Knoxville (Jan 13th)
January 13th I nearly missed my bus to Knoxville, TN. I had booked my ticket online and being used to e-Ticket check-in at the bus station in NYC I failed to attribute the wait time a normal desk check-in takes. I was the last passenger on the bus – washboard in hand, Chrome bag over my shoulder.
We stopped off in Dayton, TN at a Pilot truck stop where most of the passengers proceeded to buy food from McDonalds. Thankfully I had packed a Trader Joe’s survival kit of trail mix, dried mango and chocolate covered espresso beans along with my trusty Thermos topped up with homemade coffee. Being prepared saves me from fast food and my wallet from needless spending.
Jon picked me up at the bus station and we dropped my bags at his house and headed out for dinner at a local gastropub, The Crown and Goose.
We treated ourselves to a fine beer, mine was a “Caribbean” stout – smooth and easy to drink sans a coffee bitter, and our waiter was very knowledgeable and pleasant. I chose the Shephard’s Pie which was slow-braised lamb in a red wine sauce baked with Yukon golden mash and topped with two lamb chops cooked to rare. The chops dissolved as I ate them. The pie was baked with a nice crisp skin to the mash while the insides were a refreshing change from the regular ground beef I’ve had in shephards pie in the past much more akin to pulled pork in its stringiness which falls apart.
Nearly bursting at the seams we managed to decide, or perhaps were happily convinced by our waiter, to order the bread pudding which replaced the typical raisin topping with dried cranberries soaked in whiskey. Not my favorite bread pudding but delicious all the same. We even managed to score a tasting of the Sticky Toffee Pudding thanks to again to our waiter slipping it past the chef. The toffee pudding was deceiving, when you cut into it with your spoon it seemed dense yet upon delivery it melted away. An excellent sample to round off our night.
Waiting for one of Jon’s friends to potentially get us into a movie, we dodged off to a local Borders to peruse their books i.e. read their magazines without paying and nabbed a coffee from the Seattle’s Best cafe. After two magazines our coffees ran dry and with no word from the movie friend we headed back to Jon’s.
Curled up on the couch with You Don’t Mess with the Zohan on my laptop we called it a night. As for Zohan, I would say watch the first three quarters then give up before the movie decides to resolve the hackneyed plot.
