Nolensville Pike eats

As I mentioned earlier, we moved to a 1930 cottage off of Nolensville Pike two weeks ago, and in the midst of unpacking boxes, etc., I sampled a few local restaurants while the kitchen was in disarray.

We're a short walk or bike ride from the intersection of Nolensville Pike & Antioch Pike, where The Dog of Nashville serves up Vienna Beef, Chicago-style hot dogs, bratwurst, etc. I got two brats, one with diced tomatoes and guacamole, the other Chicago-style with mustard, tomato, sport peppers, relish, pickle and celery salt. Oh, if you're short on milk, bread or groceries in general, stop in at the 1950s-fabulous Osborne's Bi-Rite, a veritable neighborhood-scale grocery store you rarely see these days. Our neighbors Mike and Debbie recommend their meat section, on which my quick glance confirmed their thoughts.

Further up Nolensville Pike, there's Dunya Kabob, one of many Middle Eastern restaurants in this part of town. Nashville has the largest Kurdish (northern Iraq, southern Turkey) population in the U.S. (about 11,000 people here), so Nolensville Pike and the surrounding area is a hub for this community. I had gyro combo plate, with lemony-chicken and lamb and the requisite rice with cucumber-tomato-yogurt sauce. Being adventurous, I pulled a "mint flavored yogurt drink" out of the drink cooler. The meal was superb, but I wasn't quite ready for a "yogurt drink." Still, being polite I drank most of it (heavy milk fat was good after moving boxes, etc. all day) and thanked the owner for the meal as I took my bottle o' yogurt and mint "to go."

Overall, there's a little bit of everybody in this neighborhood. Tons of Mexican/Central American places, everything from taco stands to restaurants, a pan-African community (Sudanese, Ethiopian, Somalian), not to mention the working-class/middle-class white and black population that's always been here (lots of railroad workers at Radnor Yard originally lived in the area). One place that I'm sure has been around a while is Norman Couser's Country Cooking, a place down near the Nashville Zoo. I'll let everybody know what it's like soon!