5 to Try: Bowled over
Life is just a chair of bowlies, as artist Mary Englebreit likes to tell us, and I like to imagine that those bowlies are overflowing with delicious. Some things are all but bound to bowls, like soup, while others have been known to break out of the bowl and venture into boxes and cones, like popcorn and ice cream. The bowl itself was paleolithic man’s favorite food container, next to the palm frond, which was pretty good for holding wooly mammoth barbecue but less successful with sabre-toothed tiger soup. Since palm fronds are scarce in these parts in January, here are five things in a bowl you can try instead.
Chauhan Ale & Masala House
123 12th Ave. N.
chauhannashville.com; 615-242-8426
It’s not shrimp toast or shrimp coquettes or shrimp kebobs, but you get the feeling that Bubba from "Forrest Gump" would have approved. The Chauhan Ale & Masala House take on the quintessentially Southern shrimp and grits is a tandoori shrimp served over creamy semolina “umpa” grits. It fuses together two cultures in one cuisine and arguably makes the world a better place. Not incidentally, and with all due respect to Bubba and Gump, it is better than anything served at Bubba Gump’s.
Otaku Ramen
1104 Division St.
otakuramen.com; 615-942-8281
Ramen is not really those dried curlicues in a solid block that you boil and eat every single day in college anymore than mac and cheese is dayglow-orange powder in a blue box. Yeah, they’re awesome and they have their place in our hearts, but they’re not the ones we bring home to meet Mom. Rich bone broth with add-ins like chili threads and confits of pork and the like, and even a yummy vegetable miso with roast sweet potato, mushroom, tofu, scallion and the ubiquitous egg. This is a ramen you can not only take home, you can invite it to the church picnic.
Carter’s at Union Station Hotel
1001 Broadway
unionstationhotelnashville.com/nashville-dining/carters; 615-726-1001
Look, Room 711 at Union Station Hotel may or may not be haunted. Or the fifth floor, or Room 707, depending on which internet account you read. But if there are any disembodied spirits, they’re probably just hanging around for the mushroom soup. Plenty of umami flavor with Tennessee-raised mushrooms, brown butter croutons, shiitake bacon and herbs. A nice change of pace from potato or butternut squash. I don’t know if there are ghosts, but this soup is definitely worth sticking around for in the next life.
Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams
1892 Eastland Ave.
jenis.com/scoop-shops/east-nashville/; 615-262-8611
A delicious bowl of ice cream is just as delicious in January as in June. Maybe even more so, since it’s unexpected, like a Trump tweet in which he speaks glowingly of Democrats. But you can’t pour bittersweet chocolate sauce on a Trump tweet, and the peanuts will spill all over your keyboard. Your best bet is Jeni’s, where they’ll even tuck fresh-baked bits of waffle cone into your bowl of ice cream so you don’t have to miss a single bite of anything.
Green Hills Grille
2002 Richard Jones Road
ghgrille.com; 615-620-8390
Not everything can be soupified. Some things just don’t make for good soup, like mashed potatoes, waffles and syrup, or that feeling I get when I see Chris Pratt without his shirt. Tortillas, on the other hand, make marvelous soup. By the time you get all that chicken and cilantro and delicious Mexican flavor in there and top the whole thing off with fried tortilla strips and a little cheese, you have yourself another co-opted American classic. Ole!
Sample more 5 to Try:
5 to Try: Boxing Day breakfast