Tag: nashville

Food Reviews: The Wild Cow- Vegan Food in East Nashville

Despite its name, The Wild Cow is an all vegan restaurant located in East Nashville. On the search for something healthy and delicious, I decided to give this place a shot. Here’s the breakdown:

ATMOSPHERE

 

     

The Wild Cow is located in a posh area of East Nashville, in a sleek new-ish building with other cafes and shops.

 

The inside immediately reminds you that this is a vegan place to eat. There’s always a hippie-type vibe in these places: casual, but clean, a wait staff with dreads, many flavors of tea to choose from, etc.
Furthermore, there were adorable pictures of cows, dogs, and other animals framed all over the walls.
Everyone that worked here was super friendly and helpful. We felt welcomed right away.

THE FOOD

Their entire menu can be found here: menu
Also, here are vegan baked goods located on the front bar. I abstained, but they looked delicious.
Finally, there’s a refrigerator by the bakery bar that has a few options of healthy sodas and juices. They also serve beer!

TACO SAMPLER PLATE, $12
Description: Comes with each of the signature tacos and one side. NO MODIFICATIONS ALLOWED.
Tacos:
Sweet Potato & Black Bean Tacos: mashed sweet potatoes,
black beans, lime slaw, homemade jerk sauce and toasted
pumpkin seeds. (GF w/ corn tortillas)
Chipotle Seitan Tacos: spinach, carrots, tomatoes, vegan ranch
and BE Hive chipotle seitan.
Peanut Tempeh Tacos: sautéed kale, peanut sauce, avocado, carrot-                  daikon slaw, sesame seeds and peanut tempeh. (GF w/ corn
tortillas)

When a hear a taco cannot have modifications, that scares me. Because usually they have cheese. However, at a vegan place, there are no modifications needed for me! And they all came on corn tortillas, so they were gluten free as well, if anyone cares.
Anyway, we loved this plate! The chipotle seitan taco was the best. It had tons of great flavor with some heat from the chipotle, but then was cooled off with the veggies and vegan ranch. So good!
My second favorite was the sweet potato one. It was very sweet, with a little savory bite from the jerk sauce and pumpkin seeds to even it out. While the texture was a little one-toned, with mashed sweet potatoes being the main component, it was still delicious.
The peanut tempeh tacos were pretty much the Far East Bowl in a shell…you can read about that disappointment below.
Finally, the side of mixed seasonal veggies with aioli was delicious! The veggies were vast: mushrooms, carrots, onions, cabbage, bell peppers, and possible more that I missed were all charred perfectly while still having a good bite. They were smokey and delicious, though the aioli was pretty bland.

Far East Bowl, $10
Description: sautéed garlicky kale, grilled tofu, carrot- daikon slaw, peanut sauce, and sesame seeds served over organic brown rice.

First thing to note, I ordered this dish with no organic brown rice, but extra garlicky kale instead. This did not cost extra.
While I was very excited about this dish, overall, I was pretty disappointed. In one word, this dish was BLAND.
I love garlic and I couldn’t taste a lick of it in the “garlicky” kale.
The tofu was extremely under-seasoned, if seasoned at all?
The veggies were nice, though they could have been more crisp.
The peanut sauce was good, but the dish overall was watery, which made the sauce watery.
We added chili sauce for heat, which helped some, but didn’t save the dish. We didn’t even finish it. I would not get this again.

OVERALL

I would definitely come back to The Wild Cow. There are so many other things on their menu and bakery bar that I want to try. The people were so nice and helpful, and it wasn’t expensive, considering everything is vegan. We left stuffed, even after not finishing one of the dishes. And I would definitely get a couple of those tacos again!

Cheapskate: FREEBIES at CMA Fest Nashville, June 2017

For the past four years, the hubs and I have booked an Airbnb or hotel MONTHS in advance (due to every room in town getting booked pretty quickly) for Country Music Association fest in Nashville.


This music festival has many aspects. If you first google it, you can view tickets for hundreds of dollars. But do not worry, that is only for the nightly concerts in Nissan stadium. We have never actually purchased these, nor anything else for this fest.
During the daytime, there are literally hundreds of free concerts, meet and greets, interviews, and more. With all that is going on, we have to pick and choose which concerts to see, as many occur at once at different stages, and we never run out of things to see and do. By the end of the day, we are too worn out to go to the big concert at Nissan Stadium even if we wanted to.

Each year, there are always free samples handed out from dozens of companies. From Gildan underwear and socks, to many different brands of koozies and sunglasses, to lots of different foods and drinks, you know I have a great time with the freebies!
So, this blog post is dedicated to all of the free samples of foods and drinks. Here goes!

Spam!

I know this sounds gross, but the Spam truck with its varying samples was my favorite freebie! There were options such as Spam fries, Spam breakfast burrito, Spam sushi, and more. In the past, I have tried them all, but I stuck to my favorites this year:

Spam Fries

These shoestring fried Spam fries are a little too salty, but delicious. Very “spam-y”, but asking for a side sauce helps.

Spam Slider

Oooh wee! These were really good. Too good. I ate too many. On a soft sweet roll, a slice of seared Spam came with a little ketchup and horseradish. Delicious! I am not playing, I’ll make this at home…better than a fried bologna sandwich!

Skippy PB Bites

In multiple locations around CMA fest, there were Skippy fridge carts with people handing out a couple bags of these sweet babies to everyone who passed by. In the heat, these chilled, creamy peanut butter bites were the perfect pick-me-up!

Colman’s Spicy Mustard

This little mustard food truck gave small hard pretzels drizzled with Colman’s spicy mustard. This mustard is delicious! It tastes like it is mixed with horseradish, which is my favorite type of heat. I just bought some at Kroger yesterday. The samples worked, I guess!

Izze Fusion Drinks

There were three flavors to choose from, we ended up trying them all, at this Izze cart: lemon lime, strawberry melon, and orange mango.  These were very freshing, as they were cold, slightly carbonated, and tasty. My favorite was the orange mango.

Pepsi 1983- Four Flavors

I am NOT a Pepsi fan. However, the new 1983 brands are a definite upgrade from the regular Pepsi we are all used to. The Original Cola was my favorite, and yes, it was very tasty. It tastes more like a Coca-Cola than the original Pepsi.
The Ginger Cola was very similar to a ginger beer, and would be perfect in a moscow mule.
The Black Currant Cola wasn’t bad, but it didn’t fit my fancy. It had a little bit of a berry taste to it.
The Citrus Cola was my least favorite. It didn’t taste like a Pepsi nor a citrus cola.

My Favorite Non-Food Item: Jergen’s Shower Moisturizers

I got two, out of three options, for Jergens Wet Skin Moisturizers. One is the Glow, which gives a natural glow, and the other is the coconut, made with real coconut oil. I like them both very much so far, though the smell of the coconut is my favorite.

Inside FanFair X

The one purchse we make on our trips to CMA fest are four days worth of FanFair X tickets, at $25 each. FanFair X is worth the price because it is a large building with AIR CONDITIONING, concerts, meet and greets, interviews, shopping, food options, and more samples! Here are the samples from FanFair X:

Skittles, Plain M&Ms, and Peanut M&Ms

After writing a “thank you” note to our troops, you were given these three samples. I may have written more than one.

Darius Rucker Backstage Whiskey

Yes, there were real whiskey samples (tiny, but still) being given to anyone who showed their i.d.  The brand was Darius Rucker’s Backstage Whiskey. I am not a whiskey fan, but I guess it was smoothe? All I know was it was free, so I got one of these each day.

Sarah Evans’ ONEHOPE Wine and Champagne

Sarah Evans collaborated with ONEHOPE to create a new wine and champagne line that helps fund charity organizations.  We only tried the brut champagne, 4 times to be exact, because it was too good to veer off path and try the other sample option, the cabernet sauvignon.

Blake Shelton’s Smithwork’s American Made Vodka

Smithwork’s Vodka, make and bottled in Forth Smith, AR, had a cute set up. Within a small area, there was a white picket fence, a set up for free photos in front of a “front porch” and free samples of vodka! The first day we tried this, it was mixed with lemonade and no vodka could be tasted. (I have had Smithworks vodka on the rocks, and trust me, if there was any real amount of this alcohol in lemonade, you would taste it…it is not my favorite vodka.)
The second day we tried this was Sunday, so they went with a brunch theme and we had bloody mary’s. You could even add hot sauce or Worcestershire sauce! These were very tasty as well, and very weak.

We did take advantage of the free photo booth here, where they printed your photos and then also emailed them to you.

Overall

Once we got home, we emptied out Drew’s backpack that he kept all of our samples we were saving and found we brought a lot home. Those pb bites are currently in the fridge, like they were in Nashville.

The freebies at CMA fest change each year, but are always very satisfying. In the past, I have also tried a slice of Hunt Brother’s pepperoni pizza, blue bell ice cream, yoplait yogurt, and Monster drinks.

Keep ’em coming, CMA fest, we love our freebies!