you make me sing (nashville)

Starting the day out with Frothy Monkey is a must when in Nashville. It’s this hip little coffeehouse/café with good food, great brew, and cool clientele. This being my fourth trip to Nashville in a year, I always make sure to stop in here. It also helps that it’s super close to Cindy and Kate’s house. (Which, by the way, sits across from a Sara Lee bakery…so awesome.) Cindy joined us for breakfast before heading to work. She ordered the special breakfast wrap, filled with Tasso ham, an over medium egg, avocado, spinach, and cheese. Amy and I both ordered the Plain Jane – scrambled eggs on everything bagels with Swiss and tomato. I, of course, added sprouts and avocado…Amy did not. This was our first outing together in Nashville and I think Amy (much like myself during my first visit a year ago) was surprised about the people and the environment. People tend to associate Nashville with NashVegas, country music, and neon lights, but the benefits of being a cool college town aren’t boasted about as much as the former.

After our (late) breakfast, Cindy headed off to work and we headed off to Grimey’s Record Store. I had been here before – it’s hard to resist a great record store that’s only a couple of miles from their house. I had a growing list of CD’s I wanted to get – some from ACL, some new releases. I was able to find everything I wanted (and more). Amy spent quite a while perusing the holiday vinyl. She was thrilled to walk away with a Frank Sinatra Christmas album and an Elvis one.

All of that shopping really wiped us out and we decided to treat ourselves to some mid-afternoon pajamas and a movie. We rented Bridesmaids and laughed a lot. I had seen this in the theatre, but I forgot how funny it was. Amy had not seen it and I enjoyed hearing her laugh through the movie. After the movie we decided we were not done with the lounging and we settled in for some Cheetos, peanut butter/Southern Oregon homemade fluff sandwiches, and Modern Family. Amy is still trying to make it through Season 1 to catch up with me. We watched about 7 episodes back-to-back (I fell asleep and missed 1) before we had to get ready for the evening. Our hosts were returning to their home and we had wonderful dinner plans in store.

Now, I’m recently reunited with seafood. I have been a pescatarian for 11 years, and then gave up seafood a little over a year ago. I’ve missed it. I’ve missed sushi most of all. I love veggie sushi, but I love some good spicy tuna as well. Well, tonight it was going to happen for me. We went to Virago, Cindy and Kate’s favorite sushi place. The earliest reservation we could wrangle was 9pm. We got there a little early and got seated a little early (lesson for us: being early can pay off). We started the meal with some edamame. All salty and warm, yum. We then decided to share some small plates. Virago is a very trendy sushi spot. The small plates we ordered were lobster friend rice, robata grilled pork belly and tofu, and sake steamed Brussels sprouts. For me the clear winner was the Brussels sprouts dish. Steamed al dente, browned in a sauté pan, and finished with a touch of truffle oil and a sliver of Parmesan. I absolutely loved these and I would say they are in the Top 10 Best Dishes of the Road Trip (a list soon to come). Our sushi orders were modest, with one roll each. Cindy got The Bomb (tempura shrimp, avocado and asparagus on the inside, baked jumbo lump crab and spicy mayo on top with a touch of unagi sauce and scallions), Kate got the Crunchy California Roll (crab, avocado, cucumber, tempura crumbs, spicy mayo and honey fire sauce), and Amy and I shared the Spicy Strawberry Maki (tuna, avocado, asparagus, mango and jalapeño wrapped in avocado and strawberries with honey fire sauce and strawberry sriracha) and the Sake Sunrise (crab, asparagus and avocado wrapped with seared smoked salmon). I enjoyed all of them very much. We’ll call it a four-way tie since I liked each of them for a different reason. This dinner was a great way to celebrate both the end of our road trip and Cindy’s birthday, as well as show our appreciation to C & K for allowing us to takeover their guest quarters.

Overall, I would say we had a wonderful day.

 

Joellen

 

reunited (and it feels so good)

We checked out of Hotel Monteleone at 12:15pm (I think you get the idea not expect anything else if you ever find yourself traveling with us). Also, is it alarming to know that you’re traveling with someone who can break the code of your hotel safe with one guess? A testament of how well we know each other, I suppose. Please advise if I need to call LifeLock sooner than later. We quickly made it our mission to be one with sought out bagel. We did some research (which included Amy calling places to make sure they did more than just sell a bagel and cream cheese). So glad she did this bit of research and found Surrey’s. Surrey’s is a small artsy café advertised as a juice bar, but with so much more. I think it could possibly be top on the list of “hidden gems” found on this trip. Amy’s friend, Nicole, had mentioned hearing of this place, but not yet having found it. Nicole, GO! There was an extensive breakfast and lunch menu that included homemade bagels and house-cured salmon (lox). Amy ordered two scrambled eggs, bacon, grits, and an onion bagel with cream cheese. She made and consumed about twelve perfect bites to reveal a clean plate (well, I think she left some bacon – a little shocking, actually). I had the lox plate with an onion bagel. I love lox, but mostly for the caper/cream cheese/bagel combination. They also served this with an avocado mash – which was such a nice touch. I ate every bite and am not ashamed of that at all. I also washed it down with some awesome coffee. I like to think that Surrey’s has it all figured out – those that know, go; those that think it’s Jamba Juice, don’t. Oh, elusive bagel – today you were finally ours.

After brunch, we circled many blocks looking for the post office. Glad I finally got the chance to pass through a metal detector on the way to mail some postcards…that’s now checked off the bucket list. We made our way out of the Vieux Carre (we’re pros now), crossed the Mississippi, and headed on to Birmingham. Today’s drive didn’t contain as many profound moments as the drive from Austin to New Orleans, but we managed to keep each other entertained for the six-hour drive. We arrived in Birmingham with enough time to change our clothes and meet Amy’s friend, Smith, for dinner. Smith lives and works in Birmingham and I was more than thrilled to get to meet another one of Amy’s dear friends. After seeing Smith’s house, we headed to the Mountain Brook area for dinner at Avo. We had scoped out the menu en route to Birmingham and we were excited to try to options. We started with the fried okra sticks accompanied by a lemon-caper aioli and the homemade pimento cheese spread. Both delicious starters. For my meal I ordered the grilled cheese and tomato soup. The cheese was light and it had avocado, but the star was the sourdough bread. So toasty and sourdough-y – I loved it to the last crunchy bite. Amy had the panko-crusted chicken on polenta and she was pleasantly surprised by her dish. (I could tell she had hesitations about the chicken breast being dry and lacking flavor.) I looked over and it was quite juicy and it just looked appealing. The polenta was nicely cooked. Smith ordered the roasted beet salad and the bacon mac and cheese. She approved of the dishes by not leaving any leftovers – which was something we all did. We indulged in a few alcoholic beverages and a lot of conversation before heading back to the car. We got back to Smith’s and returned to our hotel (Holiday Inn Express in Birmingham, I love you) for a full night’s rest.

Joellen

P.S. Is it wrong to title your blog post for your bagel reunion? No.