You're the Only Ten I See

Monday evening I found myself driving through the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains on my way back to Virginia, my windows were down, the sun was setting and I was content. A friend and I spent this past weekend in the beautiful city of Nashville, Tennessee. We went to visit some of our college friends that live out in the Music City these days. Let me start by saying this was not my first time in Nashville, this same friend and I had actually been out in January to visit the same group of friends. The first night we got there we decided that we would head to East Nashville, which for your NYC-ers would be the equivalent of the Williamsburg area. We headed to a great Mexican place by the name of Rosepepper Cantina which boasts the most amazing margaritas I have ever had! We sat at the bar, inhaling chips and salsa and drinking these margaritas at a staggering rate (pun intended), when our table was ready we were escorted to the back porch, because like I always say, food just tastes better outside. I ordered 2 chicken tacos that were amazing, we also got the queso dip for our chips which was great as well. If you like good Mexican food you will love Rosepepper! The food was great, drinks were awesome (you could get margaritas by the pitcher!) and the service was excellent! After dinner we headed over to a bar in East Nashville called 3Crow. It is a really cool little dive, I went to the bar and ordered a local beer, I got the Yazoo Heifeweizen which wasn't bad. A friend and I played some darts (a favorite bar game of mine) and talked while others hung out at the table over drinks, after a few more friends met up we headed out back to the beer garden for the rest of our night, catching up and enjoying the beautiful Nashville evening before walking back to a friends house in East Nashville.

Day 2 in Nashville was beautiful, the weather was crisp and I actually thought for a moment that we had slept right through September and woke up October 1st. We went downtown for lunch to a great little cafe called Fido. Fido is definitely a Nashville hot spot, it has been voted best coffeehouse in town for the last 11 years running. They have great organic foods, desserts and coffee. We hung out there for a while, then headed down to The Gulch to do some shopping at Urban Outfitters and Nashville Clothing Company. From there we headed to Opry Mills and the Opryland Hotel. This is not a normal hotel, there are 3 huge gardens in the center of this hotel with a huge glass dome, there is a canal, a waterfall, rotating restaurant, all sorts of bridges and walkways, all in a cool air conditioned room! Its a really cool place to check out and afterwards you can walk across the parking lot and go to The Opry Mills Mall and the Nashville Aquarium, yes there is an aquarium in the mall.

We headed to a friends birthday party in for the most of the night eating and enjoying all the sangria we could drink. After the party we headed down to the coolest bar I have ever been to in my entire life, no really this place was bad ass. The Patterson House in Midtown is named after a Nashville Governor named Malcom Patterson who vetoed the statewide reinstatement of prohibition in 1909, a veto that was later overridden by state legislators. This place instantly takes you back in time, as soon as you walk through the velvet curtain separating the foyer from the bar you are met by a huge polished bar equipped with fresh fruit and other ingredients, flanked with 2 floor to ceiling bookcases, the dim glow of the chandeliers showoff the beautiful woodwork inside this speakeasy style bar. All the drinks here are a flat $11 and they are all handmade by very skilled bartenders, who, by the way, play right into 1920's feel with bow ties and vests. Our waitress was amazing and basically picked our drinks for us based on what we told her we liked, you really can't go wrong (get the Juliet and Romeo or the Vodka Cobbler). One of the coolest parts of the drink was the round ice cube (pictured above). This is one of only a dozen bars in the country that offer this feature. The molds for these rare ice cubes come from China and are extremely expensive, they claim that the shape of the ice can make a drink taste totally different, one of my drinks had this spherical delight and I can't say if it tasted better because of it, but it sure looked awesome. The overall atmosphere, quality of drinks, and knowledgeable bartenders and waitresses make The Patterson House a can't miss spot in Nashville. Afterwards we headed down the street to Tin Roof, the local Vanderbilt watering hole. It is everything you would expect from a college bar, good beer selection, an overabundance of 20-somethings and a live band. We had an especially good time watching all the crazy fraternity brothers "dance" or as everyone else called it, stumble around like a drunken idiot.

Day 3 may have been my favorite day of all! We headed to Historic Downtown Franklin and had lunch at Puckett's Grocery where I had an amazing Pulled Pork lunch with sweet potato fries (maybe my favorite food ever) and an amazing redskin potato salad. Puckett's is an awesome place to grab some home cooked food, grab a drink or see a local music act. After lunch do yourself a favor and walk around Historic Downtown, its beautiful and I promise you won't regret it. From there we headed to Centennial Park which is the home of an exact replica of the Parthenon built in 1897 for Nashville's Centennial Exposition. There is a really nice pond in the center of the park, with great running/walking trails, a venue where you can catch a performance of Shakespeare in the park on a nice summer evening and plenty of open lawn for ultimate frisbee, soccer, or just lounging. After the park we headed out to grab some frozen yogurt at Krave right by the Green Hills Mall. For all you SoCal folks Krave is just as good as Pinkberry, I love Pinkberry as much as the next person but Krave is every bit as good, I recommend cheesecake yogurt with fresh kiwi and strawberries.

After Krave we headed back to the house to regroup and make our final assault on Nashville. We headed out to a bar called The Flying Saucer which I realize is a chain, so for everyone out there reading this, go to google maps, find your local Flying Saucer and go! For those of you who don't have the luxury of going to experience this wonderful establishment in a city near you, stay with me. They are a self proclaimed Draught Emporium, and I would agree with their claim, they have a ton of beers on draught, including the full line of Yazoo brews (the local beer from 3Crow Bar) as well as Sweet Water which is a brewery out of Atlanta that makes great beer. This place had a really cool patio that was inside but had huge roll up doors for windows which really gave you the best of both worlds. We took a seat on a few leather couches arranged in a circle around a coffee table making me feel like I was at home, if my home had 20 foot brick walls, 70 taps, and a wait staff. My recommendation, grab a brew of your liking and get the soft pretzels! They are out of this world and they offer a plethora of dipping sauces, I enjoyed the honey mustard and the queso, I mean seriously can there be a better pairing than beer and pretzels? I didn't think so. After leaving The Flying Saucer we headed for The Patterson House for one last drink (or two) and a recap of all things Nashville.

Nashville in my opinion is one of the best cities in America (when its not 100 degrees), make sure you bring a lot of money because you won't have a problem finding a place to go, the problem will be choosing which ones to leave off the list. Nashville you rock five stars!

Shout out to all the people that made our weekend in Nashville so phenomenal!