Gimme Moto

It’s funny to think back to my younger years, throughout the 90’s and early 2000’s, when Nashville felt more like a small town, resembling nothing close to the booming, hip, diverse metropolis that it has become today.

I can remember having to drive all the way out to Bellevue just in order to go see a movie on the silver screen, to buy the newest beanie baby, or to pick out my special Easter Sunday outfit from the GAP. East Nashville was still a bit of a hairy place, Brentwood consisted mainly of fields and farmland, and I’m pretty sure Germantown didn’t even exist. As far as the food scene went, choices were few and far between: Hillsboro Village’s Pizza Perfect was the only non-chain pizza joint, Asian cuisine was limited to white paper boxes that arrived at your doorstep with a straight face and an open palm, and actual good Italian food was just about as common as Big Foot; you’d heard stories that it existed, but had certainly never come into contact with it yourself.

Fortunately today most of that has changed—East Nashville is super cool and trendy, an entire array of incredible Asian joints have since riddled this town, and I don’t think beanie babies even exist anymore—but the Italian food scene is one area in which Nashville still struggles. Italian restaurants and groceries have come and gone, pizza joints have grown and become almost over-abundant, but no real, good, truly Italian-style restaurant has made it in this town. Everybody plays; everybody sings; but nobody knows how to do Italian.

Fortunately, Moto has changed that.

The sixth installment of MStreet’s restaurant empire, Moto Cucina Enoteca is the latest and greatest eatery to open its doors over on McGavock Street. –If you ask me, I’m confident those doors will stay open for a long while. And thank God.

Under the direction of executive chef Andy Hayes, the menu boasts rustic-modern Italian food, giving twists to classic dishes, offering impressive meat selections, and overall having a lot of fun with both fresh, local products and imported Italian fare. They source their pig from Nashville’s own Porter Road Butcher, buying an entire pig and breaking down the whole animal in-house, and alternatively import incredible cheeses and oils from the motherland itself. It’s truly the best of both worlds.

Aesthetically, Moto hits the nail on the head. The brick bones of the former warehouse are still a prominent feature, giving the place a sense of countryside comfort in contrast to the sexy, polished and very put-together space. Black and white accents add a pop of modern funk all over, but my personal favorite touch is the beautifully tiled black and white bar top, complimented by the bartenders black and white striped suspenders. Not an inch or detail has gone unnoticed, giving Moto a rich, yummy Italian feel with a lot of Italian fashion and sex appeal.

And the food certainly doesn’t suck either.

Moto doesn’t just stick to pizza or pledge its allegiance to pasta; the menu really encompasses every aspect of a true Italian dinner–like those ones we used to watch Pauly D and Vinny enjoy with their families on the Jersey Shore!! Kidding. Well, I mean kind of. They did have really big and fantastic looking feasts, despite the mayhem they got into later that night.

I’ve sampled my fair share of the items on Moto’s sizable menu, and only a couple out of the two dozen things I’ve tasted really fell short in my book.

In the appetizer department, Moto offers a selection of both hot and cold items, and additionally has a charcuterie and cheese selection from which diners can choose three, five, or seven salamis and/or incredible imported cheeses to sample. I was both impressed and ecstatic to see they had my absolute favorite cheese Pecorino Sardo in their selection, but was quite unimpressed with our bartender’s knowledge—or lack there of—of the meat charcuterie. When presented with what looked like deli turkey after requesting a slightly-spicy hard salami, I felt sad, tricked, and moreover unexcited.

Fortunately the Duck Fat Olives, Fried Oysters, and Raw Winter Vegetables salad made up for the salami snafu. Snuggled together in a miniature cast-iron skillet with crunchy pops of hazelnut, shards of soft orange rind, and whole cloves of pillowy roasted garlic, I couldn’t keep the warm, fruity duck-fat olives out of my mouth; somehow they continued to climb in between my lips and melt onto my tongue. The fried Apalachicola oysters, garnished with peperonata and preserved fennel, presented a similar issue. So delightfully crispy yet tender, the only thing that remained when it was all said and done were the half-shells on which they were presented.

The raw winter veggie salad, crunchy, cool and colorful, provided a welcome contrast to the warm dishes–and brief moment of feeling slightly healthful in the midst of so much rich and decadent deliciousness. With a multitude of flavor profiles, what could have easily been a boring heap of chilled turnips and beats turned out to be an exciting dish: sweet and crunchy green apple, beautiful and bitter sliced radish, peppery arugula and anise-y fennel, plus a not-too-funky bleu cheese, all dressed in a tangy white balsamic. I went back for a second serving, reached for a third, and then decided to hold myself back since I was with a group of friends; I wanted them to stay friends.

Then came the pizza.

1) Kale Pesto, Porchetta, and fresh Mozzarella
2) Mushroom, Black Truffle, and Fontina

Like, seriously?

With a wood-fired oven—which, by the way, has it’s own special space and prep-area, separate from the general kitchen ovens—both pies’ crispy crusts were laced with traces of charred smokiness and love. The kale pesto, a matrimony of fruitiness and bitterness, paired perfectly with salty PRB porchetta and creamy mozzarella. The mushroom, truffle, and fontina pizza on the other hand was almost too much to handle; it was like a never ending orgasm in my mouth. Along with a generous drizzle of truffle oil which comes standard on this pizza, Chef Hayes shaved curls of fragrant, delicious, and generally very expensive black truffles onto our pie as a bonus. It. Was. Ridiculous.

Following the pizza portion came the main course: Chicken Saltimbocca (kale, roasted garlic, pancetta), Black Spaghetti (lobster, calabrian chilies), Gnocchi (salsify, green apple, fonduta), Brussels Sprouts (pancetta, apple agrodolce), and Roasted Potatoes (sunchokes, black truffle, taleggio). We also somehow managed to snag a couple orders of the evening’s special from Chef Hayes as well—as if we didn’t have enough food already: spaghetti with a creamy lemon sauce, sea scallops, and sea urchin.

The gold medal turned out to be a tie between the black spaghetti and the gnocchi; both dishes were knockouts and both deserved the high podium. The beautiful chocolate-black hue of the spaghetti, in contrast to in the bright pink and orange sauce, plus the pop of green parsley on top looked so good I almost didn’t want to eat it. Of course, I did. Flavors of fresh chilies and seafood transported me momentarily to the Mediterranean and I yearned for a giant, wide-brimmed straw hat and an olive-skinned boyfriend named Salvatore. Hinting towards it, but not fully funky yet, the sauce that blanketed the puffy and pillowy gnocchi tasted like a mild goat cheese and paired beautifully with the bits of green apple peppered throughout. Tissue-paper thin strips of salsify—a root vegetable completely foreign to everyone at the table—provided a delicious and intriguing crisp element to a dish that would otherwise be without.

As for the rest, the brussels sprouts won the award for favorite site item as they were both sweet and slightly spicy with amazingly crisp charred edges; the potatoes were unoffensive but didn’t really knock any socks off; the special was outstanding and I found out that I am pretty okay with the idea of sea urchin; and the chicken saltimbocca left much to be desired: it was bland, it was not very moist or tender, and I barely even noticed the thin layer of pancetta that was supposedly wrapped around the outside.

Although I’m not quite sure how I managed to make space for it in my belly, the Meyer Lemon Budino, accompanied by pistachio biscotti and semolina shortbread was the perfect finish to an outstanding meal: with a texture like key-lime pie, and a lemon flavor that was just right—not overpoweringly tart nor sweet—I left with a cleansed palate and a belly that looked 9 months along.

I’ve been to Moto twice now since it opened almost exactly one month ago—and my dinner from last time has probably still yet to fully digest—and I’m already jonesing to go back so I can try something new. The Blueberry Lasagna has received rave reviews, the Pappardelle Verde looks like its right up my alley, and I’ve just gotta get my hands on some of those house-made meatballs.

Fortunately for me, mom and dad have got some birthdays coming up and these New Englanders have been missing some real, good Italian fare over the past twenty-five years. But, with a South of Manhattan cocktail at $14 and a wine list boasting over 30 labels, I may need some help from mom and dad if we’re really gonna celebrate their big days right.

Guess I better start saving my money. Dinner for three ain’t gonna run cheap, but it’s sure as hell gonna be worth it.

The Lentil Bowl

It was this past Saturday, January 18th, around 11:48 in the morning, and we’d just been given the go-ahead to break for lunch. And this girl was hungry.

I was at the Bridge Building downtown, attending an all-day yoga immersion and self-study workshop led by my yoga teacher and mentor, Sid McNairy, plus eighty-seven of my best yogi buddies. We’d just finished an amazing “Sid Practice” (that’s what I call them: when Sid teaches the flow and those 90 minutes are physically challenging, yet also enlightening, empowering, and energizing) and an hour of self-study group work. In an effort to continue with my good for the mind, body, and spirit day I had going on, I was in the mood to eat something healthy. No way was I planning to head to one of the bars downtown and scarf down a burger and fries, surrounded by a bunch beer-drinking hooligans. Nor was I in the mood to simply come home for an hour and a half, just to snack on my standard buffet of cauliflower, carrots, cucumber, hummus, and perhaps a couple of almonds. I wanted warm, hearty, healthful, food. And I knew exactly where to get it.

I asked a handful of other girls if they were interested in going to The Wild Cow for lunch, and everyones eyes immediately doubled in size at the mention of this vegan eatery. It’s so good.

Grocery Woes

I’m beginning to understand my mother’s distaste for the grocery store. What used to be a fun, enjoyable and [embarrassingly] exciting outing that I gladly took off her hands has recently turned into a chore.

Back when I was living with my parents, my mom eagerly assigned me the task of doing the family grocery shopping and I equally as eagerly took the task off her hands. I genuinely enjoyed going to the grocery. Armed with my list,  I’d go about gathering all of the noted items, and additionally acquiring a handful of extras that were nowhere near necessary: the latest electric hue of OPI nail polish, a smelly yet intriguing hunk of French cheese, a container-full of whatever looked good for lunch at the Mediterranean bar, and perhaps I should give chocolate almond milk a try?

Today, things are different. Not only do I live least a 15 minute drive from any suitable, trustworthy produce vendor (that is, until my neighbor the Farmer’s Market starts selling actual, good, local stuff in the summer months) but I continually find myself needing more things and not wanting to spend that money nor having time to make the trip.

Bringing 312 to 615

I’m pretty sure there is never a time when I wouldn’t want to eat pizza. Which isn’t to say I’m like a pizzaholic who eats pizza some ungodly amount–I’m not trying to fool anyone here; I really try to eat very healthily–but whenever the opportunity to dive into a pie arises, you can most assuredly count me in.

Thin crust or thick, vegetarian or meat-lovers, white sauce or red, Neapolitan or New York style, I am 100% positive that 99.9% of the time, I will dig right in—no matter the circumstances. Sick to death with food poisoning? Gimme pizza. Hot, sweaty, dying in Nashville’s brutal summer humidity and unattracted to eating anything ever again? Mmmm I’ll have pizza. Feeling sad? Pizza. Feeling happy? Pizza. When it’s freezing cold, and I want to be lounging in my sweatpants, lying on my couch, and powering through a few seasons of Breaking Bad? Pizza.

Okay, so in reality, I actually don’t eat that much pizza. Which is probably good for both my health and my physique. But unfortunately, for both my health and my physique that’s all about to change. 312 is coming to 615. And it’s only about 100 yards from my front door.

Super Sopa Roma

I’ve been living on my own in my new apartment for 37 days now. I’ve done laundry four times, hosted three miniature cocktail parties with friends, baked one pie from scratch, gone through about 13 containers of humus, drank upwards of 37 smoothies, and I’ve cooked a grand total of 3 “real” meals for myself: grilled chicken sausages and steamed green beans; spaghetti squash with marinara sauce and goat cheese; and zesty pumpkin pecan pancakes.

What I’ve come to find through living on my own, is that despite my love for cooking and baking and being in the kitchen in general, I find it difficult to gather the necessary ingredients I so require to make dinner for just one person, little ole me. I mean, do I want to buy a whole pack of chicken and then prep, marinate, and sauté up just one breast? Should I prepare a tiny mixed salad with just enough lettuce, cucumber, red pepper, and avocado to serve as my small side item? Ought I go to Harris Teeter and ask for “just four of the sea scallops, please?”

I could do all of those things! Easily. No problem. But the money and energy and time that I would expend doing so seem far greater than the joy I would receive after going to all the trouble–particularly when it’s only to eat my dinner sitting alone at my table with the company of a glass of red wine and whatever horrible trash is currently on TV.