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