Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Interesting Way of Serving Food


Well it seems that it has been a while since I have picked on some Tennessee folk, and I was having withdrawals.....


Before moving to Tennessee I thought I was well traveled and certainly well experienced in the culinary arts---the eating part of the art that is. I have been traveling on business it seems for well over 25 years and can't think of a major city in America  that I haven't dined in. Like the Food Network's popular show Diners, Drive Ins and Dives and  I thought I had eaten in places that only few people would believe existed.  From roadside stands in Guatemala to places called EATS in the middle of nowhere, to some of the finest restaurants in America, I have been there.  Then we came to Tennessee to discover something called a "Meat and Three." Never heard of them and had no idea what they were until my sister in law, a local Tennessean, thought I was "ready" to expand my gustatory horizons.  Recognizing I was a full fledged food brat and an all around pain it the neck when it comes to food, she knew full well that I would research the restaurant's provenance, the chef and the owner before agreeing to meet her for dinner in one of "Tennessee's best."

To solve this problem and not wanting to watch me pout, she refused to tell us where we were heading and insisted that we meet in a Big Box parking lot not too far from the restaurant. We cautiously followed.  We ended up at a classic "Meat and Three."  I was told it was the best in Middle Tennessee.  I started to wonder what the worst looked like.  Well, apparently the plan here is something akin to a buffet where you pick a meat and then three or two sides.  Only here, they serve you tableside.  Meat choices involved such delicacies as meat loaf, "broasted" chicken, chicken fried steak, hams slices, etc.  You get the picture.  The sides offered were fried okra, mac and cheese, string beans (that lost their color years ago), mashed (boxed) potatoes and puree of something that once was a vegetable.  Of course the service is appropriate for the kind of restaurant it is, and they do push the desserts.  By this point, my appetite, such that it was, was long gone and I had no intention of eating more----or there again or any other "Meat and Three." Garbage by any other name is still garbage......

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