Y'all Eat Yet?

About an hour drive south east of Nashville is the small artist community of Bell Buckle, Tennessee. The old railroad town, listed in the National Register of Historic Places was once left for dead but has been resurrected. Restored into a beautiful and quaint little burg numbering less than 500 residents. It's also the home of the RC Cola and Moon Pie Festival.

Celebrating the quintessential southern staples, RC Cola and Moon Pies. For those not from the south, a Moon Pie is a layered graham cracker and marshmallow treat that's (originally) covered in chocolate. They come in over a half dozen flavours now.

Arriving in town from the west, Railroad Square is somewhat obscured. You're almost on the tracks before you get a good view. One good look though will let you know that you're in for something special. Among the single story store fronts sits Bell Buckle Cafe. A good ole down home "Meat and 3" with live country music on Friday and Saturday night.





While not the only restaurant in town, Bell Buckle Cafe is certainly the busiest. The parking lot was full to over flowing when we arrived on Sunday just before noon. We were lucky we only had a 10 minute wait. Church lets out at noon and it quickly became obvious that for locals, the Sunday morning ritual is church then lunch at the Cafe.

Waiting in line Mrs. Sippi interrogated a local on the food options. Asked to pick a favourite he couldn't. He did suggest the smothered chops that were one of the specials of the day. He went on to offer about a half dozen more things before declaring everything "Great." Seated beside us were two older couples. "Every Sunday" one told me of how often they patronize the Cafe. In her pantheon of Meat and 3's Mrs. Sippi has declared Bell Buckle Cafe one of the triumvirate. Along with Stan's and Dixie Freeze. Pretty select company. I'll go one further. It's the best I've been to.
A Meat and Three for the uninitiated is a restaurant offering a meat option with a choice of three sides. Most places give you your choice of anywhere from 3 to 6 main options. Bell Buckle has over a dozen on their menu and another half dozen on the specials board. Your sides choices number between 6 and 10. Bell Buckle has at least a dozen. There's also a half dozen desert options. More if you consider that I'm counting "Pie" and "Cobbler" as one item each. They have several options in both category.

So it's about time we got to the food.

Smothered chops with turnip greens, mac and cheese and squash casserole for me and chicken fried steak with white beans, fried corn and fried okra for Mrs. Sippi. Both came with a johnny cake.

Smothered chops are pork chops that are simmered in gravy. They were fall apart tender and very tasty. They gravy was very good and not too salty. I'd actually have liked just a bit more on mine.

The turnip greens were quite good. Not the best I've had but there was the exact right amount of pot likker. It was the perfect amount for sopping with the corn cake.

The squash casserole was fantastic although not as good as Puckett's. Not "Squashy" at all if you know what I mean. It had a nice balance of flavours.

I really liked the mac and cheese. This was a great "Side" mac and cheese. It didn't have a stand out personality but a nice creamy, cheesy taste that would play well in the sandbox with anything.

Mrs. Sippi's chicken fried steak was unbelievable. It had a well seasoned breading that the Colonel and his 11 herbs and spices would be impressed with. Again, the gravy wasn't too salty which can be a problem. This milk or sawmill gravy was excellent.

Fried corn is corn that's cut from the cob and fried in butter (or bacon grease) until it has the consistency of cream corn. I hadn't had it done right before. Now I have. Mrs. Sippi proclaimed it perfect.

The white beans had all the earmarks of being southern style. Slow simmered with hunks of pig for hours. So good.

The fried okra was also spectacular. Very crispy and delicious. Their breading is fantastic.

The desert menu is on the napkin dispenser and it says "Save room for desert." Who am I to argue??

Since I was in Bell Buckle I had to have a moon pie. One of the desert offerings was a moon pie sundae. So why not? A banana moon pie with vanilla ice cream and hot fudge sauce. It was very good however predictable.

Mrs. Sippi couldn't get her mind off the peach cobbler. It was excellent. A nice buttery crust and warm sweet peach filling with the ice cream melting all over it. It was a text book southern cobbler.

With all the desert options we just couldn't narrow it down to two. I polled the people around our table and kept coming up with one thing. It was calling me. It was fate. I had to have it. I'd never heard of it. It sounded interesting. It said "Covered in caramel sauce." I like caramel sauce. I give you, the oatmeal cake.

It's rare that I order a desert that doesn't have chocolate in it. If I do, I generally try to figure out where to add chocolate. This desert is more proof that god wants us to be happy. It was like a moist 2" thick oatmeal cookie smothered in caramel sauce. It's impossible for me to impress upon you how much this desert impressed me. I was almost reduced to tears.

I also couldn't pass up the opportunity to have and RC Cola as well.

You can find Bell Buckle Cafe on Railroad Square in Bell Buckle, Tennessee.


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You can find them on the web or become a Facebook fan.  
 

Well that's all for now. 'Til next time.

Davwud

"Real Food, Real People and Real Atmosphere"

These are the main ingredients at Puckett's Grocery, or so says their website. They don't however give you an idea of what an eclectic mix Puckett's really offers. While it may seem like a crisis of identity, it's one part general store, one part country kitchen, one part bar and grill. It has miss matched tables and chairs and a miss matched clientele. While all this diversity seems a bit much there is one unifying theme that ties it all together. Great food.

Located on 4th Avenue in historic Franklin, Tennessee, Puckett's is a place where farmers and business leaders, struggling musicians and country music legends, road weary travelers and locals can share music, fried chicken, BBQ, prime rib and nachos.

Having left Dayton, Ohio in a snow storm 7 hours earlier a good home cooked meal was in order. Unfortunately it was past dinner time and what we would call home for the next week was still 2 hours away. Puckett's would be the perfect substitute. This choice was made even better upon arrival when I noticed the specials board advertising Mac & Cheese as the "Vegetable of the day." My doctor did say I need to eat more veggies.

I ordered the fried chicken and Mrs. Sippi ordered the fried catfish. Both mains came with your choice of two sides and a corn cake or dinner roll. We both opted for the corn cake. I chose the a fore mentioned mac and cheese and the squash casserole with my dinner. Mrs Sippi also chose the squash casserole but went for the collard greens instead.

The mac and cheese was fine. It wasn't the best I'd had but it was a solid side to the fantastic chicken. Lightly seasoned and breaded, the chicken was dribble down your chin juicy. Tender and crispy it is served up golden brown and delicious.

Mrs. Sippi's catfish was also outstanding. The fish its self was milder than the catfish I'm used to in Toronto. This perhaps because it would seem to be a younger fish (it was a smaller fillet) than we get in TO. It too was lightly breaded and crispy, golden brown and delicious. Her greens were also very good with the requite few shots of pepper sauce.

The corn cake or "Johnny cake" as it is sometimes known is a cornbread batter ladled onto a skillet and cooked like a pancake. The first bite revealed a nice surprise. It was studded with chile peppers and tasted great. Especially with a healthy slathering of butter.

Now, I'm not a big squash fan. I've had it in many incarnations with only a good butternut squash soup as something I'd seek out. However the squash casserole is worth the drive from Dayton. I don't know what magic they work in the kitchen on this dish but it is purely, simply, unbelievably delicious.


As if all that wasn't enough, the desert of the day was buttermilk chess pie. "What is chess pie" you may ask much like I did. Well, it's a custard like pie. It's uncertain where the name comes from but some people feel that it came from the pie chest that people had "Back in the day." Others will say that the evolved from the cheese pie in England. The best answer it seems is it's a result of what can only be described as a game of broken telephone. What started out as "Just pie" as in, "What's for desert?" "Just pie" has morphed over the years to "Jus' pie", "Jess pie" and on to become "Chess pie." One thing for certain, it has nothing to do with the game of chess.

This became one of those "Oh my god, how have I never had this before moments." It was caramel-ly, vanilla-y and very sweet. Much like a custard but somehow just slightly cakey. The crust reminded me very much of short bread.

On a more recent trip I decided the shrimp and grits were just too good to pass up. Grits for those who don't know are basically the southern version of polenta. It's just cornmeal. "No self respecting southerner makes instant grits" was the line in My Cousin Vinny and rest assured these weren't instant. They had a great corn taste that would suggest they were probably stone ground. The sauce and shrimp was a perfect counter. Rich, spicy (but not hot) and full of shimp flavour.

 This time I went with chocolate chess pie which was every bit as good as it's regular sibling.

I've had a few of their cobblers in the past and Mrs. Sippi's peach version is just about as good as any of them. It's one of those "You can't go wrong ordering it" deserts.

For you Civil War buffs, the Battle of Franklin was fought in and around the town. The near by Carter house still has shot and cannon fire marks on the exterior and not far away is the beautiful Carnton Plantation and the largest private Confederate cemetery.

You can visit Puckett's at 120 Fourth Avenue South, Franklin, TN.
 

Well that's all from the food court for today. Y'all come back now ya hear!!

Davwud