Nashville Eats: The White Trash Cafe

I'll admit it, we picked this place off the Hollyeats list because of the name. But rather than Northeast hipster irony, here we were met by the super-sincere, super-nice, super-laid back proprietor who asked us where we were from and thanked us for taking the time to stop in at his place. It was pretty much just him doing all the waiting and bussing tables, and an older guy (his dad, maybe?) in an apron in back.

It was a simple down-home "meat and three" place (local speak for one meat with three side dishes). The menu was hand-written and photocopied -- so simple I can pretty much recreate it here: fried chicken, roast beef, country fried steak, mac and cheese, mixed beans, turnip greens, mashed taters, fried apples, corn - that's about it, no prices. After all our eating the past few days, we needed to take it easy and just ordered three sides to share, cornbread and coffee. "Are y'all vegetarian?" he asked.

Anyway when we were all done, he said, "How about... 5 bucks? 6? What do you think?" How great is this place?! Inside and out it was just full of great junk too -- he had a sign up saying if you wanted any of it, he'd let you have it in exchange for a donation to the SPCA.



White Trash Cafe
1914 Bransford Avenue
Nashville TN
(615) 383-0109

Nashville Eats: Prince's Hot Chicken

Now on to the real food in Nashville. I saw this place listed on Hollyeats.com -- actually he had so many good-looking places, we just had to pick a couple and go for it. Prince's Hot Chicken: I love fried chicken and I love spicy food, so the thought of hot spicy fried chicken - how could I resist?

Clearly this place is a local favorite -- when we got there, every seat was taken and a line of people the length of the restaurant were waiting for their orders. You could order your chicken mild, medium, hot and X-hot. I read in a Nashville free weekly that mild would make you break into a sweat, so we opted for hot. A woman in front of us in line concurred -- she said the extra-hot was just painful.

We ordered a 1/2 chicken hot with baked beans and waited, and we waited, and we waited. An hour and a 1/2 later and still waiting, and the people coming in just never stopped. Finally got our chicken and ate it back in our hotel room, just tearing it apart. Man, it was worth the wait -- spice all over our face and hands, lips feeling the lingering burn, white bread to cool the heat and sop up all the sauce.

We head out in search of a milkshake after that, again on a Holly recommendation, but no dice -- the Elliston Place Soda Shop was closed. Too bad, the place looked cool.



Prince's Hot Chicken
123 Ewing Drive
Nashville, TN
(615) 226-9442

Elliston Place Soda Shop
2111 Elliston Place
Nashville, TN
(615) 327-1090

The Frothy Monkey, Nashville

After Memphis, our arteries needed bit of a break, so we found this coffeehouse in what's known as Nashville's 12South neighborhood, a newly boho area situated on, (naturally) 12th Avenue South. The Mac to PC ratio (5 to 1) and the wardrobe (seriously, not a football sweatshirt or baseball cap in sight!) was a good indicator of the hipness of the clientele.

It became our regular morning joint for cleansing breakfast fare and wireless internet. The coffee was only so-so, but oatmeal with fresh fruit, yogurt and granola parfait, organic eggs, homemade carrot-bran muffins and banana bread -- that kind of thing really hit the spot.



The Frothy Monkey
2509 12th Ave South
Nashville, TN 37204
(615) 292-1808

Memphis Eats Part Two

The Arcade is Memphis' oldest cafe -- it was around when the neighborhood around it was booming in the 30s, 40s, and 50s, it survived when downtown fell into a slump in the 60s and 70s, and now it's still there with the re-gentrification happening around it. The sure sign the hipsters have arrived is the American Apparel store across the street. Luckily the food doesn't seem to have changed.

Thwarted in our quest for beignets on Beale Street the night before, we ordered them as "starters" for breakfast. Then the real breakfast: I had eggs, grits, and sweet potato pancakes; redneckhunter had eggs, hash browns, and his beloved biscuits and gravy. A real down-home country breakfast. I also got a thrill from the fact that the cafe was in Jim Jarmusch's Mystery Train -- I think it was the scene where Nicoletta Braschi gets harrassed by the Elvis freak and then meets Joe Strummer's girlfriend.











The Arcade Restaurant
540 S Main St
Memphis, TN 38103
(901) 526-5757







Addendum:
I think this is the scene - 1000yregg

Memphis Eats Part One

Took a little road trip to Tennessee over Xmas break - first stop Memphis. We went to the famous Corky's for BBQ. I had the Memphis dry rub, redneckhunter had wet ribs with sauce. Pretty tasty - I couldn't finish my whole rack, but the spice rub was so good I ended up just peeling off the top layer of meat. Really good steaming hot buttery rolls and good non-mayonaissey slaw too!




Then I can't remember where I saw this place, maybe on a blog -- James and Jack's Catfish Shack. Way off the beaten path amidst a stretch of pawnshops and check cashing joints, we never would have found this place on our own, but I'm so glad we did! I loved my whole catfish, crispy but not greasy, flaky yet moist. Fries were good too. Redneckhunter ordered a 5 hot-wing appetizer - instead of the 1/2 wings we were expecting, they gave him 5 full wings and threw in hush puppies and fries too.



Corky's BBQ
5259 Poplar Avenue
Memphis, TN
(901) 685-9744

James' & Jack's Catfish Shack
3706 S Mendenhall Road
Memphis, TN
(901) 366-6967