Did I own up about this yet? I coerced Leonard into meeting me in Nashville mainly so I could try playing a $60,000 banjo. (In other news, the $100,000 mandolin on the wall above it was really awesome.) And eat a lot of barbecue. Only when I started researchin, it didn’t seem like there was any really great barbecue in Nashville.
Hog Heaven stood out as a contender, one of the places that was purty good, and it was also across the street from our hotel. I mean, front-line-from-the-front-door. We went for lunch today, and Leonard seemed to like it so much that he got it again for a morning snack the next day (although he regretted that when I made him eat at other barbecue places for lunch and dinner after that).
I’m all crazy with the panorama on the keitai these days, so you can see what it looks like around here. This is substantially all the seating – two long picnic tables under the shed. Fortunately this is also on the edge of Centennial Park, so there’s no lack of grass seating, or benches if you walk a little.
Well, here’s what your money gets you. What looks like a bun is actually, not for the first time, the corn pancakes that Nashvillains call ‘corn bread’. Sides were average. In truth, I thought the meat was average too – not overly smoky or porkym which is a shame considering you could smell the smoker from right outside the hotel. What tha point? The sauce could be a highlight for some; it’s kept hot, and it’s medium spicy and plenty vinegary. For a regular place around Chicago, I’d be quite happy with this. But for being in Tennessee, I was disappointed.
Y’all might be too. Perhaps you should get the chicken-and-white-sauce that they say is their specialty?
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One attraction in the park is of course the Parthenon – this is what the good burghers of Nashville did for fun 100 years ago when they were trying to show how cultured and European they were. Things have come to a pretty pass when it’s all barbecue and country music these days, and none of the finer things in classical edutainment.
