Us New Yorkers were debating whether there was a need to “go out” in Nashville, Tennessee. We had just consumed a luxurious meal at F. Scott’s Restaurant & Jazz Bar where seared scallops cooked in barbecue sauce was consumed (¡nunca máis!) along with some type of ordinary fish cooked rather ordinarily. It’s amazing how spoiled you become living in The City where even the finest restaurant anywhere else in the world is, well, “ordinary” (apologies to anyone outside of NYC reading this, but one cannot tell a lie).

But the live jazz music seeping out of the bar area into the dark corner of the restaurant where we were placed with a clientele of grandmothers and great-great-aunts was good. Too bad it was over by the time we had finished eating.

F. Scott’s owner was a big fan of the famous writer the restaurant is named after, but she wanted it call it Zelda’s (which I agree is a much sexier name) after the author’s wife. However, that name was already taken. I’ll admit the restaurant’s name was one of was my deciding factors (I’ve also dined at the excellent Hemingway‘s in Killington, Vermont) and because J. Kerouac Diner & Bistro had prematurely died in a car crash.

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Our motel in Music Row was within walking distance of the Nashville nightlife epicenter, so we drove the half a mile to the famed Tootsies Orchid Lounge, which the New York Times characterized as “[a] rowdy country dive [that] has been a Nashville tradition since the days when the Grand Ole Opry was still performing in the Ryman Auditorium around the corner.” It sounded like the logical place to find the natives in their familiar surroundings. Continue reading »