Hootie, Flighty, Fresh and Fruity

A nice Thursday evening in downtown Nashville was had thanks to two separate events that we were able to mingle together nicely. First was an early dinner reservation at the restaurant, Flyte, to take advantage of their participation in The First Annual Restaurant Week for Nashville Originals. The Nashville Originals are a large group of local Nashville restaurants which offered special prix fixe 3-course menus this week for only $20.08 (get it). We have been wanting to eat at Flyte for quite a while and this seemed like a great opportunity...and was it ever! Delicious food, incredible wine selection (over 150 choices by the glass), beautiful and spacious dining area and a large, cool bar. Our waiter, Joseph, was incredibly friendly, knowledgeable and professional. Thanks to the great meal price, we were able to settle on a fairly pricey bottle of verdelho wine from Australia (still hung-over from our trip I guess). It was very smooth and went nicely with both our entrees (Asian shrimp for Rob and pork carnitas for Ashlee). Dessert was a delicious chocolate mousse that we chased with a "flight" (get it) of sparkling wines and champagnes chosen by Joseph who promised something "fun." Nice choices, sir. After dinner we eased over a few blocks to Music Row and were able to find decent parking fairly close to Capitol Record's Pub Crawl 2 - a free concert out on Demonbreun Street featuring a quartet of their stable of recording artists. Even though they were all "country" artists and not our favorite genre, we arrived just in time to catch "Hootie" himself, Darius Rucker, of Hootie & the Blowfish fame who has released a solo country album. His first single, "Don't Think I Don't Think About It" is currently # 1 on the country charts. Congats, Hootie!! The song is pretty damn good and Darius sounded great live and did not disappoint his fans of the past with a closing number of "Only Want to Be With You." Big, literally and figuratively, country artist Trace Adkins closed the show and despite his unique baritone voice we only stayed for a few songs before heading back home since it was a work day tomorrow. Not sure why they call this event a "Pub Crawl" since the music is outside and not in pubs...we would prefer "Demonbreun Throwdown" or something but hey, it's their party, so whatever. Just keep up the good times next year!