Monday Munchies- Nicoletto's

Is there anything more normalizing than food?  We live in a world where businesses and governments are mandating people to wear masks, where most people are much more aware of how closely they interact with others at all times. People are putting off vacations to get away or trips to visit family. Heck, the entire continent of Europe is saying “no thanks” to American tourism.  When we turn on the news every morning hoping that the case or death count drops below 50,000 or 500 respectively.  Thankfully, we’re to the point that most restaurants are starting to be able to function again.  There’s one glorious thing to come out of July where everyone is worried about going back in to lockdowns- MONDAY MUNCHIES are back babay!  Let’s dive in to my favorite place to eat. 

I know that I have mentioned Nic’s multiple times in stories and other platforms, and I’m somehow shocked that I’ve never written about it for Monday Munchies.  I feel like I’m doing them a disservice- and y’all one also- by not making them one of the first ones I ever wrote about.  A lot of routines have been turned upside down in 2020 but one that we have established is that Nic’s is a mandatory visit every Friday night.  The weeks are even longer now, so knowing that every Friday night we get to indulge in homemade pasta, in house brined and cooked chicken and some garlic bread is literally what powers me through by the time Tuesday is over.  The only things as consistent in quality as a bowl of Nic’s is God’s grace and Georgia blowing the big game.  Their menu ranges from salads to sandwiches to make your own pasta bowls.  They even make their own cannolis.  They’re the Soup Nazi of Nashville Italian- but probably much nicer and more forgiving. I’m sure they’d be okay with Elaine figuring out their Mulligatawny recipe.

These days, the menu is a bit different and more limited in their range of pastas.  Under more normal circumstances, they make a super garlic linguine that is legit the best pasta I’ve ever had; along with a wider range of limited time pastas as well.  Now they’ve moved to only online ordering for the East location so they have a set list of noodles to choose from- fusilli, spaghetti, rigatoni, spinach fettuccine, radiatori and farfalle.  For the create your own bowl, you pick a pasta, sauce and protein or veggies.  My go to order right now is: spaghetti, rosemary chicken and walnut pesto.  They also have homemade meatballs and a sausage and pepper combo that Hillary gets pretty often.  I think that a great chicken parmesan is mandatory for any quality Italian joint especially a reasonably priced take-out restaurant.  It’s like the pepperoni pizza, or General Tso’s, or California roll of Italian fast food.  The benchmark of how every ethnic restaurant should be judged.  Theirs lives up to the expectation.  They brine all of the chicken that they use for chicken parms and you can pair it with any of their pastas (usually comes with spaghetti noodles).  And since every person on Earth loves mac & cheese, they have a green hatch chile mac that always looks killer and you can add proteins to that as well. 

Sausage and Peppers Sub

If you’re looking for an Italian sandwich, there aren’t many places to go outside of your Subway or Jimmy John’s; and if that’s your thing, more power to ya.  However, if you’ve ever seen their sandwiches you know how clutch they can be.  They have the chicken parm sandwich, cooked the same style as the pasta dish but thrown on a roll instead.  The sausage and peppers sub (pictured below) makes me wish that I enjoyed veggies because it is a fantastic looking sandwich.  Their Italian Beef sub was rated number one in all of Nashville so it doesn’t need much more of an endorsement than that.  On top of their house roasted Italian beef is houses hot giardiniera (spicy veggie combo), provolone and Parmesan.  For the vegan folks out there, they have a vegan meatball sub- which can also be put on top of their pasta dishes.  They’re thinking of everyone out here!  You can routinely get out of here with two meals under $30 and will never leave hungry.

When our neighborhood was hit by the tornado on March 3rd, there were a lot of East businesses that did what they could to help those affected.  Due to the amount of bodies it took to help clean everything up from 5 Points all the way to the southeast side, food for workers was a huge need.  Nic’s basically dished out free food for at least a week to anyone that was working in the clean-up and rebuild efforts, no questions asked.  They invited people to come by and pick up boxes of sandwiches and cookies to dish out to folks helping and it was nice to be able to take part in that community outreach, while also sharing my favorite East restaurant with folks that were travelling in and had probably never gotten to indulge on the Mediterranean goodness.  Being a good neighbor is the best trait that any business can carry, and Nicoletto’s is a leader in that category.