Jaz (00:00):
Hey there, thanks for checking this episode out. In this episode, I'm trying out a new format and the new format or episode type is called a Side Quest. Uh, in these episodes, it's not me having a conversation in these episodes with one of my mates around various places. It's just a mini update of somewhere that I have tried recently for food or drink that I thought was, uh, pretty cool and worth sharing. So just a mini update, uh, info for you. All the episodes on my My Mate In, are good vibes only, so don't expect a kind of formal review. It was what I tried out and what I liked. And hopefully you'll, uh, find something interesting amongst the episodes and check it out yourself.

Jaz (00:48):
Recently, I have come back from spending eight days in Nashville and after about a week or two weeks of being back into the swing of things here, I started to feel like I was missing the Southern food. And, um, also the music, which probably seems a little crazy in that, uh, you know, Melbourne's got a really great music scene. But you go on holidays and you spend a lot of time exploring and adventuring and you come back to work and life and things and don't explore in your own city sometimes the same way you do when you're out and about. So my motivation for this weekend was to find some Nashville inspired food and music.

Jaz (01:33):
Uh, so this episode is about a place called Belles Hot Chicken. Belles Hot Chicken has a pretty clean, uh, design and layout. It's very kind of American diner style and I had seen this before going past on the 86. So if you catch the 86 tram, it's gonna drop you right out the front. If you catch the 11, it drops you pretty close by and you can just walk a little bit because it is on Gertrude Street in Fitzroy. And so I have passed this place a bunch of times and thought, oh, that looks cool. I'm gonna check it out. But I was doing a search and found that Belles is and Nashville inspired hot chicken place. Uh, and we had a really great time.

Jaz (02:15):
Um, I'm gonna link to the menu in the show notes. Uh, so what did we have? Uh, I wanna do what I wanna let you know what sounded really good, but I haven't tried yet and I will definitely try out next time was the spicy chicken sandwich and fries. And they also have on this menu a Nashy loaded fries with cheese sauce, ranch, pickles, jalapenos, um, chopped original spice tenders. So they look amazing. But I kind of went a little more simple being kind of inspired by Prince's or Hattie B's while in Nashville. So I just went the tenders. Um, and then you can choose your level of spice from chicken salt and original, which is, you know, um, super mild. Uh, I had the traveler, which is the next step from that. It's a bit spicy. It was, it was warm enough for me. And then they've got the hot, really hot and really, uh, I'm gonna say freaking hot. Uh, and then you choose your side. So I had the mac and three cheese, which was, uh, super cheesy and delicious. All of that was a lot of food. I was pretty full by the time I finished up. Uh, and the chicken was hot and delicious as advertised . Um, I went with my, uh, better half Tim, who had big wings, I think hot or really hot. And they were um, and chips. And the chips were seasoned, really deliciously.

Jaz (03:41):
The other thing that we had that was cool 'cause if you go to Tennessee or to the south in the US you're gonna have a sweet iced tea. And they had a peach iced tea spike with rye and the rye was kind of just enough in there. It was delicious. Not too much, uh, complimented or kind of helps out with the spice of the chicken quite well. Um, this place overall just had a really nice vibe. It was, uh, Friday night, so we didn't make a booking. We could just kind of walk in and were able to get a seat at a bench along the window, kind of looking over Gertrude Street, which was really nice. Um, but it was pretty busy. It seems popular, so if you wanna make sure you can get a table, you should definitely, I'm, I'm feeling like you should book ahead. c.

Jaz (04:29):
Uh, we had a bit of a chat on the way out with, uh, some of the staff about having just come back from Nashville and being really excited to be there. And you could just see their face light up. Um, they were really excited and asking if we'd tried out places like Prince's and Hattie B's and that was nice 'cause that felt to me like they're passionate about what they do. And, um, uh, it's not a gimmick. It, it felt like, you know, we love this and we wanna bring this, uh, or a version of this to Melbourne. So I really liked that.

Jaz (04:59):
Um, maybe a bit of an indication of price could be useful as well. So, uh, we each got our chicken with a side, um, which was heaps of food. And um, well for us was plenty of food. We left there really full. Um, and, uh, we shared the drink and it was $65.80. So, uh, I was pretty happy that, happy with that. That was a, a good night. Uh, we pushed on from there to Beneath Driver Lane, uh, for some blues music. Also, you know, continuing our Nashville vibes. And, uh, if I get a chance, I'll do an episode about that, uh, as well. It's a good whiskey bar of checkout. Okay. Um, hope you're doing well and sending you good vibes.