Ranking food and food establishments is a popular subject these days, especially among city "readers" a la Chicago's Red Eye and Milwaukee's Shepherd Express (ed note: what kind of name is Shepherd Express for a reader?). Most of them now have an annual "best of" list that attempts to rank local establishments and declare winners in a variety of categories. Milwaukee's best fish fry, Chicago's best deep dish pizza, Brooklyn's best Vietnamese Sandwich shop and so on. While I applaud these papers for promoting the local places and giving them some much needed press, I often question whether one can truly be better than the other, oftentimes when a straight up comparison is difficult to make. It's hard to take some of the categories, such as "Best Mexican", too seriously when Mexican food in Mexico can mean a variety of regional cuisines, let alone the variations and deviations that occur here in the states.
Usually when I see these lists, I prefer instead to just make note of the finalists and attempt to get there and try their offerings for myself. Being new to Milwaukee, I've been using these lists from the Shepherd to get a lay of the food landscape here and come up with a list of places I want to frequent. I'm skeptical of whether the number one place in each list is truly better than the number two, but given the fact that they made the list, there's a good bet they both offer some good food.
So where am I going with this you might ask? Good question, let me make a stated segue across the street from my apartment to Points East Pub in Milwaukee. Points East is by definition, the closest bar to my apartment, as demonstrated by this helpful visual aid. Now, I didn't choose to live where I do because of proximity to this bar, but after moving I was happy to discover that Points is well known for serving some of the best wings around town.
Most of us are familiar with Buffalo Wings as a fried bar food, where chicken wings or drumsticks are fried, tossed in a "wing" sauce, and served to drunk, hungry patrons. Sometimes, we attempt to make them at home on the grill, where in our impatience and exuberance we spread the sugary bbq sauce over the wings almost immediately after placing them on the grill, which then forces us to take them off too soon as the skin quickly becomes burnt to a black, charred crisp (I say "we" because I've done this several times). At Points East, however, they do a little from column A and a little from column B, leading to a final product that is both delicious and unique. Their wings are prepared by first deep frying in the normal routine, but then after the initial fry the wings are coated in sauce and placed on the grill, where they are slow grilled to perfection, leaving a slightly charred skin and imparting a smokey, grilled flavor to them as well.
Now comparing these wings to your conventional wings would be tough, they tend to be a bit drier and the caramelized skin is not what one is normally used to on a wing. But they come packed with character in a sauce that's full flavored and moderately, but not overpoweringly spiced. And, if you're like me and enjoy some good blue cheese dressing with your wings (or ranch) then the drier wings make for a more balanced bite, rather than one that's just dripping down your fingers with sauce and dressing. You can actually eat these wings and maintain a sliver of self-respect rather than becoming a giant, sloppy, sticky mess. They really are some of the best wings I've ever had, and the people of Milwaukee agree, having voted Points East number one wings in years past (the category doesn't seem to exist in the Shepherd guide right now).
I would be hard pressed to say that they are truly the best wings in Milwaukee. Besides the point that I've only had wings from a few places here, it's just too hard to compare them to more conventional wings, or even the weird ass flavored wings at Buffalo Wild Wings. That's why I don't take too much stock in the final standings of those rating polls. But whether they are truly number one or not doesn't matter when you've recognized that they're some damn good and unique wings.
Fry
Sauce
Grill
Eat
Done. Come to Milwaukee and I'll show you what I mean.
This past weekend I was up in the Twin Cities area for a tournament, and while it was nice to make a trip to the land 'o lakes, and the 80 degree weather was a pleasant change from the normal mid-October Minnesota weather, I didn't actually get a chance to actually see any of the area, or even eat any good food for that matter. It's a shame, ultimate tournaments are really a terrible way to visit new areas, they just take up too much time. It did get me thinking about "The Cities" though, and how I really want to make a trip sometime soon to visit and really get to know the area. I have some family from the cities and have been there several times over the years, but never just as an adult to go and check out the neighborhoods, bars, and restaurants. Honestly, it feels almost as if I've never been there before despite having spent plenty of time there. Unfortunately with the weather getting colder I think I will delay my visit until 2011, but I will return with an open schedule and the hopes of finally getting to know the Minneapolis area that everyone seems to love so much.
And when I say everyone loves, I really mean it. Another thing I realized over the weekend as I pondered what my impressions were of this city that I can't decide if I've ever been to is that you almost never hear anything negative said about Minneapolis. Sure they complain about the weather, but really in Minnesota that just means its time for hockey and ice fishing. Everyone I know who is from there speaks proudly of the area, and I've heard many people speak of at least a wistful desire to move there. The Twin Cities have this buzz about them, like a cool alternative for the blase Chicagoan.
There are really very few cities that boast this kind of reputation, where they seem to offer a respite from the hassles and problems of America's more well known major cities while still offering plenty of cultural, entertainment and leisure activities.. I actually tried to come up with a list of the cities I thought met this criteria. American cities that seem to have a certain buzz about them, where people speak fondly of the things going on there and decry "once you're there you won't want to leave" or something to that effect. These are hardly scientific search criteria, but the best thing about compiling a list based on word of mouth and hype is that I don't have to do any real research, just kind of come up with what I think is appropriate in my head. *sips drink* OK and the list is ready.
Minneapolis, MN
Portland, OR
Austin, TX
Denver, CO
This is what I came up with, and the sad thing is I don't think I've ever really visited any of the cities on the list. Denver is similar to Minneapolis for me, I've been through the city for various reasons before but never really checked it out in a way that makes me feel like I truly understand what Denver is. The list is somewhat well balanced geographically, you have a Midwest, West Coast, Rocky Mountain, and Southern city in there. I'm struggling with an East coast equivalent right now. Pittsburgh could maybe be it, but I don't think it has the same draw that the other cities on the list do either. And yes, I don't think Austin really qualifies as Southern, but its at least from Texas. I could possibly include Nashville, a city that I really enjoyed, but that's based more on personal impressions than hype and word of mouth, which kind of defeats the purpose.
So the question is when can I get to these cities? Suffice it to say all of them are near the top of my "must visit" list, if they weren't already. Minneapolis should definitely happen soon, and I'd like to think one or two of the others could as well, but we'll see how things shake out. I'd love to come back in a year with some field research under my belt as to why people truly love these areas and have nothing bad to say about them. For now they remain on the buzz list though, and kudos for them for doing so.
Writing about places I want to go hardly makes for a compelling blog I'm sure. But with a new job, a new city and plenty of other things to worry about right now, I'm having a nice dry spell in my travel life. It's actually almost depressing to look at my travel schedule and see basically nothing. Sure, I have ideas and plans, but no plane tickets have been purchased, and no concrete schedules exist. My goal for this blog is to compile a series of posts that really reflect my thoughts, impressions, and perhaps recommendations for the places I go, and just as importantly, the food and drink that is consumed while there. I have also a new city at my fingertips, and I am continually exploring and learning more about Milwaukee. But for every post I begin to write, I realize that it's perhaps better to wait until I have a little more experience to draw on. I will say for now that I am enjoying the city, and that while perhaps it doesn't have the same hype about it as Minneapolis, it does give a nice reprieve from Chicago while still incorporating many of the same Midwestern influences.
With the ultimate season over and a new calendar year (and a full slate of vacation days) approaching, I'm already beginning to explore the possibilities for next year. A return trip to Europe could be in the works, as well as some other domestic trips and possible a venture to Puerto Rico. Unfortunately for now though I'll just have to keep dreaming about that trip to Minneapolis.
After my trip last summer through Latin America with a friend from high school I did some writing about my experiences and thoughts over the course of our 2 month trip. It was part travelogue, part travel writing, taking more or less a novelistic approach, trying to imitate my favorite travel writer, Bill Bryson. In my never titled work I tried to correlate some major ideas and themes into the every day experiences of traveling for an extended period of time. I had always been amazed at how Bryson, hardly an adventurous or trailblazing traveler, could captivate readers with his narratives of traveling to the most ordinary of places. The stories he told and places he visited were always supported by rich exposition and thoroughly researched background information, that, combined with his quick wit and writing skills made for compelling reading regardless of the situation. But besides the stories he told, his books usually involved some sort of underlying theme that brought it to life. They became so much more than mere travelogues recounting the day by day activities that someone who had never met him, nor visited the places he was describing, could become enveloped in the pictures he painted on the page.
As I began writing more about my traveling I attempted to emulate this idea. I tried to move past the day to day descriptions (and then we ate at this place....and then we saw this building) that rarely mean much to anyone besides the author. I had some grander ideas of incorporating my unemployment into themes of traveling as a form of personal introspection and discovery, but that became extremely difficult to pull off without sounding like a whiny d-bag (I don't know what I want to be when I grow up....wah!). But beyond my own personal sob story, I continued to search for other themes, and one which became quite apparent was the way in which technology, most noticeably the information revolution of the past 20 years, has reshaped the way we travel.
The internet is global. Aside from extremely remote areas in the developing world, you can find access to the world wide web almost anywhere you go. In fact, as a traveler it's easier to do outside of the US than inside. The ubiquitous presence of home computers in the US has starved the need for public access, and though one can find multiple internet cafes in just about every town or village in the rest of the world, I'm not sure it would be so easy here in the states. Accessing the internet became a daily part of our routine on the road, whether through using the computer of our host, the one at the hostel, or finding an internet cafe, it was fairly safe to say we were online almost daily. This was done to contact friends and family, research destinations, travel routes, find lodging and keep up to date with all the happenings on Facebook.
In thermodynamics there is scientific value known as a state function, which is a property dependent only on the current state of the system and is independent of the path in which it arrived there.In searching for how the internet has influenced the world of traveling I was drawn to this description, something which could be independent of path seemed an appropriate way to describe how I preferred to traverse the globe. I realized that I like my trips to be path independent, in which I set a beginning and ending location, but otherwise am not pre-concerned with the path to which I will arrive at the end. My trip last summer was based around this mantra. We knew we were to fly into Caracas in the beginning of June, and I had a return flight out of Mexico City. In between we knew we had 10 countries to cover in 8 weeks, and we would work it out as we went along.
This is not a wholly unique way of traveling, as there are many people who have traveled, and will continue to travel, in this light. But this type of unplanned, "path independent" traveling as I like to call it, has become easier, and more accessible to the masses, thanks to the revolutionary amount of access to information we now have in the 21st century. Though we didn't plan our trip out more than one or two destinations ahead of time, we almost always had lodging arranged upon arrival, and had usually researched our destination beforehand in order to come to a decision about where to head to next. Yes, people have been able to do this for some time now, but it's only within the last few years that one can approach a trip of this manner with such certainty. I knew that no matter where we were headed, we would always be able to find access to any information we would need.
So why write about this now (aside from self-aggrandizing reasons)? As some of you know I joined the world of mobile internet access this week with a smartphone, a severe upgrade from my old flip phone with talk and text capabilities only. So now, a mere 14 months after my revelations about how technology had changed the way we cover the globe, I realize that most of what I had written is already outdated. Having the internet always just a few blocks away seems so irrelevant when you can have it at your fingertips instead. I'm exaggerating a bit as most of us don't have world wide coverage and accessibility with our mobile devices, but we're heading in that direction. The technology is truly amazing, and is only getting better. I think the thesis that I would rewrite now, is that traveling is whatever we want it to be anymore. It means I can continue to plan my trips by selecting arrival and departing cities and nothing more. It means people will be able to easier travel to lands of which they have little knowledge of the language and the culture. This could be a good thing, but perhaps a bad one as well.
I had ideas of comparing Bill Bryson's paragraphs where he extols the virtues of having quality, highly detailed maps, to me sitting at a computer, using Google maps to plan the route we would be taking. But you could almost make the same comparison of me, tied down to a computer look up a map, versus someone who has the information sent straight to their phone as they stand on the street corner, ready to head off in the direction of interest. Looking back, my musings about how fast the world was moving were already behind the times.
For now I will be glad to have access to my phone whenever I travel around the states. The ability to pull up maps, restaurant reviews, city information and so much more makes the task of traveling much easier. I don't foresee being able to use it internationally anytime in the near future, but I'm sure that day will come eventually. As I said before, it's almost more important here domestically because of the lack of public internet spots, but then again most of my trips around the US are not of the same scope and caliber as traveling internationally.
And what happened to my travel novel that was to feature said musings on the influence of technology on the way in which we travel? Well irony happened, and it was all lost when my hard drive crashed many months ago. I was not too broken up about though, as it needed quite a bit of work and I was beginning to get the feeling it wasn't going to turn out as I had hoped. But it was that experience of trying to document and narrate the life of a traveling soul that led me to begin this blog, so not all was lost.
Now I just need to be able to get away and start traveling again so I have something to write about...
There's a fairly big brewing tradition here in Wisconsin, in case you haven't heard (they even named their baseball team, Los Cerveceros, after said industry). Much of the history can be traced to German immigrants in the 19th century, who brought with them a hard work ethic, a strong knowledge about brewing, and lots of funny sounding names.
Pabst, Schlitz, Blatz, Leinenkugels, Heilleman; these were the titans of the Wisconsin brewing industry. Some guy named Miller was in there along the way too, but anyways, I think you get the picture. Once refrigeration took off and distribution became possible, the breweries of Wisconsin helped keep the Midwestern states well lubricated for decades. But the party didn't last long, and corporate America and the birth of the American "lite lager" repaved the brewing industry in America into a advertising driven, calorie cutting, flavor annihilating beast. Only Miller was successfully able to catch this wave and ride it into becoming one of the nation's powerhouse breweries. Not that this was a good thing, but they did it none the less.
But from the dust of the once giant brewing industry in Wisconsin has arisen a new class of craft breweries. Though the craft brewing industry has been on the upswing nationwide since the 80s, I was pleasantly surprised at the number of Wisconsin brewed beers that are available in the Milwaukee area. It's almost like a Colorado of the Midwest, which makes me believe there's probably a connection between the beer giants Miller and Coors, and the microbrewery industries that sprung up around them the last few decades.
I've had a chance to sample some offerings from a couple of the different breweries in my few short months here, and what has quickly become a favorite of mine in Capital Brewery, based in the Madison area. You don't have to be a computer hacker to figure out that these guys know what they're doing, the awards listed on their website pretty much give it away. I'm not sure how widely available many of them are, but still an impressive list nonetheless. Oddly enough, what has been my favorite beer from them, the US Pale Ale, isn't even listed. But then again I'm a sucker for anything with cascade hops so what can I say. Now that it is officially fall, I just picked up some of their Oktoberfest, which has proven to be a solid offering as well.
The Capital Brewery is now officially on my to do list when I finally get to Madison (which is near the top of my to-go list). Luckily quite a bit of their selection is widely available around the Milwaukee area. They list distributors in Illinois, though I'm not sure how widely available they are around the Chicago metropolitan area. Beyond that, you can find their beers in the Twin Cities and that's about it. Apologies to all my readers outside of their distribution area, you'll just have to come visit Milwaukee now.
I'm not claiming that Capital is my favorite Wisconsin brewery, its much too early to make that decision, but I will say that so far they are leading the pack. There are quite a few votes for New Glarus, another Madison area based brewery, out there as well I'm sure. Leinie's will always be a favorite, but I think I'd put that in a category above the craft brewers in terms of size. And in Milwaukee, Lakefront Brewery has impressed me quite a bit for a brewery that's so poorly named (it's on the river!). Supposedly they make a good fish fry too so if you're heading to Milwaukee now you're Friday night is planned out for you.
Moving to a new city where you don't know anyone is always difficult, but when that city just happens to be in a land where beer is celebrated, appreciated, and more importantly drank by the truckload, it makes everything just a little easier.
Last week I caught the "making of" episode of Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, an episode in which they give a behind the scenes look at how the Kerala, India episode was planned, filmed, and produced. The episode featured commentary from several of the people who help make the show what it is, as well as lots of anecdotes and flashbacks to previous episodes.
Before I move on though I should probably back up and introduce my thoughts on the show. In a phrase, I think the show is amazing and one of my favorites on TV. I have loved it ever since I began watching it a few years ago, and has probably been the single biggest influence on my interest in combining the culinary and travel worlds. Perhaps you've seen the Egypt episode from season 4 where Bourdain casually glances over towards the pyramids off in the horizon and then remarks something to the effect of "We won't be going anywhere near those while in Egypt". Of course, he says it in the dickish way that has helped make him so famous, but regardless, the sentiment really struck me. I found in his passion for food a new focus for my need to explore the world. One can only look at so many churches, ruins, and monuments before they all begin to look the same. And besides that, most of the interesting landmarks are so crowded with tourists and trinket-hawking vendors that the real crux and purpose of why you're there is almost impossible to enjoy. Looking back at some of the trips I've taken lately, and thinking about how what and/or where I intend to eat has become the main focus point in my preparation, it's not much of a stretch to say that his show has markedly defined the way I travel now.
However, watching the behind the scenes episodes, it came as a great relief to see one of the biggest issues I have with the show addressed (albeit not directly). My biggest complaint with the show, and really its more of a frustration, is that the edited, produced series that is beamed to my television makes it appear as if Bourdain merely wanders the streets of each city he visits until he comes upon a food stand, restaurant, market or other area of interest and begins to chat up the owners, partake of the best offerings, and impart some wisdom as to why this place is so remarkable. He just makes it look so damn easy.
But thankfully, this new episode has shed light upon the tireless work of the many people who make the show work behind the scenes. In reality all the scenes are scouted beforehand, the shots planned and lighting set up, and the people are often prepped on how to hold their "spontaneous" conversations on camera. I guess this is nothing earth shattering, and most people reading this are probably thinking that this is more or less common knowledge. Maybe it was just the jealous, paranoid person in me who couldn't figure why he was so much better at traveling and experiencing the world the way I wanted to than I was. Now I can rest easy knowing that he has quite a bit of help in doing so.
This segues into my other complaint, which is that he often makes it appear as if the only way to experience a real culture is to go to some impoverished neighborhood, sample some local working class fare, and chat up the locals about their lives and how they represent the real country. I don't have a problem with this on the surface, its just that Bourdain makes it seem like we're missing out because we don't have the balls to go where he goes, when in reality it's because we don't have the security, camera and accompanying posse to make it possible. This particularly struck a nerve with me in the Colombia episode, a country that I have been fortunate enough to have visited. It's a great episode, but when he is partying on the rooftop on the outskirts of Medellin or eating with the locals in the poor fishing village across from Bocagrande my thoughts just kept returning the to the idea that there's no way that I could have gone to those places with out a strong local connection, some protection, and cameras rolling all the time to keep people from trying anything. Unfortunately my strikingly good looking German complexion means it's difficult to walk around in Colombia and blend in with the locals.
It seems a bit odd that my first post about a show I love is more or less just nitpicking at things about it, but given that it's already in its 6th season I think plenty of people know why it is an amazing show and therefore it stands on its own merits. In the end I was glad to see the behind the scenes show because it satisfied my general curiosity of how they make it all come together, and confirmed in me the suspicion that there is much more work involved that the finished product lets on.
For a while I worried that if Anthony Bourdain can get paid to just wander around, eat good food in front of a camera and offer sarcastic comments and vulgar quips then why can't I. But the truth is he has a lot of help to make the show what it is(That and he has a much better on-screen personality than me). They've done a couple interesting episodes this season, a few of which I still need to catch up on, but I'm glad to see that even after 100 episodes (I just watched the 100th episode special the other night with Eric Rippert who is a perfect foil for Bourdain) the show is still going strong and offering fresh perspectives on places both new and old.
I would assume that most of the people who read this blog already watch the show, but if for some reason you haven't then you have a lot of catching up to do. So get going already!
Most often when we talk about regional or national cuisines, we speak of those which we really love. It's decidedly less common for people to talk about general cuisines they dislike outside of reasons having to do with "it's different and I don't like it". I consider myself a pretty open minded eater, and enjoy most types of food. However, I've never quite been able to develop and love and appreciation for southern food. I'm generalizing a bit here, as there's quite a bit of variation between food in areas of the south, but certain themes are prevalent more than others. I've complained about the lack of spices and seasoning, the heavy reliance on salt, fat and breading as the only way to enhance the flavors of ingredients, and the overall "heaviness" of the dishes. It wasn't that I particularly disliked those foods, but just that I had never been that impressed during the times I had eaten them, and found them far less appealing that many other types of food.
But I was determined to give it one more try on my trip to Nashville, and much to my surprise, I found some food there that I actually really enjoyed. To say "found" might be a bit inaccurate because the places we went to were by no means hidden gems. In fact on Sunday we spent over 2 hours combined waiting for our meals. But the thing about waiting is that it usually an indication of good food to come. Unless you're at Cheesecake Factory, then it just means the portions will be gigantic.
And so we were up before 9am to stand in line at the Pancake Pantry, a Nashville institution known for....wait for it.....their amazing pancakes. We had to stand in line for almost an hour (not my favorite way to nurse a hangover) in order to walk in the place, but the 70 degree weather and complimentary coffee pushed things towards the tolerable side of life. The secret to ordering at the Pancake Pantry, we were told, was that all the other breakfast dishes come with pancakes as well. We all took this route, and while my dining companion's omelets looked delicious, the sausage and eggs I had were surprisingly mediocre. Eggs over easy without toast just doesn't cut it. But that's a side note, because the pancakes were fantastic. Being true to their "pantry" name, they have a wide selection of pancakes to choose from, but I settled on the sweet potato ones because I had never had anything like that before. I think I can honestly say were the best pancakes I've ever had. It's hard to describe them anymore than just to say the flavor and texture were perfect. I'm no pancake aficionado, but I had an instant appreciation for what I was consuming. While the other parts of my meal were not stand outs, the pancakes had definitely lived up to the hype.
But pancakes were really just a warm up for the evening's meal at Loveless Cafe, a country diner that has been serving travelers along the Natchez Trace Parkway for over 50 years, though the steady encroachment of metropolitan Nashville means it's no longer an out of the way destination. They weren't kidding when they said an hour and fifteen minute wait at 7pm on a Sunday evening, but as we walked through the entrance full of pictures of celebrities, athletes, and politicians dining there I had a feeling it was going to be worth the wait.
Family style proved to be the way to go, and so we ordered a couple meats and various sides to constitute our meal. It was a slight deviation from the authentic Meat and Three concept but the principles were still the same. Highlights? Well for me it was the meatloaf, which was flavorful and juicy, and along with Comet Cafe in Milwaukee, helped renew my interest in this famous but often brutalized dish. Biscuits with home preserves? Excellent. Creamed corn? Succulent. Pulled pork? Great and served with a tangy Carolina style BBQ sauce. Collard Greens? Not so much....I'm sorry but I still get their appeal. At the end of the day they still taste like bland, boiled down vegetables, even with a lot of salt and hot sauce. But all in all it was a very satisfying meal, and I left thinking that maybe my previous opinions on Southern food, while maybe not totally incorrect, were at least prematurely developed.
If I tried to tie these two posts together about my weekend in Nashville, some sort of summary as a real writer would call it, I think it would be that it is a surprisingly distinctive city with plenty of things to experience beyond the tourist traps that seem so tantalizing to the average American. I would come back to Nashville to see more music, eat more food, and perhaps make my pilgrimage to my father's Mecca....the Jack Daniels Distillery. Because we must always honor our parents wishes.
Quick apologies, I didn't intend to go this long between posts but got in between while prepping for a trip and next thing you know its been over a week. The good news is I actually managed to do some traveling that I can write about. Almost like a real travel blog.
It's always nice when a city surprises you in a good way. Maybe doesn't blow you away, but at least offers up more than you had anticipated. Of course this requires going in with preconceived notions, but most of us inevitably have them anyways. Most people would admit that it's hard to not plan on going somewhere without holding at least a small idea of what the experience might entail.
I had never been to Nashville before this weekend, only driven through it before on a couple road trips down to the dirty South. This was the first time I had made it off the interstate and caught more than just a passing glimpse of downtown Nashville. When I say I was pleasantly surprised by the city, what I mean was that somewhere along the line I had formed the idea that Nashville had entirely sold out to the idea of being the "Music City", and instead of really being a city where music is woven into the everyday fabric of life, it had become just some tourist trap filled with hokey theme bars and venues and lots of radio style country music. I envisioned myself sitting in some bar, large groups of overweight tourists in jean shorts and fanny packs stuffed into the booth next to us, with some girl from suburban Atlanta singing songs about growing up a country girl and loving life on the range.
Somehow I envisioned that Nashville wasn't really the "music city" as much as a city with a musical past that they had figured out how to exploit for the tourist dollars. I'm not trying to justify my preconceived notions, just state what they were going in.
But, thankfully, I was wrong. There was lots of real music there, and plenty of it good. What we found was a city where live bands, bands and musicians with actual talent, and a passion for creating something of their own, are a common sight. As we hopped out of the cab on Broadway you could immediately hear the music that flooded the street. From what I could see almost every bar in the nearby vicinity had a live band that night. It was a nice change of pace to see people, especially those of my generation, out at bars with live music instead of DJs and Ipod playlists. In retrospect I wish I had focused more on appreciating the music that evening, but the festive atmosphere and allure of tasty beverages and old friends proved too much. And so I woke up on Sunday with only a few memories: dancing to an alt-rock band, wandering the streets of Nashville at 1:30 in the morning, and trying to put money into a broken cigarette machine for 10 minutes. But with those also came the hazy feeling that I had had a good time in Nashville, and that it was a city with a personality and identity.
Now, one can't simply claim that getting drunk and catching a couple live bands is the best way to judge a city, but combine that with the people in our hotel warming up for the open mic night, and the bluegrass jam session we caught in The Gulch (in an old fashioned bar surrounded by the new trendy Nashville neighborhood), it formed in me an impression that music really is an important part of its identity. There's not too many places in America where you can say that.
Our stay wasn't long enough to get to see too much more of the city, though we did manage to check out the East End area of town as well, around the Five Points area that is becoming Nashville's new hip (read: hipster) neighborhood. It has a way to go, there was only one bicycle shop and not a ton of other bars and restaurants yet, but you could see it was on its way. We stopped by a bar and had some brews from Yazoo, the local brewery, though none of them seemed to be particularly noteworthy. But as always I was at least glad to see that they did have something local on tap to try, and I think if I lived in Nashville I would throw back a Dos Perros lager or the Pale Ale from time to time.
The food was another pleasant surprise, though not necessarily for Nashville but for Southern food in general. I'm going to do a separate post for this but I can say for now that the trip definitely improved my perception of Southern cuisine. I'm not a full convert yet, and I still believe it has its limitations, but damn did we eat well. And when you have good food, good drinks, and good music, its hard not to enjoy where you are.
Ranking food and food establishments is a popular subject these days, especially among city "readers" a la Chicago's Red Eye and Milwaukee's Shepherd Express (ed note: what kind of name is Shepherd Express for a reader?). Most of them now have an annual "best of" list that attempts to rank local establishments and declare winners in a variety of categories. Milwaukee's best fish fry, Chicago's best deep dish pizza, Brooklyn's best Vietnamese Sandwich shop and so on. While I applaud these papers for promoting the local places and giving them some much needed press, I often question whether one can truly be better than the other, oftentimes when a straight up comparison is difficult to make. It's hard to take some of the categories, such as "Best Mexican", too seriously when Mexican food in Mexico can mean a variety of regional cuisines, let alone the variations and deviations that occur here in the states.
