Nashville

On the way from Owensboro to Knoxville, we drove through Nashville and met fellow Roadfooder and award-winning eGullet contributor, Pogophiles, for lunch.

He took us to Murfreesboro to eat at the Kleer-Vu Lunchroom. This is a "meat ‘n three" place with a bend toward "soul". Pogo is very intelligent, articulate, and a connoisseur of many things, so we not only had some fantastic food, we had some great conversation.

It was a hard decision between the meatloaf or the smothered pork steak, but I went with the meatloaf. Pogo got the smothered pork steak and let me have a bite. I won’t say I made the wrong choice, but if you go there, get the pork steak.

Here’s my lunch. In addition to the meatloaf, that’s spinach, lima beans, and cabbage in the bowl. I assure you when I was finished, there was NOTHING left on that plate:

You’ll also notice the cornbread. Pogo explained that it was "hot-water" cornbread, made the way it would have been made in the "old days". Just water, cornmeal, probably some salt, rolled into the "pones" and deep-fried. Sounds simple, but it was delicious. The inner consistency reminded me of mush, and Pogo said that’s basically what it was.

When we left the Kleer-Vu, he took us to a former small grocery market turned BBQ joint named Slick Pig Bar-B-Q (also in Murphreesboro). We got fried pies for dessert, but the main reason was to get some smoked chicken wings to take on the road. These things were very meaty, and cooked so that the skin almost literally became part of the meat. The smoke flavor infiltrated every molecule of the meat on that wing, so biting into one was sheer heaven.

I tried one right out of the box, then took the rest to Knoxville, where my sister-in-law and I polished off the rest for breakfast the next morning. (Yes, they were still great cold.)

Here’s Pogophiles and me in front of the Kleer-Vu.

He’s already promised to show me another place next time I’m through there, and I most definitely trust his judgement!!

Stay tuned for the next installment (probably tonight), where you’ll get to meet The Sundancer.