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 Washington Part 2

My last Nashville vs. Washington post was pretty darned successful and it was fun to write! This is an ongoing process as I notice more and more cultural differences between the two sides of the country.

Speed Limits
First on the agenda is speed limits. Basically, my whole life in Nashville, speed limits are a normal 35-55 on normal streets and 70 on the highway. In Washington speed limits are an insanely low 25-40 on normal streets and 60 on the highway... As you can imagine that causes problems for a Tennessee boy that's used to getting places quickly. I haven't had a wreck in over ten years (Knock on wood) and I'm sorry, but I can go 75 on the highway without endangering people around me. For me, the Washington speed limits are hilarious. I mean maybe one would expect that in Florida or Arizona where there's a large elderly population but in Washington? Really? I mean who goes 25 MPH anywhere unless your car is broken? I can almost skate faster than that.

Highway vs. Freeway
I've heard the term freeway my whole life but I've never been around people that use it. I understand that there's an actual definition difference between the terms but just as in Nashville where people use the term Highway for those big roads where you can go fast, in Washington they call all those same roads Freeways.

Credit Cards
This is a weird thing I see a lot here that I never see in Nashville. A lot of people house their credit cards/debit cards in little sleeves that they get when the card is issued. So it takes them longer to extract said card from their wallet and then from the weird sleeve. Note that being in Washington, many people have enhanced passport drivers licenses so sometimes the sleeves are apparently to protect cyber thieves from remotely accessing the information with some kind of electronic device. (Yes, I've heard this is real) But bank cards?

Reflective Fashion
Maybe Washingtonians are more of a blue collar lot but everyone and by everyone I mean a notable portion of the population from 10 year olds to 90 year olds wear roadside reflective hoodies (AKA sweatshirts) as a fashion. Sure there is a lot of road workers, dock workers etc that might require these for work but tons of people rock this as a fashion item. Basically they're a solid color hoodie (sweatshirt) with two or three reflective bars on the front and back. Clothing companies have even ramped it up putting designs and pictures (like deer, skulls and flames) intermingled with the reflective bars. Like I said, maybe they're just a more blue collar proud lot here but I see kids and older people rocking this all the time. I know little Timmy isn't working the graveyard shift on the side of the Highway (Freeway).

Beer
From my last post, a friend of mine commented about the differences in beer. And he's right, sort of, when it comes to the beer differences in the two states. In Washington the beer selection at a gas station absolutely murders what you can get in Nashville. The generic brews of Bud/Miller etc are primarily ignored in a gas station where they dominate most quick stops in the south. In Washington you can get nice pints of craft beer and the newest six pack of seasonal brew around every corner. The thing that Nashville has over Washington is the beer mega stores (and I don't mean places like Bevmo) Since you can't get high alcohol beer or a lot of craft beer in gas stations in Nashville, they have entire stores and big ones at that that are wall to wall beer. It's usually a touch  more expensive but they have beer that you can't even find in Washington. The selection at these places is mind boggling and often left me wanting to spend $1000 each trip.

That's it for now... more to come as I discover.