Metro Pulse/Cover/Best of Knoxville 2003

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Staff Picks

The 10th Annual Metro Pulse Readers' Poll

Staff Picks

Best View of Downtown:
Top of the hill on Cecil as you are heading toward Broadway, right at the left turn onto 4th Avenue.
One glance out your car's side window will prove that North Knox has got it going on when it comes to picturesque views of our fair city. Knoxville floats like a shiny solid island surrounded by a sea of green once the kudzu wakes up in the spring. In the leafless months, the center city looks a bit like Oz, glistening in the hard light of winter. It's a view that will never grace a postcard, which makes it all the more magical. (Adrienne Martini)

Best Hip Accessories:
Serendippity
Dippity-do-dah, dippity-day,
my-oh-my, it's a wonderful day,
Plenty of cool stuff, coming your way,
For hipster goombahs, there's plenty to crave.
OK, so our rhyming may not be the best, but we mean it sincerely. When you look at the toe rings and earrings and navel rings and everything from handbags to dresses that Serendippity offers with great big smiles, you just feel like bursting into verse. Admittedly, bad verse, but when the muse moves you, you just hope Serendippity strikes. Anyway, their stuff is cool, and what with-it scenester can pass up cool stuff? Which is not to say that Serendippity isn't a great place to shop for everybody else with a keen sense of the hip. (Scott McNutt)

Best Place to Buy Buckets of Buds:
Quality Wholesale Florist
115 4th Avenue; 546-4610
This is not the place you want to go if you need a stunning arrangement or two. BOK winner Crouch or runners-up Petree's and Cedar Bluff would be better choices for pretty posies. But if your needs lean more toward armloads of daises or cartons of carnations, this little warehouse is a must-stop. While their stock is always influenced by the whim of the season, their prices are always perfect. (Adrienne Martini)

Best Place to Play It as It Lays:
Willow Creek Golf Club
Although its Bermuda grass is in brownout mode early in the fall and late in the spring, Willow Creek is the best place in this county to walk around chasing the little white sphere and beating it with metal clubs. At least it's the best course open to the public, reader poll or no. That's except for the 15th hole, with its long downhill look over water from the tee, a terror-inducer for hydrophobes. Its tournament quality is practically unchallenged locally. Don't play from the back tees unless you really mean it, but play it as it lays. (Barry Henderson)

Best Perennial Fave:
Tomato Head
Ah, Tomato Head. How much do we love thee?
With your salads so crispy,
Your pizzas so crusty,
Your sandwiches so trusty,
Your beer so foamy,
You atmosphere so cozy,
And your new brunch menu so spiffy.
Mmmmm, is all we can say.
(Adrienne Martini)

Best Tomato Head Slice:
Unlike several of my pasty-faced tofu-munching, Mother Jones-reading, socialist-vegan-liberal Metro Pulse colleagues, I am a carnivore. I eat meat, and lots of it. So it is with considerable sheepishness that I confess that my favorite slice at Tomato Head, a fellow downtown institution and a perennial pizza favorite, is the menu's Number One combination, featuring pesto as well as both sun-dried and herbed tomatoes. A cheesy, tangy, tomato-heavy treat, it sparks within me vegetarian instincts I never knew I had. Having said that, however, let me add that the one thing I like better than a Number One is a Number One, add pepperoni... (Mike Gibson)

Best Chichi Dining:
Little Star
Not to say pretentious, the Little Star of Bearden, where Chef Bistro previously held out, is newly recast and has taken its place among the hautest of cuisineries of which the city has to boast. Its three-course, $38 per-person, prix fixe spread is as at least as elegant as its predecessor's, though not French. Extras are available. The intimate space and table arrangement and the understated decor lend well to couples and small gatherings of both gourmets and gourmands. The wine card is growing weekly and has superior selections already. Have a go. You'll be back. (Barry Henderson)

Best Saturday-Evening Family Diversion:
Drive-ins
Boosters like to characterize Knoxville as a family town, but those with actual families know different. Say it's 8:00 on a Saturday night. You've just finished supper, and you want to go out and do something with the family. But what? After your one-too-many experiences with chain-franchise hyperstimulation, you've had enough of Celebration Station and laser tag. In some cities, a stroll downtown is a fun family thing, and maybe it will be here someday, but Knoxville's not there yet. Almost all of downtown's entertainment is adult-oriented. You've seen the few family-friendly movies that are showing in the theaters. Used to be you might catch a few innings of baseball, but the Smokies have moved out to Sevier County, and even if you have time to get there, they're more expensive than they used to be. There's always the Farragut Putt-Putt.
But all you really want is some low-key fun for the family before bedtime. You might try something your kids don't know about. Like a real drive-in. Not a faux-retro chain with TV commercials, and a staff that started last week, but a real place, with local specialties—like, say, the increasingly rare Full House—combined with kid favorites, like the dip cone. The Pizza Palace on Magnolia is good, but the one place that best suits that description is Cardin's Drive In, on Asheville Highway in rural East Knox County. If you haven't had a dip cone since the Johnson administration, you may find they're just as much fun now as they were then. (Jack Neely)

Best Buffalo Tenders:
Sawyer's
We have it on good authority—from Laurence Brown, our newest stalwart account executive, no less—that Sawyer's serves the very best buffalo tenders in the known universe, and that probably goes for the less-known portions as well. Laurence is a strapping lad, a growing boy, and he knows his buffalo tenders. So take him at his word; try them solo, or in a sandwich. You won't be disappointed. (Mike Gibson)

Best Place for Hard-to-Find Fashions:
Indigo
Wanna impress your girlfriend? Pick her up a trendy Urban Outfitters urban denim skirt or baby phat jeans, a Paul Frank tee shirt or julius handbag, or maybe some chic jewelry or cotton tops from Funky People. What's that you say? You would, only you can't find any of those cool brands around here? Sure you can. Just head on over to Indigo, the tres chichi place to shop. They've got the leading fashions that aren't easily found around these parts. That'll get you in tight with your main squeeze, but good. (Scott McNutt)

Most Entertainingly Prepared Food:
Kanpai of Tokyo
Maybe your momma tossed her knives in the air while chopping chicken for your din-din, but we wouldn't bet on it (and knowing some of you, we might suspect that you were the target if it was knives she was throwing around). If you want to be highly entertained while awaiting some excellent Japanese cuisine, we heartily recommend a meal at Kanpai. With cleavers whirling and whacking, the chef slices and dices and makes the Japanese equivalent of julienne veggies and meat, right at your "table" as you look on with amazement (and maybe just a little trepidation). Don't worry—they're experts, and observing that spectacle works up an appetite, which the dish the chef prepares will more than satisfy. (Scott McNutt)

Best Straight-ahead Pasta Place:
Pasta Trio
There's something to be said for simplicity. Pasta Trio has perfected it. They break down Italian cooking to its basic ingredients—pasta, sauce, and bread—and refine each of these to produce a scrumptious meal, which you can mix and match to your preference. The atmosphere is also something the restaurant has perfected, resembling a bistro you'd expect to stumble into on a side street in Milan. The empty wine bottles lining the windows let you know this is a place you can relax. (Joe Tarr)

Best Power-Drinking Spot:
Cha Cha or Mango
In a virtual tie, Kenny Siao's two Kingston Pike restaurants with full bar selections are the places to go feel the electric charge of socio-economic authority jiggling the furnishings and rarifying the air. Pick Mango if you're serious about quiet conversation over cocktails with a benefactor, a client, or a prospect. Go to Cha Cha if you want to be seen rubbing bent elbows with the elite (or the self-nominated and showily posturing elite). Eavesdrop on the talk of the town at either. Then call Ear to the Ground at Metro Pulse to report. (Barry Henderson)

Best Philly Cheese Steak:
Lenny's
A deli with an eager edge, Lenny's staff is quick, and its offerings are profoundly scrumptious, even when the place is crowded, which it usually is. There's even horrid TV news to watch while you wait, which, blissfully, isn't long. And if you haven't tried the immense Philly Cheese Steak, you just don't care about lunch. It's the best of its genre south of the Delaware Bay. See if you don't agree. (Barry Henderson)

Best Alcohol-Free Nighttime Hangout:
Barnes and Noble Booksellers
For those of us who can't drink like we used to, going to Barnes and Noble Booksellers on a Friday night is almost like going to the bar, except without the noise and the smoke and the booze. Oh—and the chairs are more comfortable, and there's more to read. But in all seriousness, big bookstores offer a social scene quite unlike yet not unlike those of other, more traditional nightspots, complete with coffee shops for food and (caffeine-based) social lubrication. My preference is for the slightly more expansive Barnes and Noble, although Borders is a close second, with a larger menu in the coffee shop and musical entertainment on selected nights of the week. (Mike Gibson)