The "MLK Girls" are, from left, Madge Cleveland, Susan Brown, Cheryl Bartley, Katie Kline and me (taking the picture.)
Basically, our annual “girls’ trip” this year consisted of lurching from one awesome Chattanooga restaurant to the next with the time in between spent trying to get hungry again! I’m not kidding.
We believe this is our 19th year of the “girls’ trip.” Five of us plan it every year on MLK weekend — but, to us, MLK stands for “Madly Leaving Knoxville.” No disrespect to Dr. King, a personal hero of mine, but my favorite activities dedicated to celebrating his birthday occur in Knoxville either on Thursday before the weekend when the commemorative lunch program is held, or the Monday after, when the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra plays a concert in his honor. So, since over the years several members of our group have worked for government agencies and therefore had the King Monday off, this seemed like a good weekend to set for the annual out-of-town jaunt.
We always go somewhere we can access by car. We started off going to Kiawah Island for a couple of years and, since then, have been to Gatlinburg and Townsend several times, Atlanta, Nashville, Chattanooga a few times, Asheville a few times, Greenville, South Carolina, and Highlands, North Carolina, where we have gone the past three years. We were headed to Highlands again this year when the snow storm hit last week, causing us to re-think our plans and head west instead of east in an attempt to dodge the dodgy weather.
We stayed in a friend’s cute condo on the North Shore (thanks, Carol and Wayne!) and had an absolute blast. Everyone knows how much I love Knoxville and what we have made of our downtown. Spending a long weekend in downtown Chattanooga has given me even more enthusiasm about the heights to which we still can aspire. The trip to ‘Nooga (as one of my old copy editor friends used to call it in order to make it fit into one-column newspaper headlines) was inspirational on many fronts: the high, high quality of a wide variety of restaurants, the fabulous museum, the pedestrian bridge over the river, the art district, all manner of retail offerings and the area’s general walkability and bike-ability. (Not that we did any biking. And not that we went to the museum.)
We arrived in Chattanooga in time for lunch. (The way Katie drives, we could have gotten there in time for breakfast!) We headed to Taco Mamacita.
Taco Mamacita, located at 109 North Market Street, is a very cool-looking place with a “Fresh Mex” concept. It reminds me a little of the wildly popular Chuy’s concept, which recently opened in west Knoxville. We loved the food and the ambiance and highly recommend it if you are looking for a fun, casual meal featuring both food and drinks made in-house from fresh ingredients.
Katie shows off some of our plates.
I ordered a beef taco and fabulous chipotle collard greens -- very spicy and unusual. All the tacos were served in these biscuit pans. Very clever.
This is a "skinny" margarita -- called that because it is sweetened with Splenda and contains only 150 calories. I mean, really, who could resist?
Here's the interior. Very festive and bright.
Knowing that we had dinner reservations that night at the much-hyped Alleia, we knew we had to try to work up an appetite during the afternoon.
Here are those very cool bicycles we could have chosen to rent, but didn't.
We did, at least, take a little walk through Renaissance Park. We were intrigued by two large grassy knolls we saw. Turns out, they are constructed on top of industrial waste from when the Roper manufacturing site was torn down to make room for development on the north side of the river.
Katie was the first one to take on the grassy knoll.
Queen of the hill!
Renaissance Park also contains some great pieces of outdoor art like this sculpture.
After our nature walk, it was time for a little “retail therapy,” literally!
This shop, Retail Therapy, was in the same building as our condo.
Fortunately for us, another shopping center right across the street also called our names.
This cutie named "Noel" greeted us at the Dayle May jewelry store.
The benches there all were butterflies!
The shopping center also contained a Whole Foods store where we purchased all the supplies we would need to survive two nights in a downtown condo when we would be eating every meal at a restaurant.
Whole Foods is a little different from what we are used to. They didn’t have Coke for Cheryl’s favorite cocktail, a Crown and Coke, for instance. But they did have some kind of organic cola. No little Keurig k-cups. Guess they aren’t “green” enough.
I had forgotten my toothbrush, so I picked up one at Whole Foods. It was made of recycled yogurt cups! Ha.
“You’ve got to go to Alleia!” That’s what everybody said. So we did. If you want to get an idea of how edgy this place is, just click here to go to the restaurant’s website. Located at 25 East Main Street, it is a little difficult to find if you don’t know what you are looking for.
Here's the signage on the street. Ha!
Here's the hard-to-find entrance. Thankfully, Katie had been there before so she knew how to get in.
Once you get inside, the logo is on the wall! Cool looking, but not entirely helpful.
A lot of reviews describe the restaurant as "sexy." Here's a view of the interior.
The bar is very dark and features this huge mural of an airplane.
We had a drink in the bar while waiting for our table to be ready.
I forgot to take pictures of our food until we were finished! Big boo-boo on my part. But, truthfully, we didn’t finish. None of us did. The portions were simply huge. Susan took home half of her lasagna. I took home more than half of my pizza. Two folks had papparadelle with braised veal breast and I saw a lot of that in our condo refrigerator later that night. I would describe the food as good, but not as over-the-top fabulous as we had been led to believe.
Anyway, we ended up back in the bar because we had run into our friend Ron Harr and his wife, Linda Andreae, and we wanted to spend a little time with them.
Ron is the president and CEO of the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce. He is a very funny and smart guy.
Ron lived in Knoxville years ago. We all met him when he was with AT&T here.
On the MLK trip in the early years, we would have followed up our dinner with a night of dancing at a local bar. But I guess we are getting old, because we only went back to the condo. We did stay up until after 1 a.m., though, dancing and singing along to an oldies channel on cable TV. I know. Lame.
The next day, it was off to one of our favorite shopping spots, River Gallery in the Bluff View Art District.
The place is divided into many small rooms and has art for nearly every taste.
We were surprised to see the work of two Knoxville artists prominently featured: pastels of Mike C. Berry and photographs of Don Dudenbostel.
Here is a large Mike Berry piece on display at River Gallery.
Here is one of Don Dudenbostel's photos.
Cheryl fell in love with the paintings of David Swanagin. Click here to see some examples of his work.
Cheryl texted photos of the artwork to her husband, Brian, to see if she could get his buy-in.
I collect the masks of Sammie Nicely, who is originally from East Tennessee but now lives in Atlanta. River Gallery is the best place to find his work.
Here is another Sammie Nicely.
Katie was helping me decide which one I liked best. I didn't buy it, though. Showed unusual restraint!
We decided to take another walk and headed out of River Gallery to see what we could see.
Outside the Hunter Museum, which was just across the street, we saw this wooden horse. Only it wasn't wood. Created by Deborah Butterfield, it is made of cast bronze with patina.
Susan really liked it. Fortunately, it was not for sale or I fear we would have been trying to figure out how to get it back to west Knoxville!
We couldn't resist the pedestrian bridge.
From there we got this great view of the old and modern parts of the Hunter Museum.
We didn’t actually go to the museum partly out of deference to Cheryl, who is not really a fan of museums. We did, however, visit the museum’s gift shop where Katie bought a beautiful pashmina scarf that was on sale. When you are friends with the head of the Chamber of Commerce, you feel a certain responsibility to spend money in his town!
And then it was lunch time! We headed to Urban Stack, which is owned by the same folks who own Taco Mamacita.
Located at 12 West 13th Street, Urban Stack is called a “burger lounge!”
Here's the inside of Urban Stack.
But we decided to eat outside. Which was weird in the middle of January.
Katie's burger was called "Good Day, Sunshine" and featured bacon and a fried egg on top!
I had a chicken mushroom melt sandwich. The interesting side dish was a black-eyed pea and cucumber salad. Refreshing.
We visited Warehouse Row next and were a little disappointed to find it about half empty. But we really enjoyed a home furnishings shop called Revival, where Susan fell in love with a set of Simon Pearce glasses. It was fun to run into our Knoxville friend Kreis Beall there! Kreis is the founder of Blackberry Farm and has exquisite taste. She’s crazy about the store. That’s a huge recommendation in itself.
Then we had to go back to the condo and take naps! I know. Lame again.
But that gave us the energy we needed to head out to what would be our favorite eatery of the whole trip, a small little place called ChatO Brasserie.It is charmingly simple in design with the most wonderful menu and excellent, friendly service. Located at 200 Manufacturers Road, it was within walking distance of our North Shore condo.
Look for this sign!
Best drink of the trip: pomegranate margarita. Love the pomegranate seeds as garnish.
Madge ordered a Caesar salad and this is how it came! The cone is made of parmesan cheese. She said it was the best Caesar she has ever eaten.
If I had to pick my "best bite" of the trip, it would be these mussels and the unbelievably tasty broth in the bottom of the bowl. I want to drive back there right now!
Madge, the biggest foodie of our group, ordered foie gras. She later said that was her "best bite."
Cheryl, who never had tasted foie gras, asked Madge what it was. “Liver,” Madge said. “But it doesn’t taste like liver.” Cheryl agreed to taste it and Madge popped a small piece in Cheryl’s mouth, whereupon Cheryl’s beautiful face bunched up into an ugly grimace “What did it taste like, Cheryl?” I asked. “Liver!” she said.
Susan had grilled veal loin served with spaetzle, which she loved.
Cheryl's grilled scallops were served over lobster and asparagus risotto. Damn, it was good.
We decided to share a dessert: a maple souffle that contained candied walnuts.
It was personalized!
When you go to ChatO -- and you must! -- ask for Alex to be your server. He is so much fun and so well-versed about the menu.
On the way home, we stopped by FoodWorks at 205-C Manufacturers Road for a nightcap, but I was too tired to take any pictures. Maybe because it was so late, the bar service was not the greatest.
On Sunday morning, we got great news. Cheryl’s husband Brian had okayed the art purchase! So we headed back to River Gallery to pick up Cheryl’s new David Swanagins!
But first we had to have lunch!
Lunch was at Tony’s Pasta Shop and Trattoria, right near the gallery in the Bluff View Art District.
Another big hit. Even the bread was awesome at Tony's.
I ordered spinach and roasted garlic ravioli with tomato basil sauce. It was so good!
When we went to pick up Cheryl's art, Mike Berry was in River Gallery doing a demonstration.
Here's what he was working on.
I was happy to see an old acquaintance, Tom Griscom, former executive editor and publisher of the Chattanooga Times Free Press and former press secretary to Ronald Reagan and Howard Baker. He and I shared a close friend, the late Ron McMahan.
We loaded Cheryl's two paintings and hit the road back to Knoxville.
Another successful MLK weekend in the memory books. It was a good one. We recommend Chattanooga for a great weekend getaway.
Wow. ChatO sounds fab! We may have to take a road trip just to visit that restaurant.
Looks like a great trip. I love Taco Mamacita when in Chattanooga (and Chuy’s when at home in Knox, of course!). We’ll have to try your other recommendations next time we’re there!
I swear, Melinda, it would be worth it. Take me with you!
Lauren: It was a great trip. Happy to do the research!
Bruce and I bought a David Swanagin painting this year at the Sacred Heart, Artscapes Sale. We love his painting which hangs in our living room. He had a big show at the District Gallery in Bearden during Novenber.
Monique: I’m going go make a point of really looking at that piece next time I’m at your place. I missed Artscapes this year, which I hated. We usually find great things there!
Girl’s weekend looks fabulous. Maybe this would be good for Shelba, Diana, Bev and I. Who says you need to go half way round the world.
I had a great Mother’s Day lunch once at Tony’s. Restaurants look fabulous.
I went to Alleia for my birthday dinner two years ago, and it was fantastic! We did circle the block a few times trying to find it. I guess they don’t need signage to get people into that restaurant, but it would sure make it easier to find.
Mickey: I agree with you. But you sure have had fun going around the world! Dawn: Loved Tony’s. You all would also love ChatO!
Amanda: I’m impressed you found it! I think you must be right about not needing signage. It certainly seemed popular when we were there. But I liked ChatO better.
Sounds like a fun trip. Made me think of my Late best friend Mary and the trips we use to take……thanks for sharing. Best Fay
Fay: I can imagine that you and your friend had fun trips! I’d love to hear about them!
Great ideas for a weekend trip to Chattanooga… and fun to read too. Though I’m drooling over the food and a little sad about the tomato and cucumber I just ate at my desk. 🙁
Oh, Kathy, was that really what you had for lunch? Hope you at least have a great dinner planned! I was very impressed by the quality of the restaurants in Chattanooga. I had no idea.
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