outlets including Produce Place, Davis-Kidd, Belle Meade Drug Store, Puckett’s Grocery, a kiosk outside Tiffany in the Mall at Green Hills and at TPAC. —KAY WEST
Best Hearty Food Combo: Pint and Pie Night at the Family Wash
Plenty of restaurants have meal combos on the menu—think burger, fries and a coke, soup and salad or fish and chips—but not many can boast a hallowed weekly comfort food event like the Family Wash’s Pint and Pie Night. Tuesday nights are bustling at the tiny Laundromat-turned-neighborhood-pub, and for good reason. Chef Julia Helton has mastered the art of the shepherd’s pie, and she makes both meat and vegetarian varieties. East Nashville regulars are plenty willing to drop 10 bucks for Helton’s signature dish and a pint of brew. Tuesdays at the Family Wash are also home to the Short Sets writer’s night, hosted by Cole Slivka. And did we mention that Yazoo Pale Ale is always on tap? —JEWLY HIGHT
Best Whole Fried Fish (That’s Head ’N’ All): Las Americas
Usually a red snapper, this fish comes moist and crispy with no frills, a few soft tortillas and a cold dollop of sour cream. Forget the inch of fried batter crust that you have to peel through at your local Captain D’s. This fish comes as light as anything fried can be, and the meat tastes like sweet, fresh fish, not a mouthful of oil. Try not to stare too deeply into the eyes, and save the cheeks for last. —P.J. TOBIA
Best New Restaurant Concept, Big Budget: Cabana
Randy Rayburn could easily have lolled about on his considerable laurels as owner of two of Nashville’s most successful, tenured and respected independent restaurants, Sunset Grill and Midtown Café. But echoing the sentiments of the legendary (and considerably older) George Jones, he don’t need no rocking chair, ’cause Papa’s got a brand new bag. Apparently, the view from the front door of Sunset to the building formerly known as Doobee’s-Easy’s-Iguana-Los Cunados (working chronologically backwards) inspired in Rayburn a vision, one that began as a casual, neighborhood bar but over time morphed into the three-ring circus that ultimately set him and his partners (operations wizard Craig Clift and chef Brian Uhl) back more than $1.5 millon. Within the now-7,000-square-foot Cabana compound is the honey-colored wood-paneled front bar and lounge with conversation pit, a mammoth enclosed and roofed patio in the rear with roll-up garage doors, 10 curtained private alcoves that give the place its name, and a revolving cast of professional athletes, country music stars, local celebrities and peripatetic party packs. The experience you have depends on which part of Cabana you occupy. Chef Uhl’s menu deftly balances upscale bar food—notably his signature Tennessee Sliders and house-made potato chips with gorgonzola cheese sauce—with moderately priced, substantial Southern-flavored bistro dishes like hanger steak, roast chicken, pork chop, trout and pastas. —KAY WEST
Best Large Helpings: Belle Meade Buffet
When he was a wee lad in the orphanage, Dicken’s Oliver Twist received a ladle blow to the head when he finished his gruel, walked up to the master, bowl in hand, and said: “Please, sir, may I have some more.” If he had come to this place, tiny Oliver would never have had to pose the question. The lady at the salad bar dishes up the fruit or the salad or the beets and onions until they are falling helter skelter out of bowl. Ask for the country fried steak or the liver and onions or the veal cutlet, and you get a wrangler portion of the cow. Select fish and you suspect the fleet just came in with nets bursting. It’s the same with the green beans, new potatoes, broccoli or squash casserole, cream corn, and all the rest—all gloriously over-served and overcooked, just the way many Southerners love it. The place reminds you of what Ned McWherter once said about the governor’s mansion: “You ask for something out here and they bring you two of it.” One of the few persons known to have parodied Oliver Twist by asking for more in this buffet line was political gadfly John Jay “Lawsuit de Jour” Hooker, who once leaned forward and said to a serving lady, “Give me that larger piece of fried chicken. I’m a big guy.” So, he got the better part of the hen. —JOSEPH SWEAT
Best Dosas: Woodlands
Indian food brings to mind curries and tandoori chicken, but the cuisine of South India requires a completely different vocabulary with iddly, uthappam and vadas. A major component of the menu will be dosas, over-sized crêpes usually made from rice flour stuffed with vegetables and served with sambar and chutney. Woodlands restaurant on West End Avenue offers a page full of dosa variations, and one of the best is a house specialty, pesarat uppma, made from green lentil flour and filled with onions, hot green chilis and cream of wheat. —DAVID MADDOX
Best Country Ham: Silver Sands
Country ham is one of the South’s great gifts to humanity, but it seems to be devilishly hard for restaurants to get it right. Order it for breakfast or in a meat-and-three, and you’re likely to get something hard and dry. Silver Sands off Jefferson Street does not have this problem. The salt flavor pops when it hits your mouth, the meat feels silky on the tongue, and it will crumble between your teeth. Add to it thick grits (not soupy gruel) and eggs cracked in front of your eyes (not poured from a bag) and you might as well be in Granny’s kitchen. —DAVID MADDOX
Best New Restaurant Concept, Shoestring Budget: Mothership BBQ
What do George Clinton, Parliament Funkadelic, the blogosphere, ’70s album cover art, Burt Reynolds, naked Ken dolls, Dum Dum lollipops, barbecue and Berry Hill have in common? Jim Reams, a former rock ’n’ roll drummer/cruise ship musician/live theater promoter/aspiring novelist/caterer, who brought the seemingly disparate elements of his career together to launch Mothership BBQ this summer. Located on an out-of-the-way street in Berry Hill, his little joint blasted off thanks to local bloggers with whom he had developed an affectionate and mutually supportive online relationship. Word spread—on the Internet and through more conventional forms—and soon enough, people were coming from miles away to check out his ’cue, and get a gander of Nashville’s most photographed ladies room, thanks to the leopard-skin throw, vintage Burt Reynolds Cosmo centerfold spread, disco ball and birdcage full of neutered male strippers. All of that would be so much fluff if Reams—one of the most erudite and literate men to spend his day rubbing racks and butts—didn’t have some of the best ribs and pulled pork in town to back it up. —KAY WEST
Best Local Beer: Yazoo Pale Ale
From the snobbiest beer connoisseur to the drinker who’s never thrown back a cold one he didn’t like, this local brew offers something for everyone. Its flavor is mild enough to appeal to the typical domestic drinkers, but with hints of bold flavors that allow the pickiest beer elitists to wax poetic about what they like to call “subtle nuances.” This beer is one of Yazoo Brewing Company’s best sellers for a reason. And it’s cheaper than most fancy-pants imports. With a smooth, crisp and complex taste, this pale ale complements everything from burgers and fries to spicy Mexican fare. It stands alone quite nicely, too, beer after beer after beer after beer. I detect a bit of citrus when I sip on this lovely libation, but I’m no aficionado. I just know a good beer when I taste it, and this fits the bill. You can pick up a six-pack at local convenience stores and groceries, or, even better, try one on its home turf at the Yazoo Tap Room in Marathon Village. —SARAH KELLEY
Best Sushi Bargain: Sam’s Sushi Bar
Just follow directions, write your order clearly, and whatever you do, don’t ask Sam any stupid questions. Even if you do say something that doesn’t sit well with Sam, you still can expect a tasty and satisfying sushi meal at a great price. This hole in the wall at 200 Fourth Ave. N. offers a few weekday lunch specials, including one sushi roll (the biggest I’ve ever seen) and three pieces of nigiri for only $4.75. Even though the rolls aren’t always impeccably assembled, the fish looks and tastes incredibly fresh. The dining room is small and crowded, but Sam is quick behind the counter, even though he works solo taking and making orders. He’s a bit temperamental, prompting regulars to call him the Sushi Nazi, but in his own special way he welcomes newbies who don’t quite know how the system works. And don’t even think of trying to tip Sam—it only makes him angry. Just go with the flow and enjoy the best sushi bargain in the city. —SARAH KELLEY
Best Comfort Food: Caffe Nonna
Individual notions of comfort food almost invariably thread back to childhood. It might be fried chicken, beef stew, grilled cheese sandwiches, matzoh ball soup or tuna noodle casserole. For chef Daniel Maggipinto, and anyone else who grew up in—or even in the vicinity of—an Italian family, it was a big pot of sauce simmering on the stove, wafting the intoxicating scent of tomato, onion, garlic, oregano and basil through the house, through the neighborhood, beckoning children home to a bowl of spaghetti and meatballs, lasagna, baked ziti or chicken Parmesan. Lucky for us, when Danny grew up, he took his grandmother’s recipes and opened a restaurant that would re-create the warm memories of his childhood; he even named it in her honor, Caffe Nonna. From the moment one enters this lively restaurant in Sylvan Park, one is embraced and enveloped by family, from the warm welcome extended by Bob Sillers at the front door, to the friendly bustle of the service staff, to the glimpse of Maggipinto hard at work in the kitchen. Regulars peek in through the small window to say hello, ask after the wife and kids, and wonder how the lamb is tonight. No matter what your personal notion of comfort food is, a meal at Caffe Nonna is home sweet home. —KAY WEST
Best Near-Orgasmic Food Item: Butterscotch Habanero Bread Pudding at Sunset Grill
There are a lot of good dishes to be had at all sorts of restaurants, but there is no single food item in the Nashville area that compares to the butterscotch habanero bread pudding at Sunset Grill. Well-to-do society mavens, session musicians, pot-addled hipsters, businesspeople, bohemians and everyone else who takes a bite of its rich, sensual density are left powerless in the wake of its warm and voluptuous spiciness. It is a series of initially incongruous elements, this dense assembly, but the way those elements combine to create something beautiful is near-overwhelming, like hearing a Liszt rhapsody or playing miniature golf with Angelina Jolie. Butterscotch habanero bread pudding may not be as good as getting laid properly, but no food item in Nashville comes closer to it. —JASON SHAWHAN
Best Fried Pork Chop: Lil’ Cee’s Home-Cooked Meals
Lil’ Cee’s Home-Cooked Meals is the kind of East Nashville secret that will have you crossing the river a lot more often. 605 Douglas Avenue: remember that address, because if you like a finely fried piece of pork, this will have you driving around in the dark with a flashlight looking for something that isn’t even there. It’s easy to make a good fried pork chop, but damned hard to make a great one, and the cooks at Lil’ Cee’s make them great. Tender meat, lightly breaded and fried to perfection. Toss on a little hot sauce, and prepare for greatness, especially with Lil’ Cee’s macaroni and cheese or mashed potatoes. Come early, because sometimes the pork goes quickly. You’ll understand why. —JASON SHAWHAN
Best Samosas: Sitar
The idea of the samosa is in and of itself a remarkable achievement: the nourishing density of potato, the keystone strength of peas, the spices that tie everything together, and all of it fried to crispy perfection. But Sitar takes the idea and makes the execution flawless. Few things can slake hunger as deftly as these delicious crunchy-smooth marvels, and when coupled with the in-house green chutney, the experience is unbeatable. —JASON SHAWHAN
Best Food News: Global Restaurant Warming Continues
A drum roll for these culinary coming attractions: chefs Kim Totzke and Laura Wilson taking over the Ombi kitchen on Elliston Place, Savarino Cucina in Hillsboro Village, Little Havana on White Bridge Road, Flyte World Dining and Wine on Eighth Avenue South, Eastland Café in East Nashville, Nola’s Cafe on West End Avenue, Nero’s Grill in Green Hills, Vinea in 12South, Marché Artisan Foods in Five Points, even more ethnic choices around town, and the unveiling of a brand new, still undisclosed concept restaurant in the made-over Union Station Hotel. Another topic of industry speculation is the upcoming end of the current lease on Mario’s Restaurant in Midtown. Will the legendary restaurateur and bon vivant take another go-round, or call it a career? Stay tuned to As The Restaurants Turn. —KAY WEST
Most Romantic Restaurant: Mad Platter
How many eyes have met, sparks ignited, hearts warmed, desires flamed, hands held, knees pressed, tender kisses exchanged over a linen-covered, softly lit, table for two amid the cozy confines of The Mad Platter? This unassuming restaurant has been luring couples in various stages of commitment to its little corner in Germantown for 17 years, longer even than some of the relationships that began, grew and were celebrated there. Surely, the custody of this special place has been a topic of debate in more than one breakup. Through it all, owners Marcia and Craig Jervis’—who met on a catering job in 1984—marriage has endured the test of time and trials of the industry. Maybe it’s because they so clearly love what they do that romance fills their restaurant with the warmth and glow of a roaring fire. —KAY WEST
Best Restaurant Under $10: Kien Giang
You can’t beat a deal like Kien Giang’s dinner plates. While I am a big fan of the gingered chicken served with rice and vegetables, there are dozens of entrées for less than $6, spanning Vietnamese cuisine from its most accessible to its purest expression of native food. Add in an iced coffee and tip, and you’ve got a full meal experience for 10 bucks. Not to be missed. —JASON SHAWHAN
Best Restaurant Over $20: Margot Café
Margot is everything its reputation promises, which can be a little intimidating at first. The menu, shifting on a daily basis, refuses to coddle the unadventurous, serving freshly made wonders that dazzle the eye and bum-rush the taste buds. To be truthful, I balk at spending big bucks for a nice meal, but I’m damned if Margot doesn’t make it all worth it. You do get what you pay for, and I recall a confection of peach purée and pastry at a friend’s birthday gathering there that had me reaching for the credit card and not thinking twice about it. You can spend hundreds of dollars on a meal, but no restaurant in the city serves up distinctive strength of vision and dynamic menu offerings like Margot. Believe the hype. —JASON SHAWHAN
Best Salsa: Cinco De Mayo
Finding the right salsa can drive a man to madness. With the myriad ways that one can assemble ingredients to make tomato salsas, so much depends on one’s own personal tastes, and none of the options at the many Mexican restaurants around the city has rocked my sense of taste like the basic salsa at Cinco de Mayo. Thick enough to stay put on a chip, yes, but with enough flow to slip down the throat, spreading spicy goodness all the way. The many ingredients puréed achieve maximum mesh with a blend that feels organic, enabling the diner to savor each component. Cilantro is a stern taskmaster, capable of drowning out its associate ingredients if not handled gingerly and with discipline, and Cinco de Mayo keeps its cilantro in check; it threatens to break free and take over, yet never does. And that’s why Cinco de Mayo has the best salsa in town right now. —JASON SHAWHAN
Best Mobile Taqueria Sighting: Belle Meade Boulevard, Driveway of Hope and Cal Turner III
Belle Meade is known for its taste in the finest, but Hope and Cal Turner III really outdid themselves this summer. At a time when some Metro Council members don’t want mobile taco stands parked anywhere in town, the Turners invited one to set up shop in their driveway on Belle Meade Boulevard. And not just in their front yard. Besides playing host to Taqueria TexMex, the taco truck of Pedro and Lorena Gutierrez that’s usually parked at 5529 Charlotte Pike, the Turners had vendors of pupusas, tamales and paletas set up out back as well. The occasion: Sabor, the savory annual celebration of Conexion Americas, the fabulous Tennessee nonprofit that helps Hispanic entrepreneurs get established. Is there any chance the English-only ordinance before the Metro Council could reach Belle Meade? Not in the Turners’ backyard. —BILL FRISKICS-WARREN
Best Place to Make a Night of It: Five Points in East Nashville
There are very few places in this town where you can eat, drink and be merry—all on foot. Hillsboro Village is one, downtown is another. But, for cheaper drinks, fewer college kids, and not even one brand-new cowboy hat or “Music City!” crew-neck sweatshirt, head to Five Points in East Nashville. Start out at Alley Cat for dinner and drinks on the patio and Southwest-influenced cuisine with just enough cheesy, greasy goodness to harden your stomach against the night of drinking ahead. Especially good are the pepperjack chicken sandwich and Mucho Nachos made with a white cheese sauce that has inspired a fanatic following. Then comes the eternal question: 3 Crow or Red Door? I usually vote 3 Crow Bar first, and, when my luck holds, am greeted by Drive-By Truckers on the jukebox. End the night on Red Door East’s back porch with the coldest Jäger-bombs in town. —LEE STABERT