Roadfood_ Revised Edition - Jane Stern [84]
Elliston Place Soda Shop
2111 Elliston Pl.
615–327–1090
Nashville, TN
BL | $
Elliston Place is one of Nashville’s top meat-and-three spots. Choose sugar-cured ham, salt-cured country ham, southern-fried chicken (white or dark meat), a pork chop, or liver ’n’ onions, then select three vegetables from a daily roster of at least a dozen. On Mondays and Thursdays the house special is turkey and dressing, a casserole of shredded roasted white and dark meat with steamy corn bread dressing: delicious! Or if you want to skip the meat altogether (Elliston Place vegetables are so good, such a strategy makes sense), there is a four-vegetable plate, accompanied by hot bread, for about three dollars. Among the vegetable repertoire you will likely find whipped potatoes, turnip greens, baked squash, fried bite-size rounds of okra, black-eyed peas, baked squash, and congealed fruit salad (the local name for Jell-O).
For breakfast, biscuits are crunchy brown on the outside with a soft interior that begs to wrap itself around a slice of salty country ham. Many locals ignore the excellent ham and choose fried bologna as their breakfast meat of choice. On the side comes a bowl of firm, steamy white grits—an excellent gentle-natured companion for full-flavored breakfast meat.
A city fixture since 1939, this is a restaurant with personality! Its tiny-tile floor is well weathered and its tables wobble. Above the counter, vintage soda fountain signs advertise banana splits, fruit sundaes, sodas, and fresh fruit ades. Each green-upholstered booth has its own jukebox with selections that are, suitably enough, country classics.
Germantown Commissary
2290 S. Germantown Rd.
901–754–5540
Germantown, TN
LD | $$
Here’s well-made down-home food, served in decorator-rustic surroundings in an upscale neighborhood. The Germantown Commissary has barnboard walls choc-a-block with old tin signs, wind-up telephones, and vintage advertisements. Many of its tables wobble as much as those in a juke joint and the air has the unmistakably seductive aroma of a working smoke pit.
It is best known for ribs, which truly are first rate: crusted with sauce, scented by hickory, meaty as hell with enough chew to provide maximum flavor. You can order them by number of bones, from five to twelve (a full rack), or as part of a half-and-half plate with another barbecued meat. We suggest the latter, because it would be a crime to come to the Commissary and not have pulled pork. It is shoulder meat, pulled into slightly-more-than-bite-size strips and hunks, some edges crusty, some parts velvet-soft. You can also get the meat chopped, which is okay, but deprives your tongue of the pleasure of worrying those long strips of meat you get when it’s pulled.
For dessert, there are smokehouse classics: banana pudding with softened vanilla wafers in the custard and tongue-soothing lemon icebox pie.
Henpeck Market
1268 Lewisburg Pike
615–794–7518
Franklin, TN
BLD | $
A gas station, grocery store, live bluegrass venue, and café serving the finest possible versions of classic mid-South fare, the Henpeck Market is a Roadfood vision. Simply getting to it is a pleasure, for the rolling-pasture landscape around Franklin is achingly bucolic.
Service is cafeteria-style, which is a good thing because it allows you to study the beautiful desserts and to see other people’s meals get plated. Casual though it may be, there is a refinement about the experience that makes this charming place something much more compelling than any other gas station/convenience mart that happens to serve hot meals. Yes, it is a country store and the menu items are mostly familiar, but the food is a cut above.
For us, the standout dish was a pimiento cheese