Focusing on local farms to source their meat, the restaurant team has revamped the menu around six signature burgers, which include: The Sunday Brunch, The Balboa, Hell's Kitchen, Juicy Lucy, P.E.T.A (Vegetarian) and The Black & Bleu. Patrons will also be welcome to build their own stuffed burgers from a long list of ingredients. Taps will also serve a selection of gourmet fries including fresh-cut Truffle Fries, Spicy Fries, Stadium Fries, BBQ Fries, Jerk Sweet Potato Fries and Garlic Parmesan Fries. You had me at "Truffle Fries."

Stoney River Legendary Steaks falls into the category of a small chain, with ten locations spread between here and Maryland. While there is certainly the big corporate money of O'Charley's behind the restaurants, each location prepares their own food in house and there is no commissary cooking used. You'd be hard pressed to even find a microwave in a Stoney River, which is certainly not the case at O'Chuck's. Each location is architecturally unique, but they do share decor elements like lots of stone (duh), black leather booths and chairs and at least one red canoe somewhere in the dining area.

The West End location was saddled with the footprint of Rio Bravo, which occupied the space before the current tenant moved in. This is the most urban and urbane location of the chain, and after being open six years they figured it was time for a little remodeling. The first thing they did was to remove the massive fireplace that confronted diners when they entered the front door. While it was impressive, the hearth really closed off the restaurant and hid the lively bar scene. They also removed a wall that divided the bar from the main dining room and replaced it with several clever pass-through booths that are now the most-requested dining locations in the restaurant. From these banquettes, diners can keep an eye on all the action, and general manager Michél R. Johnson can track the pace of service from his station near the front desk or at the bar. (Nice gig.)

That hastily consumed Egg McMuffin or vending-machine honeybun is going to look even less appealing to downtown workers — now that there’s the promise nearby of eggs with Cuban pork tenderloin or an Apalach Omelet of jumbo lump crab meat, sautéed fennel and leeks, mascarpone and béarnaise sauce. The Southern Steak & Oyster, TomKats founder Tom Morales’ lavish new restaurant located in the Pinnacle tower, is already conducting a soft opening this week, gearing up for full-menu service at breakfast, lunch and dinner by week’s end.

Chef Matt Farley, who relocated to Nashville two years from New York (where his credits included a stint at The NoHo Star), is said to be working with Morales on a “south of somewhere” menu that draws inspiration from the Southeast and beyond, be it a pan-fried cornmeal-crusted catfish with pecan rice, stewed okra, tomato and corn ragout to the grouper sandwich Morales envied during a trip to the Bahamas. “Everything on the menu tells a story,” says Renee Kauffman, who’s helping with the restaurant’s launch this week.

The Southern opens for breakfast at 7 a.m. Dinner service begins at 5 p.m., with the kitchen staying open til midnight on Fridays and Saturdays. For more information, see The Southern’s Facebook page or call 724-1762.

Eating at the Wildhorse Saloon definitely falls into this category for most locals. I can't count how many times I've walked right past the front door on Second Avenue on the way to eat lunch at a fast food joint downtown or to grab a pregame beer before a Preds game. I just assumed that the Wildhorse was full of conventioneers from Sheboygan learning to line dance while they ate from a faux meat-and-three buffet. Well, you know what happens when you assume ...

Sure the Wildhorse gets its share or tourists, but there's plenty of room inside for us Nashvillagers to enjoy ourselves too. And my preconceptions about the food were very, very wrong. Executive Chef Laurie Potts has worked at the Wildhorse for most of a decade, and she has introduced a new menu that raises the level of cuisine well above the expected "boneless chicken Marriott" that you would expect from a facility that hosts so many large groups. There's a reason the Downtown Rotary Club eats at the Wildhorse every single Monday. Those barons of Nashville industry could eat anywhere they want, and they're not gonna settle for bad food.

Which brings up another preconception about the Wildhorse - there's no sense eating there because they're always booked up with private events. True, there are probably four or five full buyouts every month, but as long as you consult their online event calendar before you go, you're unlikely to be surprised by 2,000 plumbers sharing stories about Findlay sprinkler heads and Langstrom 7-inch gangly wrenches while dancing the Electric Slide. Instead, you may find yourself sharing the space with several smaller groups genuinely enjoying themselves while they leave some of their discretionary income behind in our fair burg.

Few things can brighten a bad day more than realizing that millions of people plan their whole vacations around visiting the city where you live and work every day. On a recent lunchtime visit, I spent my break listening to a lively country soundtrack and watching ESPN and GAC on the huge televisions that surround the stage. Then out of nowhere, all of the contestants of the Miss Teen America competition suddenly appeared on the dance floor and held an impromptu Hula-Hoop competition to a Black Keys song. I gotta say that beats the hell out of watching the Fox News ticker at a Chinese food buffet.

• From roadfooddigest.com — thanks guys!

It was a dream place: small, tucked away, with terrific handmade food and courtly, polite service. It's the kind of place you hope you discover, and if you do, you'll vow to eat there every day.

Hap's was in the Humphreys Street spot where Gabby's Burgers is now — another just-big-enough operation with a great vibe, excellent food and terrific service. And what's happened is that Gabby's owner Doug Havron has become the historian of Hap Townes.

Veteran Nashville journalist Tim Ghianni talked to Havron and to the 89-year-old Hap for this feature in Nashville Ledger. If you've always wondered what the Hap hype was about, or what it would be like to be the accidental historian of a place with a long and storied past, give it a read.

• Handcut noodles in soup at Korea House

Case in point: the mandukook on the menu at Korea House. It's the very last item on the restaurant's extensive menu. It's described reasonably well, but the description doesn't convey the full impact you'll experience from this basketball-size bowl of handmade dumplings and hand-cut noodles in a homemade broth.

Let me say it again: hand-cut noodles. Making noodles by hand tries the patience, even with a pasta maker. But Korea House isn't using a pasta maker. They're rolling the dough thin, rolling it up, and cutting off noodles by hand. That's clear from the knife marks and slightly uneven noodle sizes, and the occasional noodle that didn't unfurl before cooking.

Then there are the dumplings, stuffed with chicken and scallions, hand folded and crimped.

You've got three choices with the mandukook: noodles only, dumplings only, and half-and-half. Get the half-and-half, and eat the noodles first, giving the dumplings time to cool a little.

The Choi family continue to take pride and care with the food at Korea House. You could look a long time at menus all over town without finding a handmade noodle at any price, making this $9 bowl as good a value as it is a treat.

• Charles Phillips

The dinner is set for May 16. It's the third time in less than a year that Nashville chefs have been invited to cook dinner at the Beard House. The Catbird Seat's Josh Habiger and Erik Anderson cooked there earlier this month, and Jeremy Barlow of Tayst was there in August.

To celebrate, the folks at 1808 Grille are doing some Nashville events next week. A week from today, the regular Wine Wednesday tasting will feature a special slate of appetizers linked to the Beard dinner. Look for four treats, including Confit Gressingham duck leg with lingonberry jam, paired with samples of four wines from the Benziger family winery in Sonoma. That tasting is March 7, from 6 to 7 p.m., and it's $15.

Meanwhile, the restaurant is doing something even fancier for dinner March 7-8 — a five-course local version of the James Beard dinner. To get in on that dinner, just make reservations the usual way, by visiting the restaurant's website or calling 340-0012. Check out the menu after the jump.

• The lamb chops at Shish Kabob

And lucky for you (and more importantly, me), today's bargain at Big Deal Nashville is half-price coupons for Shish Kabob — $20 coupons for $10. I just bought two, and as far as I know, there's no limit. (Keep in mind, only one coupon per table, and they expire May 23.)

Here's an excerpt from my review:

The appetizers are worth the trip alone. All patrons are given a complimentary bowl of a slightly spicy chicken noodle soup, a nice welcoming gesture. Our party consisted of four seasoned House of Kabob veterans, and we were thrilled to find kashk-e-bademjan on the menu, and equally thrilled that the dish — sautéed, pureed eggplant with spices, topped with cream of whey — was every bit as delectable as its Thompson Lane counterpart [at House of Kabob, which Gazi formerly owned]. Opinions were split on the hummus, with some finding it too tart and lemony, and others liking for the same reason. The stuffed grape leaves (dolmeh), however, were unanimously voted the best in town: The ground-sirloin-and-rice filling was accented with a subtle blend of herbs that elicited moans of ecstasy. And while many Nashville iterations of falafel are too dry for our liking, Shish Kabobs' falafel was moist and flavorful, and vanished off the plate in a flurry of blurred hands.

And that's just the appetizers! Get on it fast — deadline is midnight tonight!

UPDATE: I forgot to note earlier, these coupons are good for dinner only.

Great, you're thinking — another article where a relocated celebrity shows an out-of-towner the same five restaurants everybody's covered to death. But this piece by Andrew Knowlton in the February Bon Appetit stands out for several reasons (not least of which is the nimble, colorful but never condescending writing). First, his guide is The Black Keys singer-guitarist Dan Auerbach, who proves he's as knowledgeable about his adopted hometown's specialties as he is about vintage gear and obscure garage-soul sides.

Second, Knowlton's flat-out love letter to Nashville's restaurant explosion manages something few such pieces ever do: It ties what's going on here in local food not just to the city's creative energy in other areas — temple of denim Imogene + Willie is one reference point — but to the "Southern food revolution" spreading like kudzu tendrils across the country. I've never seen it put better or more succinctly:

Suddenly, New Yorkers were eating grits (and loving it). Critics were talking about biscuits and fried chicken like they were blinis and caviar. Nose-to-tail eating, canning, curing, bourbon—things that have been part of the South's culinary traditions for centuries—were now obsessed over from coast to coast. Being Southern and eating Southern were cool; the restaurants and ingredients down South are better than ever. And nowhere was this more apparent, I'd heard, than in Nashville.

Christy Shuff, who co-owns Rumours with managing partner Jenn McCarthy, says that ever since word got out about the wine bar closing (via local blogger Kim Green and Twitter) she's been deluged with calls from customers and neighbors.

"We've been here for a decade in 12South," Shuff says. "You can't imagine all the people calling and offering their support."

She adds, "We're just focusing on how Jenn and I can make the most of the next six weeks and move to an appropriate new location to continue to serve our patrons."

Shuff and McCarthy are looking at several possible new locations. The goal will be to keep as much continuity as possible with the original. "We want to keep it a small and friendly environment," Shuff says, adding with a laugh that she did promise chef Jo Ellen Brown a bigger kitchen.

Shuff says that while she still has four-and-a-half years left on the lease for the little house at 2304 12th Ave. S. and the cottage next door, which she sublets to Blackbird Tattoo and Gallery, she reluctantly agreed to a buyout from the landlord. She declined to give details, but it is believed the property is being eyed for parking for a mixed-use development from H.G. Hill and Southeast Venture that is going in next door at 2310 12th Ave. S.