Road Tips

The Overlook - Nashville, IN

When Cindy and I were spending the night in Nashville, IN recently, we went out for a nice meal at a local restaurant called The Overlook. The Overlook is part of the Salt Creek Golf Retreat just outside of Nashville (see map). The complex includes a hotel and private condos along with a picturesque 18 hole golf course.

We got to the restaurant a little before 8 p.m. To get to the restaurant, you have to go to the front desk area of the hotel and take a long hallway back to the restaurant. On one side of the main lobby is a large hall that was hosting a wedding reception that evening. We thought it was sort of odd as it was a Sunday night.

It turns out the Overlook closes at 8 p.m. on Sunday night. We got there at 7:55 and asked the hostess if it was too late to get a bite to eat. She said, "Oh, no. Come on in."

She sat us at a table that had a great view of the 18th fairway and green. A few golfers were still out on the course at that time of night so we had a great view of the action. The table in the foreground in the picture at the right is the actual table we sat at for our meal.

The place was about a third full when we sat down.  And they must not adhere to the 8 p.m. closing time on Sunday nights as there were at least two or three more sets of people that came in to dine after we were seated.

The Overlook had kind of a "modern rustic" theme to it.  It looked like at one time they tried to make it look like a lodge with two large fire places at either end of the room.  But the paint scheme was sort of a subdued pastel that gave it kind of an elegant look.   The tables weren't cramped and you weren't encroaching on anyone's space in the restaurant.

Our waitress, a nice middle-aged lady, came over to get our drink order and to tell us about the specials.   I said, "Geez, we're coming in at closing time.  Are you sure this is all right?"

As she handed me the wine menu, she said, "Oh, yeah.   We say 8 o'clock on Sundays, but we normally keep serving up past 9 p.m., especially in the summer when we get a lot of people staying out here."

The specials, which I really can't remember, didn't appeal to us as much as some of the items on the somewhat limited menu.   For main entrees, they only had 10 things to choose from - 3 steaks, 3 seafood dishes, chicken marsala, roasted pork pinwheel, chicken piccata and chicken fettuccine Alfredo.  But, quite honestly, they all looked good and I sort of like restaurants that try to focus on a small number of items rather than try to please everyone with a huge menu.   A lot of times they get spread so thin that the food suffers.

Cindy got the salmon filet, grilled and topped with a creamy lemon dill sauce.   It was then topped with shrimp and roasted almonds, and served on a bed of rice.   It did sound very good, but I went with the peppercorn encrusted filet, topped with a Bearnaise sauce.   I had my choice of potatoes, so I went with homemade hash browns topped with cheese and onions and green beans was the veggie of the day.

Cindy wanted some wine, so I ordered a half bottle of white wine.   There were only about three or four total wines on the list that I was familiar with, so I talked to the waitress to see about a couple of the whites they had listed.   She suggested a Steele Shooting Star Sauvignon Blanc.   She said it was probably her favorite white wine on the menu.   I wasn't familiar with it, so I told her we'd give it a try.  She said, "If you guys don't like it, then I'll get you another bottle of something else.   That way I can have an open bottle to drink after I get off work!"

It turned out that she wasn't going to be drinking out of our bottle after work.   It was a very nice wine - light, yet crisp with a nice dry fruit finish to it.   I would have rather gotten a red, but the white was going to be fine.

While we were waiting for our meal to show up, a guitarist-singer was entertaining in the restaurant that night.   He played mostly 70's and 80's music and did a very good job. Combined with the full picture window view of a beautiful course, the setting sun and the music, it was a very relaxing evening.

Our food came out and I have to tell you that it was very, very good.   Given the look of the restaurant, the great service we were getting, the atmosphere of the place, I wasn't disappointed in the food one bit.  My steak was a wonderful taste mixture of the cracked peppercorns, Bearnaise sauce and perfectly cooked medium-rare beef.   Actually, I will say the hash browns were just "so-so".   But that didn't matter.   I usually only take a couple bites of my potato when I get a steak and a potato side.

But Cindy's grilled salmon with the creamy lemon dill sauce was as good as advertised.   She gave me a couple of bites and it was outstanding.   I've got to figure out how to make a lemon dill sauce sometime. It was very delicious.

We got our bill and it was just over $80 bucks before tax and tip.   Our waitress, who was very good, got a nice tip.   And on the way out of the restaurant, I walked over and threw five bucks into the tip jar in front of the guitarist.

Sometimes when you find places like The Overlook out of the blue, it helps add to the magic of the experience.   But everything about the place was damn near perfect.   It's been a few weeks since we've been there and we still remark about how great The Overlook is.   If we make it back to the Nashville area, we'll probably stay at the hotel and have a couple more meals at The Overlook.

(Update - The restaurant at the Salt Creek Resort is now called the Brown County Steak and Seafood Company.  I don't know if it's the same people who run it, but I'm guessing it's not.  Still, it may be worth trying out if you're looking for something a little more upscale in the Nashville area.)

Nashville, IN

While out in Indianapolis for a wedding reception recently, Cindy and I took a couple side trips to see some sights.  One of the places we ended up in was the town of Nashville, IN, a little artist's colony in the heart of the picturesque Brown County area of Indiana (see map).  Nashville is just down the road from Bean Blossom, IN, and just over from Gnaw Bone, IN.  (It's true!  You can look it up on the map!)

Nashville is also a center for music, primarily Bluegrass music.  They have a couple of performance places in the area and the annual Bean Blossom Music Festival takes place in Bluegrass legend Bill Monroe's adopted hometown.  In addition to music, there are a number of museums, shops, restaurants and other tourist places in the Nashville area.  And Brown County State Park, the largest state park in Indiana, is located just outside of Nashville.

We stayed the night before at a Comfort Inn near the entrance of the Nashville's city limits.  It was getting late in the day and we thought we'd better just take the first thing we saw.   It turned out there were more eclectic and interesting hotels in Nashville to choose from.  We had a great dinner that I'll fill you in on later, but our next day was to explore the nooks and crannies of Nashville before we headed back to Iowa.

Our first stop was breakfast at a place called That Sandwich Place which is basically a shrine to the former Indiana University basketball coach Bobby Knight.  It has, arguably, the highest concentration of Bobby Knight and Indiana memorabilia any where.  The owner, Larry Hawkins, has been collecting the memorabilia since Knight first coached the Hoosiers in the early 70's.  The waitress explained to us that Bob Knight used to frequent the place when he was living over in nearby Bloomington.   The above picture shows where Knight would sit and "hold court" duing his visits to the restaurant. 

Cindy and I had pancakes - I had blueberry pancakes and Cindy had their specialty oatmeal pancakes. The food was OK, nothing special.  But it was filling and a good start to the day. 

Most of the shops didn't open until 10 a.m., but we found a few places that were opened at nine.  This was the back of a little flower/gardening shop that didn't open until 10.  But you could walk into the back area and look around at anytime.  They had a bunch of plants, statues and garden knick-knacks just sitting out.  Obviously, the shop owner must have trusted the people who came to visit Nashville. 

Here is one of the stately houses on the main street through town that has been turned into a shop.  Driving around the town, we found a lot of older houses like this, in addition to contemporary houses and basic log cabins.  Many of the small shops and larger homes were built in the early part of the 1900's. 

Here's Cindy checking out a number of roses a flower shop had at half-off.  Some of them were very pretty and it was tempting not to buy a couple at $12 to $15 bucks each.  But as I pointed out to Cindy, the 23 or so rose bushes that we now have will work for the time being. 

The town started to get filled up with tourists by the middle part of the morning.  A lot of motorcyclists come to Nashville on the weekends as the roads leading to the city are twisting ribbons through picturesque valleys and over the small southern Indiana peaks.  There are a couple shops that cater to the motorcyclists, but many of the shops are artist galleries and touristy places that sell t-shirts and fudge. 

A number of the shops share common courtyards off the street.  There are benches and lots of shade to help the most weary walker get some rest.  There's a few hills in Nashville, but nothing really bad.  This little courtyard had a sock shop, an antique place, a pottery store and a bird store in it.  I was just happy to be able to sit and hang out while Cindy explored every nook and cranny of a lot of the little shops. 

We also went to the Chateau Thomas Winery tasting room they have in Nashville.  Although I was familiar with their wines through my friend, Steve Somermeyer, I wanted to go in and check the place out.  It turned out there was an art gallery on the second floor of the wine tasting area.  We went up and took a look around for a moment.  I think Cindy was getting a good kick out of seeing all the art.  But I was getting kind of bored. 

We walked out of a gallery and it had begun to rain.  We decided that we'd seen enough and it was time to head back home to Iowa.  It's about a five and a half hour trip back to the Quad Cities and a good portion of it was done in the rain. 

Given the amount of trees in the rolling hills and valleys of Brown County, Nashville gets pretty packed on fall afternoons when the leaves are in full color.  But even in the spring and summer when the flowers are in full bloom, it's a picturesque little community.  While it is somewhat of a tourist trap, I got more of a sense of community among the people who worked and lived in Nashville while we were there.  It was a nice visit and a place we'll probably go back to sometime down the line.