Cheap Eats

We did it for you, our hungry readers. We stuffed our pockets with $10 bills and debit cards and set out to find the best of the cheapest places to eat in Nashville. Our unscientific criteria were something like this: if you could get a sufficient lunch or dinner there for 10 bucks—give or take tax and tip—then you could nominate it for Cheap Eats status. We scoured the compass points of the county, stood in line at cinder-block shacks on 100-degree days and ate a lot of bad fried fish. We ate more wings than we’d like to remember and discovered biscuits we’ve been dreaming about since. We voracious foodies exchanged some strong words as we hashed out whose favorite Vietnamese place was going to make the list and whose preferred barbecue joint just didn’t cut the mustard. (We were deadlocked on the question of whether to include the Sonic drive-in until we opted to stick with the locals and independents.) When the last falafel was gone and we’d wiped the curry from our faces, we agreed on the following roster of 30 restaurants that just might be more economical—and are almost certainly tastier—than cooking at home. Now, who needs a better rationale for dining out? BOBBIE’S DAIRY DIP 5301 Charlotte Ave. 292-2112 One of the city’s unheralded treasures, this beloved burger stand was about to throw in the spatula after 50 years of business when new owner Claire Mullally stepped up to the fryer five years ago. It’s now a slice of instant Americana, one part Last Picture Show to three parts American Graffiti: a chipper place where bikers and kids’ birthday parties coexist cheerfully while the Hawaii Five-O theme crackles over the loudspeakers. The first thing Mullally upgraded was the food. Where regulars once choked down charred beer coasters for old times’ sake, families now line up for succulent burgers, plump hot dogs, sweet-potato fries and a variety of frozen treats made with ice cream the consistency of pudding. A sandwich combo is the cheapest way to order. Take the kids, get plenty of napkins and go at dusk so you can watch the sun set over Wendell Smith’s Liquors. LA HACIENDA TAQUERIA 2617 Nolensville Road. 256-5066 LA HACIENDA MARISQUERIA Y TAQUERIA 3744 Nolensville Road. 781-2902 For families with kids and anyone who enjoys cilantro, lime or margaritas, the crowded, nacho-cheese-Dorito-colored Hacienda with its adjoining market is the mothership of cheap eating, especially on the weekends, when, more often than not, Hispanic-language cable channel Univision is broadcasting a soccer game or a ridiculous Gong Show-style game show while a diverse crowd noshes on house-made chips and salsa and sucks up fish-bowl margaritas large enough for a whole table. We’ve become addicted to the tostada ceviche, raw fish marinated in lime juice and served on a light, crispy tostada, and the posole, traditional Mexican pork soup made with hominy. (La Hacienda serves red, not green, posole.) A new location, La Hacienda Marisqueria y Taqueria, specializes in seafood. Careful, the chips come in bottomless baskets and are addictive. LAS AMERICAS 4715 Nolensville Pike. 315-8888 LA PLACITA 314 McCall St. 832-6811 Nashville is teeming with inexpensive, and good, Mexican restaurants, but far fewer places serve food from Central American countries El Salvador and Honduras. Of these two highlights, Las Americas is the standby, a place where you can fill up just by ordering two pupusas: flat cornmeal-dough patties stuffed with pork, beans and/or cheese. They come with curtido, a tangy cabbage-carrot slaw that your server will happily replenish when it runs out. Total cost, before tip: 4 bucks. A little closer to town, La Placita sits just off Nolensville Road, next to one of the city’s longtime ethnic standbys, Siam Café. The menu offers a broader range of platos Centroamericos, which incorporate grilled meats, earthy vegetables like yuca, and milder flavors than Mexican food. The enchiladas are markedly different from what you’re probably used to: tortillas wrapped around lightly seasoned ground beef, then topped with stewed cabbage and tomatoes and a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese. Word of advice: don’t order the pork rinds unless you really love the melt-in-your-mouth sensation that comes from eating pure fat. BACK TO CUBA 4683 Trousdale Lane. 837-6711 When Castro took control of Cuba decades ago, Florida became the home away from home for émigrés who fled his regime. Alex Martinez traveled a little farther north to Nashville, where he and his Central American-born wife Rebecca have owned and operated Mama Mia’s Italian restaurant for more than 10 years. With the opening of Back to Cuba, Martinez pays homage to his native island. Cuban food isn’t spicy, but it is highly seasoned, as diners will discover in specialties like lechón (marinated and roasted pork), ropa vieja (beef stew cooked until the meat is in shreds) and pargo frito (fried red snapper, served whole with the head), all of them served with black beans and rice, and two different types of fried plantain, one sweet, one savory. The Cuban sandwich is nearly as good as any found in Little Havana—the classic construction of ham, pork, cheese, pickles and mustard is layered on a length of French bread, swiped with butter, and cooked on a sandwich press until the cheese and meats ooze together in gooey goodness. BAJA BURRITO 722 Thompson Lane. 383-2252 It’s a Friday night, you’re exhausted, there’s no food in the fridge and even if there were, you wouldn’t feel like cooking anyway. Time to pile in the car and head to Baja Burrito. Depending on when you get there, you’ll be dining alongside happy families glad to be somewhere that both parents and kids love, or you’ll be confronted by a line of annoyed-looking twentysomethings chatting on their cell phones, making plans for the evening ahead. Fear not if it’s the latter case; the line moves quickly—quickly enough, in fact, that you may need to think on your feet. Taco, burrito or salad? Black beans or pinto beans? Chicken or beef? Hot or mild? Whatever you get, it’s plentiful and fulfilling, and enlivened by one of our favorite restaurant innovations: the serve-yourself salsa bar. So what’s the difference, you ask, between this place and Baja Fresh? This one’s locally owned—a crucial distinction, in our book—and, by all accounts, better. JAMAICAWAY Farmers Market, 900 8th Ave. N. 255-5920 It’s not every place in Nashville that serves ox tail and curried goat, but Jamaicaway presents a fresh, flavorful menu on a buffet line so clean and cheerful it takes the fear factor out of the exotic experience. Owner Ouida Bradshaw and chef Marjorie Hinds are native Jamaicans who started with a catering business before bringing their jerk, jonny cakes and escoveitch to the lunchtime crowd in 2004. An island twist on the meat-and-three buffet line, Jamaicaway offers various meat and vegetarian curries and an unusual array of sides, including fried plantains, yellow yams and boiled dumplings. Try the wrap sandwiches with meat, salad and Vidalia onion sauce. For information about catering, visit www.jamaicawaycatering.com. HOT KABOBS 336 White Bridge Road. 352-7271 Don’t let the name fool you. Yes, Hot Kabobs offers plenty of worthwhile beef, chicken and veggie kabob options, all cooked over an open flame. But this delightful Persian restaurant on White Bridge Road (just south of Charlotte) also offers several traditional Persian stews featuring unique flavors that set them apart from more familiar Middle Eastern dishes. Our favorites: khoresht fesenjan (pieces of boneless chicken breast in a rich sauce of ground walnuts and pomegranate, a wonderful contrast of sweet and piquant) and khoresht gheimeh (a savory beef stew with split peas and sun-dried lime that has a hint of tartness). All meals are served with a Middle Eastern flat bread perfect for dipping. Take out or eat in the simple but pleasant dining room. TAJ INDIAN FOOD 4504 Nolensville Road. 720-2544 Walk-up food stands are popping up all over town lately, and while the majority of them offer Mexican food or barbecue, we recently stumbled upon this Indian food stand in a parking lot on Nolensville Road just north of Haywood Lane. The menu includes standard Indian fare (though the owner is actually Bangladeshi), including lamb korma, chicken tikka masala, shrimp biryani and several vegetarian options. We’ve found the food to be as good as most of the established full-service Indian restaurants around town and slightly less expensive—and you can call ahead with your order. Taj received a score of 100 on a recent Metro health inspection rating, which is proudly posted on the wall. Don’t see that every day. One tip, though: the naan isn’t baked on-premises, and you’re better off skipping it. KIEN GIANG 5825 Charlotte Pike. 353-1250 MISS SAIGON 5849 Charlotte Pike. 354-1351, 1745 Galleria Blvd. 771-7848 While each of these holes-in-the-wall has its dogmatic loyalists, we’re lumping them together into a collective hub for fresh, delicious Vietnamese food located in an abandoned strip mall on Charlotte Pike. If one’s closed, just go to the other, or visit the Miss Saigon in Cool Springs. Equally ambience-free, these simple eateries nestled in the shadow of a bygone Kroger boast similar menus of pho (traditional rice noodle soup), banh xeo (egg pancakes), goi cuon (vegetables, pork, shrimp and vermicelli wrapped in rice paper) and various noodle and rice dishes with a startling list of proteins, including soft tendon and bible tripe. Vietnamese cuisine places a premium on fresh flavors of lime, mint, cilantro and basil, which accompany many dishes in bountiful green bunches. Try the fresh-squeezed lemonades and sweet, creamy coffees. But nonsmokers beware: while there are designated smoking sections in these one-room establishments, really, what’s the point? INTERASIAN MARKET 2160 Nolensville Pike. 742-3268 We could go on at length about this Nolensville Road ethnic grocery, which stocks products from pretty much every Southeast Asian country, not to mention Mexican items. But with its few tables tucked away in the front corner of the store, it’s also an unsung lunch spot where you can order Thai noodle dishes like lad na or pad si yew, pick up a cellophane-wrapped pack of spring rolls, or get a made-to-order banh mi, the Vietnamese sandwich that piles thin slices of meat, jalapeño, cilantro, cucumber, pickled carrots and more on a loaf of French bread. On weekends, the offerings expand to include barbecue pork. Put your order in at the front, wait for the cooks in back to whip it up, and eat in or take out. Either way, there’s no actual table service, so you save on tipping. This is also one of the few places in town where you can pick up sweets like taro pudding or ka num chan, a wonderfully glutinous, emerald-green Thai confection made from rice flour and coconut milk. The drink case is stocked with all manner of canned beverages, from coconut juice to Thai iced coffee to good ol’ American beer (though you’ll have to wait to drink any alcoholic beverages off premises). HORN OF AFRICA Crescent Center Shopping Center, 1041 Murfreesboro PIke. 366-3468 Few cuisines are more exotic, or more fun to eat, than Ethiopian food. Your meal comes out on a giant platter piled in colorful mounds on a spongy, tangy round of flatbread called injera. Another platter arrives with folded pieces of injera, which serve as edible scoops for spicy stews made with lentils, beef or chicken, along with milder, but no less flavorful samplings of vegetables. Ask for them, and the server will bring a fiery-red hot sauce and a small side of homemade soft cheese. Thanks to the plentiful bread, it’s always a remarkably filling meal, and thanks to the communal nature of the meal, it’s hard to spend more than $10 a person (though eating solo is hardly any pricier). There’s only a handful of Ethiopian restaurants serving Nashville’s small but visible East African population, and this is our favorite, though we’ve just gotten word that it’s under new ownership. The good news is that the menu has expanded to include more than a dozen items—including a salad(!) It’s a modest little storefront, tucked away in a strip center that doesn’t even face the street, but should still be well worth searching out. MOJO GRILL 1900 Broadway. 321-3363 Wedged back there in the Division Street/Broadway triangle, Mojo’s so low-key you might forget about it until that I-could’ve-had-a-V8 moment when it’s too late and you’ve already been to Arby’s instead of tucking into a plate of étouffée, a bowl of gumbo or a Southwest chicken salad. Learn from such mistakes and put Mojo on your list for quick and cheap—but very good and filling—plates of Cajun-Southwestern-Caribbean fare like the Big Mama burrito and the jerk chicken pizza. Eat on the covered patio, inside the snug seat-yourself room, or at the bar of the adjoining Broadway Brewhouse, which serves an endless array of beers on tap. Takeout is available, and Mojo caters out of the kitchen of Brewhouse West, its newly opened and much larger spinoff at 7108 Charlotte Pike. WILMA KAYE’S 575 Stewarts Ferry Pike. 902-0234 The Big Easy comes easy to Louisiana natives Wilma Kaye Hinshaw and her son Randy Ramsey, whose tiny café on Third Avenue attracted a big downtown lunch following, many of whom have tracked the intoxicating scent of gumbo, étouffée and red beans and rice to their new place in the Donelson/Hermitage area. Though the dining room is much larger, and they’re now open for dinner as well, their hit parade of Cajun classics—po’boys, crab cakes, fried oysters, crawfish, shrimp and catfish—is still in play. The signature Cajun fried pie—golden crescents of flaky semi-sweet dough oozing with shrimp and crabmeat au gratin—takes you straight to the bayou. Ramsey’s Cajun-fried chicken fights fire with fire by injecting and marinating the bird with a peppery potion before deep-frying, then finishing it off with a dusting of dry Cajun spice. Cool down with a fried fruit pie à la mode. PRINCE’S HOT CHICKEN SHACK 123 Ewing Drive. 226-9442 In pre-civil rights Nashville, the African American founders and owners of Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack used to make their white customers come in through the back door. These days, no one gets preferential treatment, not even Mayor Bill Purcell, who once put this uniquely local specialty on his list of five things he couldn’t live without. On a recent lunchtime visit to the small strip center storefront, he and his party of bigwigs arrived 15 minutes before the daily noon opening time and had to cool their well-heeled heels until the employees were ready to kick up the heat. Everything is cooked to order, one or two at a time, but it’s well worth the wait. Over the years, there have been many contenders to the hot chicken throne, but among aficionados, Prince’s shack is the undisputed king. Breast or leg quarters are fried in ancient, blackened cast-iron skillets, served on two pieces of white bread and topped with a stack of toothpick-skewered pickle chips; the bread soaks up the grease, and the pickles temper the blaze. Cayenne pepper is the key ingredient, employed in degrees ranging from manageably mild to extra hot, the culinary equivalent of an Improvised Explosive Device. And explode you might if you ignore the advice of experienced flame eaters: the afterburn of hot chicken is best doused with a non-carbonated beverage—fire and fizz can be fatal to the digestive system. JUDGE BEAN’S BAR-B-QUE 123 12th Ave. N. 244-8884 There’s more than a little competition between Tennessee and Texas, what with the Nashville-vs.-Austin fight for musical supremacy, the matter of what UT really stands for, and the question of whose good ol’ boys are gooder and ol’er. So you’ve got to hand it to Aubrey Bean, who’s managed to win over a huge following for his Texas beef brisket barbecue in a city accustomed to the pig. The Judge smokes his brisket for at least 16 hours, yet it’s still moist and pink in the center—there’s no hurrying this kind of delicacy. A regular brisket plate, including two sides (we go with fries and baked beans), will run you $7. If you want to splurge, throw in a couple of Scorpion Diablos—jalapeños stuffed with smoked shrimp (or chicken) and cheese, then wrapped in bacon. The Judge has got new quarters on 12th Avenue North, on the site of what used to be Cafe 123, and expanded hours, until 11 p.m. every night (with a limited menu until 2 a.m. Thurs.-Sat.). SWETT’S 2725 Clifton Ave. 329-4418 Nashville has its share of meat-and-threes, and they all have their loyal customers, but this North Nashville institution remains our favorite. In business at the same location for more than 50 years, it’s one of the pitifully few places where white and black Nashville regularly intersect. Everyone is equally lured by the Swett family’s food, which includes all the standards of Southern cooking: fried chicken, beef tips, pork chops, candied yams, turnip greens, mac-and-cheese, rolls, corn cakes and, of course, plentiful sweet tea. These days, downtown workers and weekend shoppers visit Swett’s satellite location in the Farmers Market, but we remain loyal to the flagship, a brightly lit dining room with plentiful tables and a row of booths in the front. When visitors come to town, there are few better places to take them. BELLE MEADE BUFFET CAFETERIA 4534 Harding Road. 298-1199 It’s probably best if you can find some grandparents to go with you to the Belle Meade Buffet, but even if you travel in a twentysomething posse, they’ll treat you graciously at this Nashville institution for all things buttered, fried, creamed and mashed. Ten bucks buys a lot of Southern hospitality, gravy and refills, not to mention a time warp into a dining room the decades forgot, where mostly black bow-tied waiters carry your tray from serving line to table. (We could live without this uncomfortable tradition.) Daily specials the likes of pot roast, meat loaf and chicken-fried chicken are updated on the voice mail recording at 298-5571 and listed on the website at www.bellemeadecafeteria.com. It’s a long buffet line, so plan ahead to save room for cakes and pies made from scratch. ES FERNANDOS 4704 Gallatin Pike. 227-3060 Unnoticed by commuters as they hurry onto and off of Briley Parkway’s Gallatin Road exit, this unassuming Mexican joint is anything but a typical fast-food restaurant, even if it looks like one from the outside. It’s more like Taco Bell if there’d only ever been one location, it’d been there for several decades and it bore the distinct personality of its owners—who, in this case, are actually Mexican and have festooned the place with old photos and colorful memorabilia. And the food? We wouldn’t call it an authentic taqueria—no carne asada here—but it is the best Mexican fast food you’ll find around these parts: quesadillas, burritos, tacos and the like, with Es Fernandos’ trademark green or red chili sauce slathered on top. And it’s probably one of the flat-out cheapest eats in town. ISTANBUL RESTAURANT 2631 Nolensville Road. 248-6888 Due to both its fabulous food and its proximity to the Nashville Scene, Istanbul has become one of our most popular dining destinations. We love the gyro, kofta (seasoned ground beef), falafel, veggie and combo platters, all served with basmati rice and tabbouleh or cucumber salad. Doner kabob is sort of a gourmet version of the gyro, and equally delectable. And for a quick, affordable lunch that beats the heck out of any fast food restaurant, try Barry’s Special: a gyro sandwich, fries and a canned drink for $5.75. Our latest favorite is the gyro salad, which balances the decadent joys of gyro meat with the health benefits of fresh lettuce, tomatoes, onions, sauce and pita, all for a meager $4.99. Desserts are delicious, particularly the seker pare (a soft cookie dripping in sweet syrup) and the revani (an equally syrupy honey cake). Wash ’em down with an invigorating Turkish coffee. PIRANHA’S 113 Second Ave. N. 248-4375 How do you handle a hungry man? As quickly and efficiently as possible, which is what the progenitors of Nashville’s colossal Piranha sandwich had in mind when challenged by a room full of ravenous truckers on pit stop. Legend has it that the Primanti brothers, who owned a diner in Pittsburgh’s Strip District, a market area of produce and food purveyors and distributors, answered the cry for something fast and filling from the truckers carrying their loads to and from market. The meal on wheels layered meat, cheese, slaw and fries between two slices of bread, and a Steel City tradition was born. When native Pittsburgher Michael Hanlin motored down to Music City a few years ago, he sized us up as a town with a hearty appetite for big food. His sandwich, which he renamed the Piranha, scored big when he test-marketed it in some Broadway bars, so much so that about a year-and-a half ago, he and partner Kirk Evans opened Piranha’s Bar and Grill on Second Avenue, smack in the center of the downtown cruising zone. For less than $7, you can fill your tank with one of 20 different versions of the Piranha, the cheapest fuel in town. Trucker hats optional. HOT DIGGITY DOGS 614 Ewing Ave. 255-3717 In the world of hot dogs, a traditional Chicago dog is considered pedigree, and the ones cooked up by Gayle Davis and Layla Vartanian in their joint enterprise win best of show. A steamed or charbroiled Vienna-brand 100-percent-beef dog is loaded up with yellow mustard, finely diced raw onion, a specially made neon-green relish shipped in from Chi-Town, chopped fresh tomatoes, punch-packing sport peppers and celery salt. Save the ketchup for the perfectly crisped fresh-cut fries, served in a brown paper sack. Not a dog lover? Other chow-down choices include a Polish sausage sandwich, an Italian sausage sandwich and a superb Italian beef sandwich on fresh focaccia baked daily by Corrado Savarino. Bigger than a breadbox but smaller than your average Brentwood kitchen, Hot Diggity Dogs seats less than a dozen on stools lined up under a wall-mounted counter inside, but the outdoor deck is roomy and offers a view of downtown framed by the historic Holy Trinity Episcopal Church next door. ALLEY CAT 1008-B Woodland St. 262-5888 If fat is your guilty pleasure, sneak on over to this friendly East Nashville hang for the famous—thanks to an appearance on national TV—fried avocado, or fat ball, as it’s affectionately dubbed by fervent fans. Nature’s highest-fat-content product gets fatter still when it is peeled, breaded, deep-fried, sliced in half, pitted, filled with homemade pico di gallo and served with a pile of tortilla chips. If loving it is wrong, we don’t want to be right; We’d gladly spend an extra 30 minutes on the Stair Monster the next day to make up for it. Go for the burn with deep-fried Mexican cornbread mixed with pepperjack cheese and chopped jalapeños. The Southwestern-inspired fare also features chicken tortilla soup, chorizo sausage empanadas, flatlander enchiladas, pork tortas and smoked beef brisket fajitas.  Daily specials really are special and well worth wandering off the menu to sample. FIDO 1812 21st Ave. S. 777-FIDO (3436) BONGO JAVA 2007 Belmont Blvd. 385-JAVA (5282) BONGO JAVA ROASTING COMPANY CAFE 107 S. 11TH St. 227-EAST (2465) Starbucks may have its own line of CDs and an eerily consistent suburban (ahem) charm, but all the money in the world can’t buy personality, and that’s why Bob Bernstein’s coffee shop triumvirate is safe from the evil empire’s push for world domination. Bongo Java, situated in a charming old house across from Belmont University, is the most bohemian of the bunch and features a menu of breakfast, sandwiches, salads and bombs (bagel sandwiches), along with one of the best outdoor decks in town—a perfect spot for a summer-evening coffee or an autumn brunch. Fido, in Hillsboro Village, has a more extensive menu, some great weekend brunch options (faves: the salmon scramble or the steak and hash) and a preppy slant. Bongo Java Roasting Company, a gathering place for the thriving East Nashville renaissance, also has sandwiches, bombs and salads, and has recently expanded its hours, now serving food until 8 p.m. every night. All three make perfect spots for coffee dates, homework or reading the Sunday New York Times. PIZZA PERFECT 1602 21st Ave. S. 329-2757 Filled with Vanderbilt students, starving artists, Hillsboro Villagers and families of all sizes, this pizza joint is a constant hub of activity. The pizza is about as good as it gets in Nashville, and it’s available by the slice, a wonderful option for the solo diner. There are plenty of standard pizza options, but we love the Fantasy (sun-dried tomatoes, roasted garlic, feta cheese, spinach and pesto sauce) and the deluxe vegetarian. The spaghetti and meatballs dinner is a fairly straight-ahead interpretation that, while not likely to win any culinary awards, is great comfort food. There’s occasional live music—songwriters and jazz—on the patio out front, but we prefer the indoors, where the constant din of oven doors, pizza pans, televised sports, collegial chat and family revelry can be oddly hypnotizing. McDOUGAL’S VILLAGE COOP 2115 Belcourt Ave. 383-3005 This recent arrival in Hillsboro Village is a fun-filled romper room for kids of all ages: families with toddlers and grandparents in tow, Vandy students, young professionals, boho village people and rabid sports fans, all flocking to the cozy bungalow with the really big deck for lunch, dinner and laid-back late-night revelry. Owners John and Tommy McDougal knew they wanted to open a restaurant since they were kids—which is not that long ago—and upon careful consideration, the entrepreneurial brothers decided to specialize in chicken. They’ve got your chicken fingers three ways: fried, buffaloed or grilled, served in baskets heaped with skin-on fries. Put them between two slices of Tennessee Toast for a sandwich, or let them roost on top of a pile of greens for a chicken salad. Jumbo wings fly out of the kitchen in six different sauced-up flavors. Everything’s made from scratch and finger-lickin’ good; except for the salads, utensils are optional. Not in the mood for fowl play? There are burgers, grilled cheese, a mean patty melt, fried bologna and hellacious hand-cut onion rings. Got beer? You betcha. Root beer for the kiddies, and the adult version by the bottle, pitcher and bucket, with hometown brew Yazoo at the top of the pecking order. Cheap Eats Hall of Fame When we set out to draft a Cheap Eats list, it was in the spirit of introducing our readers to a handful of places they might not have ventured into before. We’ve attempted to give you a geographically, ethnically and culinarily diverse selection. So don’t go saying we over-thought the question by seeking out the distant mobile carts of Nolensville Road while ignoring the obvious cheap and cheerful haunts. You know the ones—the constellation of meat-and-threes, markets and diners surrounding Nashville-area colleges and universities. Lest we overlook the obvious, we introduce, with undying affection, the mainstay of frugal foods, the Cheap Eats Hall of Fame. ARNOLD’S COUNTRY KITCHEN There are more famous (and expensive) meat-and-threes in Nashville. But there’s none better than Jack Arnold’s cozy joint-that-time-forgot, with its fatback-strewn greens, its fried green tomatoes and a roast sitting pretty with fat cloves of garlic for company—all for 7 bucks a plate. Come for Chicken Liver Thursday, stay for Oyster Friday. BROWN’S The burgers are fried into hard brown patties that taste more like the grill than the meat, but that’s not really why people eat here anyway. Brown’s is one of the vestiges of the way Nashville used to be, a link to a time when the Hillsboro-Belmont area was still affordable and the people who lived there were a whole lot funkier. COUVA CALYPSO CAFÉ Frankly, we’ve eaten so many of Calypso’s chicken-topped black-bean and Lucayan salads, we just might start to cluck. But more money can’t buy better food. With locations in Belle Meade, Cool Springs, 100 Oaks and Murfreesboro, Calypso, which added the “Couva” when it began franchising, is quick and clean, and the succinct menu of simple ingredients is refreshingly unmysterious: chicken, rice, greens, sweet potatoes, coconut and lots of fruit tea. FAT MO’S Getting your mouth around the 4-inch-high, 27-ounce Fat Mo Super Deluxe Burger—three patties with grilled mushrooms and onions, barbecue sauce, bacon, jalapeños, lettuce, tomato and pickles on a woefully overworked bun—will stretch your jaws more than your wallet: it’s just $7.79 for this heart attack in a sack. HERMITAGE CAFÉ Veteran barflies know that when the lights come on at 3 a.m., the open-all-night Hermitage Café may be the only thing standing between you and a pajama party in the Metro drunk tank. Most reliable liquor sop: the flat-grilled burger topped with a fried egg, served with a side of grease-soaked thin-sliced home fries. INTERNATIONAL MARKET Lifelong Nashvillians probably got their first taste of Thai cooking at Siam Cafe or at this Belmont Boulevard institution, which still appeals to college students, musicians and families alike. Through endless changes in the surrounding neighborhood, it has always held onto its laid-back charm—and its menu, which includes some of the same dishes it served more than 20 years ago. MANNY’S HOUSE OF PIZZA Relocated New Yorkers swear by Manny Macca’s impeccable pie, sold by the slice to a line of customers that snakes out the door of this downtown Arcade storefront. Or maybe the attitude you get with the pizza just makes ’em homesick—although most of that went with Manny’s brother Joey to his own kick-ass outpost in Brentwood. Try the lasagna and pepperoni rolls. PIE WAGON The Pie Wagon can date itself back to 1922, when it began dishing up plate lunches out of a converted trolley car behind what is now The Frist Center, before settling into a squat little building nearby. Carol Babb, who bought the place in 1990, moved over by Music Row a few years ago, updating the enduring repertoire of country cooking with some contemporary dishes. Miss Addie’s fried chicken, a Wednesday special, has its own fan club. ROTIER’S For 60 years—it opened for business in 1945—the Rotier’s cheeseburger on French bread has been as firm a fixture on the Nashville skyline as the Life & Casualty Building. The place isn’t the same without longtime proprietor Evelyn Rotier, who retired several years ago, but its patty remains the boss of Nashville burgers. VANDYLAND Formerly known as Candyland and often called the Executive Dining Room, this lunchroom draws an understated crowd of heavy-hitting biz-types and a bevy of young moms who struggle to explain to their progeny why there are no French fries available to go with their grilled cheeseburgers and chocolate shakes, but they can have a chocolate-dipped Ritz cracker from the candy counter for dessert.