Nashville vs. Seattle Part 4

Part 4 of this ongoing subject revolves around food! Seattle is a well known foodie destination and boasts a huge amount of well known chefs and restaurants, heck, check out the latest James Beard Nominations, Seattle and Washington have tons! While this is exciting for Washingtonians like myself, I must say the ongoing culture shock continues as I find some things that are better in the Pacific Northwest and some thing that are not better.

Bacon
This one might surprise you and I might be committing an unforgivable sin by saying this but here goes... Seattle has better bacon than in the South... Before you get all upset, I'm sorry but on a general level it's true, especially in restaurants. The bacon I've had up here is thicker, bolder and juicier than most if not all the bacon you get in the South. Trust me, I was as shocked as you are right now and the first time I had it, I thought it was just one place that served this thicker juicier version of my favorite cured and salted pork, but no... it's everywhere and it's amazing!While in the South, you get more of a crispier and thinner style of bacon, up here it's more like quadruped thick pork belly.

BBQ
While Seattle takes the bacon battle hands down, they are absolutely massacred in BBQ. There are a few places that do BBQ here and there are a few chains like Famous Dave's but all of them don't hold a candle to what's available in Nashville. Most taste like grocery store BBQ, even the mom and pop places that smoke their goods in trailer smokers.

Cracker Barrel
Despite what you might think of their politics (which suck by the way) Cracker Barrel delivers some awesome southern food and if you've never had it, well, I'm sorry. And if you live in Washington , the closest one is hundreds of miles away... It's a horrible thing because once you've sat down and had a "Country Boy Breakfast" with steak medallions, over easy eggs, grits and cheese hash browns, you will undoubtedly get a craving for them and up in Washington, you simply have to go without.

Seafood
This is an obvious one but I think it's worth mentioning. The Seafood up here is local, fresh, and available at a lot more places. There are not a ton of readily available seafood places in Nashville unless you are going to a chefy restaurant or Red Lobster. And while I won't bash Red Lobster too much, I promise, the many little pubs all over the place have superior selections of fish, clams, muscles and seafood in general.

Sushi
Don't get me wrong, Nashville has a few killer sushi places but on average, Seattle has better sushi all over. You're average sushi place here is much better than the average sushi place in Nashville. The fish even looks a bit different... brighter in general. Something that is interesting is that there are not as many "fusion" sushi places in Seattle. Like it's hard to find a mango, strawberry, whipped cream sushi roll here while there are several places in Nashville that do that sort of thing.

Waffle House
Waffle House is a Southern staple. There's nothing quite like hitting one of the billions of little 24 hour diners after a party, or a movie or even on a road trip. They just make good consistent food and it's a marvel to watch them scream out the order at lighting speed and see the cooks just nail it with speed and accuracy every time. Also, if you enjoy food in any way, you simply can't deny the power of scattered, smothered, covered, and diced hash browns. Sadly there are no Waffle Houses anywhere close to Washington. So they just miss out on this wonderful part of life.

Southern Food
Another obvious one here but there is little to no Southern Food in Seattle. There is one place called Southern Kitchen in Tacoma that was featured on Diners Drive-ins and Dives so I got excited and went there... it was good... well, it was ok. I give them an A for effort but it just isn't the same. The thing that Seattle lacks most in food is Southern Food. I'm shocked that some transplant hasn't come up here and started a for real southern place. I think the locals would go crazy for it. As expected there are a lot of mm and pop Southern places in Nashville including the Loveless Cafe (the reigning king of all southern food joints) Something I feel like needs to be included in this category is Meat and Three's... Nashville has like twenty well known ones while I can't find a real one in Seattle to save my life. I always here Seattle has a higher suicide rate because of the rain and weather but I think it's the lack of Southern food.

Smoothies
I'm guessing that it's due to the climate in Seattle, but there are no Smoothie places. There are like fifty Smoothie Kings in Nashville. Of course it does get over 100 degrees on the regular in the summer in the South, but it is sort a bummer for that occasional smoothie craving.

Nashville vs. Seattle Part 3

Here's the third installment of the (in)famous Nashville vs. Seattle blog that highlights some interesting differences in life from a somewhat culture shocked Southerner. The last few blogs have gotten quite a lot of readers so I'm going to continue to do these as I keep noticing differences.

Neon
There's a ton of neon in Washington State, especially neon green. I suspect that the color's popularity originated with the Seattle Seahawks and the Seattle Sounders FC but it definitely doesn't end there. People rock neon green even if it doesn't advertise the local sports teams. I've also noticed Washingtonians like to match their neon, sporting neon stripped shirts with neon socks and shoes. They're serious about their neon here.

Vape Stores
Despite the cheesy name, Vaping is also mega popular here and I get why. Using this product/method has allowed me to stop smoking for over a month now and I'm pretty damned happy about it. Anyway, there are vapor stores all over the place, including two in Gig Harbor (which is kind of weird if you've ever been here). But in general, there's tons of these places popping up. I guess it's good money if you can get in on the trend. As I know it Nashville has a very limited supply of these places. (Hint hint if you wanna make some money)

Dispensaries
Ok, pot is legal in Washington. Of course at this point you still can't buy it without a medical card but from what I hear, it's harder to get a drivers license than it is to get a medical marijuana card. So what's everyone doing? Everyone and their mom, and their mom's dog and their mom's neighbor is opening a marijuana dispensary. If you thought Washington had a lot of Starbucks, you'd be right, but quickly dwarfing the coffee houses that make this land famous are white signs with green crosses on them indicating that they sell weed legally at that establishment. I'm not kidding about how many of these places are popping up, they're on every corner. My guess is everyone is opening a store so they have the licenses and stuff in place for when they can sell to the general public and they can all retire by twenty five. Since weed is very illegal in Nashville of course you're not going to find anything like this there. It was weird coming here and seeing weed stores but now I see them so often that it would be weird to not see them . Personally I don't care about weed but I'm glad it's somewhat legal .

Bikini Baristas
Ok, this may sound redneck but one of the awesomest little perks of WA is the freedom and open-mindedness that goes on here and yes that does include having little drive up only bikini barista coffee stands. They funny part is they often make better coffee than the latest "cool coffee place in town". Maybe it's just I'm a sucker for a hot girl making coffee... I mean your day is just a little better when your mocha is served by someone in pasties. In Nashville, they might literally try to throw the bible at you if you attempted to open one of these places but maaaaannnnn if you wanna cash in big time the South is ripe for the pickin.

Nerds take all
Ratio wise, there are a ton more "nerds" in Seattle than there are in Nashville. I mean that in the nicest way too because I consider myself one of them. You'll typically run into more "nerdy" folks here. It's kind of like being at a con all the time. Chances are pretty good that you'll run into someone that would love to talk about the weapon systems of Jaeger in Pacific Rim.