No Wine-ing Here
NOTE: This only applies to the Nashville location, although the other venues are probably similar.
This review will be different from usual, but I hope you that you like it nonetheless. The reason for this is that the review will be more of a personal nature. If you know me at all, I'm a HUGE fan of singer/songwriter Suzanne Vega, and it's been my life goal to see her perform live at least once in my life. For decades, I dreamed of seeing her perform some of my favorite songs like Tom's Diner and Caramel. Unfortunately, I never got around to seeing her perform during the apex of her career, but hoped to see her perform one day before one of us kicks the bucket. For me, this took on added importance when another of my favorite singer/songwriters died a little over two years ago. In August of 2021, the great Nanci Griffith passed away from natural causes in Nashville at the age of 68. Given that both Suzanne Vega and my other favorite singer/songwriter Tori Amos are approaching that age (as am I), it dawned on me that I if I wanted to see both of those ladies live, I had to be proactive. That said, I constantly was on the lookout for when either of those ladies were touring within three hundred miles of Memphis, hoping that I would get the chance to see them in concert. Within a span of four months of 2023, I was fortunate to see both of them live in Nashville (not together, of course). Because this is a part of a food review, I won't entirely focus on Suzanne's performance at the City Winery (to read about my take of Tori's concert, go to my review of Assembly Food Hall).
Before I talk about the trip, let me give my review of what I ate at City Winery. Because of circumstances that I will discuss later, I didn't eat much at the restaurant/music venue. Fortunately, I managed to put something in my belly, but it wasn't what I had hoped for. Before I go on, this is definitely not anything negative about City Winery, for what I had was very good but not what had planned for when I embarked on my trip. Even though I have written reviews about vegetarian meals in the past, it's not what I strive for when I go out to eat. But because of some curveballs that were thrown at me, I was only able to get one entrée at City Winery but it was a good one.
For the rare vegetarian dish, I got the Kung Pao Cauliflower. Obviously, I expected a variation of Kung Pao Chicken that's served in most Chinese restaurants in America, including the now defunct Asian Palace (replaced by Dim Sum King) in Memphis. However, when my order arrived, my meal looked more like General Tso's Chicken than the "Kung Pao" that I expected. The non-meat of the entrée is large chunks of breaded cauliflower mixed with onions, celery, scallions, red peppers and peanuts. Despite its appearance, the Kung Pao Cauliflower is a very creative iteration of its poultry counterpart. Although it has sweet and sour flavor, it doesn't come off as gimmicky. By that I mean the dish was tasty enough to arouse the senses without being overwhelming with salt or sugar that might mask any negatives in the entrée. The cauliflower itself, encased in a soft breading, was firm yet chewy. Eating it with the other veggies and Kung Pao Sauce (sitting at the bottom of the bowl) was a unique and wonderful experience. By the way, the portion was much larger that I expected, giving me enough to satisfy my appetite without the benefit of side items. By itself, one could regard this as an appetizer (more like a tapa/"small plate") that's big enough for two people to share, especially at a place like City Winery. If I ever order this again (a real possibility), I hope to get the Kung Pao Cauliflower with sides and an actual appetizer. Of course, if the vegetarian dishes are this good, I'm confident that City Winery's more traditional dishes are phenomenal.
SIDE NOTE: After writing this, I went again years later for a dinner that wasn't quite "phenomenal." Scroll down past "Suzy" or click here to get a more accurate take of the "restaurant."
Because this is a "winery," it would be remiss of me to not mention the wines that this establishment offers. For wine connoisseurs who appreciate the vino, they can indulge in "flights" of wine samples from City Winery. They can either get a broad set of samples representing various wine types like the "Classic Flight" or get more specific "flights" of either red or white wines. Wine flights are a great way to learn more about wines without breaking the bank. By the way, all the wines that I had in the "Classic Flight" were excellent!
NOTE: From here, I'm going to describe my experience seeing my favorite singer. If you don't care about that, click here to read more about my food review of City Winery.
As I said before, this blog post is mostly about food. Going forward in this blog post, I want to talk about the concert and the twist and turns in getting there. For starters, I didn't know that Suzanne Vega was playing in Nashville until three weeks before the concert date (in a nice surprise, I found out on the morning of my birthday while browsing through Facebook posts). Being a man of meager means, I was both excited and concerned. Unlike the Tori Amos concert where I had three months to prepare, I had only a fraction of that time to arrange the funds necessary to make Suzanne's concert happen. Thinking back to a similar predicament, I learned two years ago that Suzanne was performing in St. Louis. Although in theory I could have gone to the show, amassing the funds and logistics needed to make this happen at the last minute wasn't doable. Fortunately, this time around I had two things going for me: prior experience in travelling to Nashville and a nice pay raise that gave me more money to draw from. Still, getting the three key elements for the trip, that being the concert ticket, bus tickets and a motel was going to be a huge lift financially, especially on one paycheck. If this was anyone else (other than Tori Amos, Sade, Sarah McLachlan and Alanis Morissette, all ladies that I've had the pleasure to see), this endeavor would've been a non-starter. However, given that this was Suzanne Vega, someone that I hold in the highest regard, this trip was going to happen if I had to move mountains to do it. Somehow, I managed to shuffle things here and there in order to get the money needed for the trip. I wanted to make sure that I had more than enough to travel comfortably, with the ability to deal with unexpected surprises. Once everything was set, including acquisition of the concert ticket, bus tickets and motel reservation, I was ready to go.
SIDE NOTE: As I later learned in subsequent trips, hotels are much better than motels, especially the one where I stayed at on this trip.
As most people are familiar with philosopher Mike Tyson's famous saying "everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face," I was "punched" repeatedly from the start of my trip. When I mean by "start," the first "punch" was the equivalent of a Mike Tyson haymaker that almost ruined the trip from the start. As a middle-age man on the downside of 55, I tend to get up in the middle of the night to "relieve" myself. Usually this is a pain in the ass when I do this, for it undercuts my sleep and drags me down physically. While this is usually a bad thing, my middle-of-the-night bathroom break had a silver lining. As I was going back to bed at 3:00 A.M., I noticed that I had gotten a text. Being a curious person, I opened it to read something that took the wind out of my sails. Greyhound texted that my trip was delayed, meaning that either the bus that I was scheduled to board at 1:00 P.M. had either broken down or I was bumped off the bus (unlike the Tori Amos concert, I didn't reserve a specific seat in order to save money). I was in total disbelief, assuming that my dream of seeing Suzanne Vega was dashed before it even began. As a courtesy, Greyhound offered other times for my trip that were untenable. After seeing the first two options of 5:30 P.M. and 9:30 P.M., I was about to give up the dream. Then I saw the third option, a 4:40 A.M. departure time that was about an hour and a half from my current time. That lifted my spirits but made me think "WHY IN THE HELL DIDN'T GREYHOUND LEAD WITH THAT?!" Needless to say, I immediately got dressed, packed my bag, fed the cat and got an Uber. A disaster averted, but if I had a less active bladder, who knows when an another opportunity to see Suzanne Vega would come, if ever.
So with my new bus ticket in hand (actually on the phone), I boarded the bus and made the four-hour trip to Nashville. Once I arrived, I had to get my bearings for what to do next. The original plan was to go directly to the City Winery (without luggage) that is a block from the bus station. However, arriving at 8:30 A.M. threw my itinerary into a tizzy. Instead of going to the show, I ended up re-planning my day at a doughnut shop inside a Hilton hotel. After figuring out a new plan, I took a stroll on Broadway Street before boarding a city bus to my motel.
SIDE NOTE: I want to give a shout out to Nashville's public transit service, WeGo. Its buses not only run on time, but are cleaner and smoother riding than the average MATA (Memphis Area Transit Authority) bus. It seems WeGo uses devices called "shock absorbers" that prevents a bus from shaking every time it hits a small pothole. Also, many of its bus stops uses LED screens to display the arrival times of buses and has kiosks for buying bus passes (even with a credit card). If Nashville ever gets light rail service added to its transit operations, it will be head and shoulders above every other Tennessee city.
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| A band playing at AJ's Good Time Bar |
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| Racing exhibition on Broadway |
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| "Lather Up" for what? |
After using up my tiny bottle of soap to shower, I headed back to Downtown Nashville for both dinner and the Suzanne Vega concert at City Winery. The music venue is actually located in Pie Town that borders Downtown Nashville, similar to how Memphis' medical district borders its downtown (some will say it's in the ritzy SoBro neighborhood, but it's not). When I arrived at City Winery, I immediately inquired about my dinner reservation and concert ticket. That's when I discovered that buying a concert ticket at City Winery doubles as a dinner reservation, so I actually had two reservations, including one in its dining room. So as a mental note for future visits, I will not make dinner reservations when going to a show at City Winery. Of course, it would have been helpful if the music venue's website didn't prompt me into making a dinner reservation after I bought my ticket, but now I am better informed.
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| Photo taken from NashvilleGuru.com |
After waiting for decades, I'm finally getting to see my favorite singer perform. No longer settling for CDs and music videos, I'm finally seeing Suzanne Vega in the flesh. My seat was at a table near the left edge of the stage, giving me a really good side view of Suzanne. At first I thought I had a bad angle, something that I advise patrons buying tickets from me at the FedExForum not to do. However, not following my own advice wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Getting a better vantage point would have put me farther from the stage, which would have resulted in a different experience. Seeing Suzanne up close, even from the side, was really cool. If my memory is correct, I believe she started the concert with singing "Marlene On The Wall" followed by other classics like "Luka" and my favorite "Caramel" (I get dreamy every time I hear that song) along with newer songs like "I Never Wear White" (speaking of clothes, Suzanne wore blue jeans for her Nashville show, which is less patronizing than Tori Amos' "flag" outfit). Between songs, Suzanne would tell stories about what inspired her songwriting that were both enlightening and humorous. Although I knew some of the stories like the inspiration behind "In Liverpool" when she met a British guy one summer in her early twenties (or maybe late teens) that she hooked up with for a brief but unforgettable romantic experience. Hearing her tell it in person made it seem more intimate. As great as that was, the highlight of the show was her performance of "Tom's Diner" that left an indelible mark on me. Halfway into the song, as I was filming the performance on my phone, an odd but wonderful thing happened. For whatever reason, I caught Suzanne's eye and she wandered over to where I was sitting, to sing to me. ME!? I couldn't believe it!
Suzanne Vega was facing me while singing a song. At first I felt embarrassed, believing that I gave off some weird vibe that grabbed her attention. Usually in those situations, I try to stay in the shadows, enjoying the show in solitude. However, being as close as I was to the stage and filming a lot of the concert (a bad habit that I've got to get under control, something that someone checked me hard on when I saw Alison Krauss and Union Station at the Orpheum in Memphis), maybe Suzanne was putting me on the spot, so to speak. I thought about putting down my phone but a little voice in me said "Fuck it! You're busted so you might as well roll with it." I kept filming her until she blew me a kiss and went back to the center of the stage to finish the song. Talk about having a moment! You know, for all the obstacles and curveballs that I had to overcome to see Suzanne Vega (along with her masterful guitarist Gerry Leonard) was worth it. For me, it was a performance of a lifetime that I will NEVER forget. If I were to die today, I would do so being a very happy man. Number one objective of Operation Bucket List accomplished!
SIDE NOTE: As I was watching the show, I noticed that the audience was old. There were fewer "youngsters" under fifty than black people at the show (besides myself, there were two African-Americans at the concert). I assumed that the demographics of Suzanne's fans were more diverse, given the ubiquitous "Tom's Diner" has been either covered or sampled by musicians ranging from R.E.M. to Snoop Dogg. If I was advising Suzanne, I would urge her to encourage artists like Taylor Swift to cover some of her more rocking jams like "I Never Wear White" that could appeal to a younger fan base. I would hate to see Suzanne Vega's legacy wither away, for she is more deserving.
Leaving City Winery left me floating in clouds of joy. Despite a restless night of "sleep" at my motel, I felt nothing but the joy of accomplishing one of my biggest goals in life. Unfortunately, unlike the "Tori" trip where I headed directly to the Slider Inn to tell my tale after arriving back in Memphis, I headed home to catch up on sleep that that was sorely needed (a couple of glasses of Chardonnay was helpful in putting me out). So instead of sharing my trip with a few friends, I'm telling the world of my experience. It was one of the best ever and I'm better for it. If you're made it this far in my "review" of City Winery, I want to thank you for allowing me to share all of this with you. Unless either Kate Bush or Bjork goes on a U.S. tour that includes Southern cities, this will be the last time that I write an extensive review like this (or not; more trips to come). This blog will never be rebranded "Ken's Music Musings" or anything like that but this was too good to pass up. The next post you see on this blog will be about food, assuming nothing extraordinary happens. But whether it's food or something else, I can promise you that Ken's Food Find will always keep it a 💯. You can count on that!
This review would have ended after the last paragraph, but because I delayed posting this review for so long, I had another opportunity to dine at City Winery. When I say "dine", I am really stretching that word. Before I go further, I want to stress that City Winery is primarily a concert venue, not a restaurant. During the night of Suzanne's show, I didn't notice the number of people in the dining room. Being the happy and blissful person that I was that night, I probably overlooked the scarcity of patrons in the dining room. Fast forward to June 2023, I visited City Winery again on a weekend when I was in town to see Alanis Morrisette (that was a great show). It was a Saturday afternoon with perfect weather and a lot of people walking about. Yet, there was no one in City Winery's dining room other than yours truly. Not wanting to drink by myself, I left after having a flight of City Winery's house wines that were great although I'm not an expert on the vino (that said, I recommend checking out Dolly (Parton) Wines at Assembly Food Hall that are really impressive). Although I was impressed by the "restaurant's" beautiful dining room, it wasn't being utilized. That should have been an omen for me to not pursue this review any further, but I always try to present an accurate assessment whenever I review a restaurant. I don't like doing a "half-ass" review of a restaurant, so I decided to delay posting this until the right opportunity came up. Initially, I had planned to return on the weekend of my birthday in September 2024 but that was delayed because one of the performers that I planned to see (Keb' Mo') had succumbed to health issues (a big reason why my "bucket list" initiative was started). With the concert postponed to March 2025, City Winery made changes to the menu unbeknownst to me. In fact, just two weeks before going back, I checked City Winery's website to see what was on the menu. Although the offerings were meager, there were a few things that were worth trying. In particular, I was interested in getting the Wagyu Hanger Steak that I couldn't afford to get during Suzanne's concert. In my latest check before embarking to Nashville, it was listed on City Winery's menu but what I actually got was a different story.
When I got to City Winery, I was a bit late in arriving. I was on a tight schedule that didn't allow me time to wander about before going to a concert. In showing up ten minutes late, I assumed that my reservation was at risk which would have been a complete fail. Fortunately, I could have showed up an hour late (my reservation was scheduled for 6:30 PM) and I still could have gotten a table because there was no one in the dining room. That should have been a "red flag" for reconsidering my dining choice, but I decided to play it out. After all, it was all about digging into a tasty steak with a fancy potato dish as a side. WRONG! When the server handed me the menu, I didn't like what I saw or rather didn't see. Many of the things that I saw on City Winery's website were no longer available, including the hanger steak. What was left was mostly appetizers and "small plate" items. When I asked my server about the menu, she said they recently updated it. Well, that "update" came right before my trip and it created a dilemma for me. I had to either accept what City Winery offered or scramble to find another nice restaurant to dine at, with not much time to eat before the concert at The Ryman. Eventually, because of my determination to see this through and because other dining options risked me missing a big part of the concert, I decided to have "dinner" at City Winery. With my expectations diminished, the best options I had were chicken wings or sliders (mini hamburgers). I got the Calabrian Chicken Wings with truffle fries, not exactly what I had in mind for dinner.
Although the name implies that they're Italian-inspired, the Calabrian Chicken Wings are pretty much like buffalo wings that you can get at most restaurants. Although they were garnished with scallions, the wings itself had that familiar "buffalo" flavor that most are accustomed to. Although the wings were good, they are not worth $22 for a half-dozen (by the way, the wings consisted of "drummies" and "flappers"). The truffle fries were decent, although I couldn't detect anything special about them (I'm not familiar with truffles). I'm sure someone with a better palate can give a more definitive description of the fries, but they were comparable to most restaurants that I've reviewed. Overall, the wings and fries were okay, just not worth the price that I paid for them.
SIDE NOTE: Because the wings and fries were pretty much an appetizer, I was still hungry after leaving City Winery. Fortunately, I was able to grab a hot dog at The Ryman later that evening. The "dog" was good and the show (at least half of it) was great. To borrow the phrase from the man whose name is part of The Ryman's street address would say (in an ENTIRELY different context), it was good "trouble":
Sub-SIDE NOTE: As a fan of Shawn Colvin, she definitely lived up to my expectations and gave a great performance. Her travelling partner Keb' Mo' put on a solid show, but he is at best an average Blues musician. Being a native Memphian, I can see Blues singers far better than Keb' Mo' anytime I want. Overall, the concert was pretty good.
If there's a lesson to be learned, it is that City Winery (at least the one in Nashville) isn't set up as a "full service" restaurant. As primarily a concert venue, City Winery's limited menu is meant to be refreshments for patrons to casually dine on while enjoying a show. In that capacity, City Winery serves concertgoers well provided they aren't really hungry. Fortunately, there are plenty of restaurants in Downtown Nashville that are in walking distance of the City Winery. My advice is to get your grub on first, then go the Winery for a great show. You can't go wrong with that.
Websites:www.CityWinery.com
www.SuzanneVega.com
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