Honky Tonks and Biscuits
October 28th, 2007
Who would’ve thought that Nashville, TN, is full of fantastic food discoveries? Well…I guess not me. But I’m here visiting a friend, and man oh man, we’ve been eating real good.
My sister and I are here visiting a friend, but she didn’t know I was coming. My sister cleverly booked my flight to arrive the same time as hers came in from Syracuse. When Jen came to pick us up Friday morning, we were sure we’d spilled the beans at least 4 times. Somehow, she had no idea and hadn’t picked up on our slips. The look on her face when she saw me was priceless! Have you ever had a surprise party thrown for you? It looked a little like that followed with a lingering of “I can’t believe you’re here!”
Thankfully, Jen understands the love of food. Our first mission? Drive out to the Loveless Cafe.
This cafe used to be a motel that also served food to travelers. The motel is now a series of little shops, but the cafe is still there and still rocking their delicious trademark biscuits.
Ahhh…..Southern hospitality. We sat down at our table and wahlah! biscuits with homemade jams arrived at our table with our server’s friendly smile.
These biscuits are tender, flaky, warm and a little bit crispy on the tops and bottoms. They’re clearly made with lots and lots of butter – but how else would they get so delicious? Fat is flavor! But the best part of these biscuits is the taste – they have a hint of that cakey buttermilk pancake flavor. Unbelievably good.
The second best part of these biscuits is the homemade jams that come with them. (Note: this picture is our second plate of biscuits – hence the partially eaten jams.) Strawberry, Blackberry, and Peach jams – it’s a toss up for my favorite but if someone put a gun to my head and made me choose, it would be the peach. Little chunks of fresh peach swim in syrupy jamminess. But the blackberry is really good too – it’s easy to forget the seeds in this jam because it’s packed full of ripe berriness.
And then the food – I ordered the BBQ Pulled Pork and Eggs. I looooove BBQ pulled pork, but this was out of this world good. Pork and eggs? What an easy way to redo steak and eggs!
The pulled pork was so tender and moist. It had a slight smoky flavor and the sweetness of the BBQ sauce made it taste like a little slice of heaven. I almost forgot where I was when I first took a bite. And mixing it was the eggs? Also delicious. The right way to have breakfast.
October 29th, 2007 at 9:00 pm
Hi Pip-
I am a Mpls foodie, currently live in Plymouth
without a car. (I know, certifiably insane). I have
recently discovered your blog and love it. I’ve been
anxiously awaiting a new post since 10/16. I feel kind
of bad that not much in the way of comments seem to be
posted on your site, so here’s mine. That place may
be called ‘Loveless’ but sounds like there’s an awful
lot of love there! You had me salivating over your
photos- thanks for doing this! Faith
October 30th, 2007 at 11:25 am
Faith-
thanks for the nice comments! i have several posts waiting to be written and i have a hard time keeping up with them.
i try to post as often as possible, but of course with life being craziness, i’m sure you know how that goes.
please feel free to keep commenting though!
do you have any places in the twin cities area that you particularly love?
pip
November 1st, 2007 at 12:49 am
I don’t have any place that scores 100% for everything, but have certain things I love at certain places: like- great fish specials and salads at Brenda’s, great entrees and some desserts I’ve had at FireLake, some great things at Town Talk (pan-roasted chicken, kitchen sink burger, salads) burgers at Morton’s and Convention Grill and Ike’s, desserts at Birchwood, salads at Be’wiched. I enjoy Evergreen and Lucky Dragon for Chinese, also Rainbow for turnip cake. I could go on- but you probably can tell from this list which, by the way, no one has asked me to make before,
it’s kind of interesting to see it on paper- you can
tell I’m kind of schizoid between healthy and burgers!
I still would love to check out Good Day Cafe, I live
not far from it but no car makes it a weird place to
get to. Trying to talk my roomies into going. I post
on chowhound.com a lot- thanks again Faith
November 1st, 2007 at 7:58 am
i’d recommend going to Good Day Cafe, even if it is hard to get there (which i find annoying). i’ve got a couple posts on the place.
where is Be’wiched? i’m not familiar with that place.
and if you’re a burger connoisseur, try the one at 112 Eatery and the one at Barbette – YUM. 112 might be the best burger i’ve ever had.
feel free to share more places and what you like about them. i haven’t been going out that much lately, but i love having new places to try.
i’m on chow too, but sometimes it’s hard to keep up with everything going on. i’m trying to be more active though.
November 3rd, 2007 at 1:34 am
Hi again-
Be’wiched is new, it’s in the North Loop area of Downtown Mpls-800 Wash. Ave N- link is here:
http://www.thirdeyeconcept.com/forums/index.php?page=162
oops that was a unicorn video but it’s great, here’s
be-wiched;
http://www.bewicheddeli.com/ music plays on the site in case you’re at work when you look at the site.
It’s owned by Matt Bickford and Mike Ryan, who have
cooked at great places like Solera, La Belle Vie, Alma
and D’Amico Cucina, but this is their first place to
run themselves. They make their own pastrami which
is quite good, everything is well done with a creative
spin, reasonable prices, high quality ingredients.
I have had the burgers at Barbette and 112; both
have fancy cheese on them- somehow cheese on a burger
isn’t my most favorite thing- I do remember loving
the one at Barbette though- I think the menu said
‘asiago’ on the burger instead of brie, and I asked
the server about it- they said- oh, that’s a mistake,
it’s actually brie. I said ‘could I have asiago on
it anyway? ‘ and they said yes. I grew up with a
dad who had learned to love California style burgers
in the Naval Academy at Annapolis, kind of southern
influenced eating there too. So,mayonnaise,(Hellmann’s), sliced tomato, raw onion,
on a great moist onion roll that is hard to find
anywhere now, and freshly ground sirloin, nothing
cheap! He put garlic salt and reg. salt on both sides
of the burger (1/4 lb size) and cooked them on very
high heat to be nicely rare in the middle and the
house was totally smoked up. They were great, and are
kind of the standard for me. Somehow the english muffin and brie with the burger at 112 were too…beige… for me. I wanted something crunchy,
juicy……….to contrast with the extreme richness.
A couple bites were good but too rich for an entire
burger.
And part of why I want to go to Good Day Cafe is
from reading your posts on it. Maybe I’ll have to
hike over on a nice day..:)
Have you ever been to Craftsman? Not sure what I
think of the place, I want to like it. Beautiful room,
but the guy who has waited on me every time I’ve been
there seems not too happy to be there, not very able
to help me decide what to get, whatever…one of my
pet peeves is, I wish there were more entree size salads with quality stuff in them, and not just stupid spring mix from a bag with a piece of meat on top and
some candied walnuts. I hardly ever see any crunchy
raw veggies in salads in more upscale places- just
that kind of limp mix and maybe a few slivers of
some other vegetable. Bryant Lake Bowl does have a
pretty good salad, and they make their own great
dressings- I remember the blue cheese as being great.
I wish there was a law requiring high quality salad
bars everywhere. I know, schizoid. I actually think
the basis for a very healthy diet could include great
salads and great burgers, maybe not in equal proportions. Enough for now, thanks for listening…
November 3rd, 2007 at 9:00 am
to be honest, i don’t eat burgers that often. the one i had at 112 was at least a year and a half ago, and even then i only ate half of it.
for some reason my body occasionally reacts negatively to eating cheeseburgers. it must be the richness of them.
well, that is unless i make it. ha ha. you should try out the recipe i have for asian burgers. i’ve made them a couple times and it’s really easy to mess around with what you have in your pantry/fridge. and they’re pretty darn good.
i’ll have to check out Bewiched very soon. it sounds delicious. i just picked up the latest Mpls/St Paul magazine and they mentioned it in there – i noticed it from your comment.
i have to say i also love BLB – their tuna burger is pretty good. but the one at Zelo/Ciao Bella/Bacio is even better – have you had it? you must try it. AND…they have an extensive list of entree salads.
most of them are quite good. my faves are the brasiliana (butter lettuce, hearts of palm, avocado, tomato, and light evoo/lemon vinagraitte), the caesar is quite good, and i also like the ciao baby.
bacio is close to you if you’re in plymouth – it’s by the ridgedale mall. (i used to work there a long time ago.) and the burger there is right up your alley and very very good. and their meats are all natural and from local farmers. oh, and the fries? yum yum yum!
so get your little behind over to GDC and let me know what you think of it.
i’ll report back soon about bewiched.
November 3rd, 2007 at 9:11 am
and one more thing. the fact that you used the adjective “beige” … i think we need to be friends. haha. that is one of my favorite words.
it’s delightfully descriptive and non-descriptive at the same time.
November 3rd, 2007 at 4:39 pm
Can you fix your asian burger recipe link? It’s not
functioning for me. What is GDC- I need to know if I’m
going to get my little behind over there. That’s funny
that you like the word beige. I’m kind of from the
aging hippy era, but I do like to pick up newer words
when they are useful. I don’t use ‘beige’ that often,
but something seemed right about it for that burger.
And it is very amusing that you only ate PART of your
112 burger!
November 3rd, 2007 at 7:05 pm
sorry, GDC is Good Day Cafe.
hopefully this works for the burger, if not, just click on the “recipes” category and it’s on the first page.
asian burgers