Nashville Food Blog

​If you're a fan of Whitney Matheson's popular pop culture cult website "Pop Candy," you should avail yourself of the chance to meet her for conversation and drinks 5:30-8 p.m. Thursday, March 11, at Sambuca in the Gulch. She happens to be in town for a wedding and would love to meet some of her readers or just some new fascinating people to share her wry take on modern culture with.

Sounds like she's talking about you guys, Bitesters. Plus, Sambuca has a great bar even if you can't get a word in edgewise.

No RSVP is required, but Whitney asks that you drop her a note so that she can know who to expect.

From the incredibly generous contest department comes this dispatch from your friends at Jimmy Kelly's Steakhouse. On their website they are inviting fans to submit a humorous limerick, which will be voted on by the public.

Summon your lucky ladybug and shamrock and enter Jimmy Kelly's limerick contest.

​At their annual St. Patrick's Day celebration on March 17, the winner will be announced and he or she will win (get this), a trip for two to Dublin and a private tour and tasting at The Old Jameson Distillery, maker of Jameson Irish Whiskey. Airfare and lodging is included, but the lucky poet must provide ground transportation.

As of this week, there were less than twenty entries. Contestants must make a $5 donation to a Haiti relief fund organized by Jimmy Kelly's, but that's still a pretty strong cost/benefit play considering the odds.

It sure would be great to see a Bites reader win this thing! I'd enter myself, but now that I've told all of you about it that would be kind of sketchy. You can go vote for your favorites here, but if you rhyme "Kelly's" with "bellies," you've lost my vote.

Remember, five lines = two plane tickets.

Go get 'em!

​As if we didn't have enough concerns in our day-to-day life, now comes news of two factors that could severely limit the availability of our favorite fermented grape juice products.

The first concerns the wine industry in Chile. Of course, compared to the devastation of whole communities in the quake-rocked nation, Americans' access to good cheap red wine shouldn't amount to a hill of beans.

But speaking strictly selfishly, accounts coming out of the region describe the destruction of millions of bottles of already processed wine and the collapse of transportation infrastructure that could cripple Chile's wine export industry -- which was just coming into its own as a global powerhouse. I guess the right answer is to donate to the entire Chilean relief effort and continue to support the country's wine industry as product becomes available. But we might not be able to depend on bargain prices again for awhile. Just a heads up to you all.

Closer to home, news comes that apparently a European grapevine moth has infested the Napa Valley, leading to a quarantine announcement for 162 acres of prime grape-growing property in Napa, Sonoma and Solano counties. (As if California wine prices weren't escalating fast enough.)

photo lifted from Village Pub & Beer Garden on Facebook

​For a while we've been hearing that East Nashville's Riverside Village is getting its own neighborhood pub. Now we know that construction is nearly done and the owners hope to open in April.

A couple of bartending entrepreneurs and the owner of the popular Mitchell Delicatessen are working together on the project, called Village Pub & Beer Garden.

Jesse Hamilton and his wife Tracy are bartending veterans (she at Gold Rush, he at South Street and Logan's) who in 2005 launched their own business supplying bartenders and beverage supplies for private parties.

Now they are opening a European-style pub and beer garden, which Jesse hopes will become the social hub of the neighborhood surrounding Riverside Village. "The idea is to make friends first, drink second," he says. Food will be a priority, as well, but not formal entrees. Delicatessen owner David Mitchell is building a menu of various artisan cheeses and meats to complement beer and wine.

www.southernfoodways.com

​If you're not familiar with the Southern Foodways Alliance, well ... you should be. Based in Oxford, Miss., the SFA is an association of more than 800 really cool people who are engaged in the mission to document, protect and celebrate the food heritage of the American South.

Academics, chefs and food aficionados work together to produce films, stage conferences and compile collections of food-based literature. The Atlantic Monthly called the SFA "this country's most intellectually engaged food society."

Lucky for us, the SFA is bringing their road show to Nashville.Their wildly popular Potlikker Film Festival will be showing at Chef Tandy Wilson's City House restaurant on Sunday, April 25, and from their description of the event it looks like a real hoe-down.

We all have our favorite government agencies that we love (or love to hate). I love the PBGC and the USDA. Both totally punch above their weight and are worthwhile public expenditures. They do exactly what they're set up to do: set a floor under their respective bailiwicks.

​For instance, if you got an unacceptable burger, you'd take it back to the counter. But what if there's a foreign object in the box of cereal or a really bad egg? Who you gonna call? The USDA, of course.

But different parts of the USDA do different things. The agency breaks it down in a helpful list.

For help with meat, poultry and egg products, call the USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline at 1-888-MPHotline (1-888-674-6854).
They will ask for:
1. The original container or packaging
2. Any foreign object that you might have discovered in the product
3. Any uneaten portion of the food (refrigerate or freeze it)

It's obvious that vinyl records and phone booths top the list of once-important cultural items that will be cocktail conversation for the next generation. "Oh, my grandparents had a dial phone!" or "I have a photo of my great-uncle that was taken with a Polaroid."

In trying to go deeper, I've started a list that includes saccharin tablets, tonsilectomies, dried parsley and tractor feed printers.

Borrowed from the General Electric website

1958 General Electric can opener

​And electric can openers. It was only 10 years ago that a friend was dumbfounded by the lack of electric can opener on my kitchen counter, and admittedly, I was a little embarrassed.

The California fresh revolution, better transportation and advances in freezing mean that months pass without a single can being opened for a recipe. The last one was probably coconut milk, which is best opened with a bottle opener.

An electric can opener just seems like another thing to clutter up the counter. And another item -- like the electric skillet -- that's no better in its electric version that a really good manual model.

Help complete the list of buggy whip items -- kitchen and otherwise. Or, maybe you just can't do without an electric can opener. That's worth hearing about, too.

​After a midnight grease fire damaged much of the kitchen earlier this year, Bites readers have been clamoring to find out the fate of Nolensville Rd. favorite La Hacienda. Luckily, the wait is almost over! According to a member of the Yepez family, providing that La Hac passes all final inspections they hope to be open for lunch Friday, March 12, at their regular opening time of 10 a.m.

Since much of the damage to the restaurant was smoke-related, the owners are confident that they should be able to add the finishing touches and welcome their adoring public back home as promised. Renovations include a total makeover of the dining room, with the exception of the beloved original tables and chairs. The orientation of the bar has been switched around to provide more space for tables and three new P.O.S. stations should mitigate the long lines to check out which once occasionally plagued Hacienda diners.

Every piece of kitchen equipment has been replaced, but luckily the recipes have not. Head on down on Friday to welcome back an old amigo and share your impressions here in the comments.

La Hacienda Taqueria
2615 Nolensville Road
Nashville TN 37211

Eric England

​This week's dining review features Flatrock Cafe, the Nolensville Road sandwich shop-cum-live music venue on the former site of a car lot.

A labor of love for many neighbors, including owner Ron Haislip, Flatrock has quickly become a gathering spot, attracting Woodbine residents with its long-awaited roster of coffee, WiFi and sandwiches.

Americana artist Irene Kelley is booking a roster of fellow singer-songwriters, who perform original music on Saturday nights from 7 to 9 p.m. Doors open at 5:30 for dinner, with a $5 suggested donation to go to the musicians. For booking information, contact Kelley at Irenie777@aol.com.

A list of upcoming performers follows after the jump.

​Add to the (very short) list of places to get weekend dim sum: Lucky Bamboo. It's been open for about a month in the vast space between K&S and Miss Saigon on Charlotte Pike, but on Sunday the parking lot was packed. I've never seen it that crowded in 10 years of visiting this shopping center, even when the Kroger was open.

Considerable investment has been made in the look of the place: the pagoda-esque bamboo façade, more bamboo architecture inside, murals, a big aquarium and a pool with a fountain. Lucky Bamboo put money into its good looks -- that would give it plenty of entertainment value. It reminded me of the old Blue Hawaii on White Bridge Road for the two of you longtime residents who might remember it.

The inside is big, with a front room and a back room. Eyeballing it, let's call it 20 to 30 percent bigger than La Hacienda. But butts were in the seats on Sunday for traditional dim sum. The servers apologized that the dim sum carts were moving slowly, but dim sum isn't speedy anywhere, and the timing seemed, well, timely.

Just a five-minute wait and the congee cart arrived bearing congee made with pork and thousand-year-old egg, nicely made fun gor (stuffed with collard greens, for an off-putting whiffy smell when cut them open), shrimp dumplings, pork sui mai. The next cart had char siu buns, delicious chicken feet, egg rolls and more. There were sweets, too.

Our six dishes were just $14 and tip, and we'll definitely go back.