Nashville’s is about as close an institution as the expat community has. It’s been here for what seems like ages, and everyone at one time or another has at least tippled here. It also has a reputation for a decent burger.
However in my history of dining at the place that reputation has been spotty. I think the last last six years since I have been here, the place has gone through either multiple owners and management. Who can forget their turn as a “steakhouse” a couple years ago (BTW good food, just a little incongruous with the locale). I have had both good food, and bad food here. All this makes the burger a bit of a wildcard.
Based on where you dine in the Nashville building, you get a slightly different version of the menu. The basement serves a more expansive menu including various dinner type dishes. The Second floor styles itself with a limited menu with a more bar food type theme. Despite random stabs, the décor is the same throughout. It’s a slightly country and western looking American watering hole.
I went to the second floor to meet a friend, and got the basic cheeseburger. Indecently the second floor is more expensive than the basement. The price paid was W8000.
The burger served up was very good. Nice meaty patty of good quality beef. Juice and grease oozed out nicely. Defiantly it’s a “thick patty” burger. However the fixings were lacking. A smallish green tasting tomato was the low point. The bun as well needed some work, however one cannot expect too much (then again Home(made) Burger had a great bun). Finally, the burger was far from filling, you needed fries (which were quite good BTW) to get that full feeling.
I know I should not factor past performance into these burger reviews, but I am going to make an exception for Nashville’s.
Rating: ***1/2
Nashville’s
Itaewon Subway stop (line 6) exit 2 (?)
Across the street from the Hamilton, west side (opposite Burger King), about 25m from the subway exit. You can’t miss it if you’re looking for it.
English menus and service.
6 Comments
Nope. Skip [the tall dude with grey hair and a beer gut who pops out sometimes from the small room where the videos are] and his wife have always been at the helm. They just had, ah, wild ideas about how to change the place and keep the place going, esp after Gecko’s opened. And apparently the floor show organized every night [the waitresses doing some kooky dances] in the 90s didn’t work out too well in the 21st Century.
I remember that in the mid/late 90s they went for a “polished” look, with napkins, checkered table cloths and the like. Dinna last too long, that…
8000 won is about 2000 won too much. Three stars is generous for the second floor but is fair for the basement’s lower price.
Oakie, Skip’s wife, started the bar in the basement as a juicy-type of place. Skip married her and it became the video and darts place. A few years later they opened the kitchen (’92 or ‘93) with just burgers and fries.
They’ve done quite well for themselves with the expansion upstairs, the food and the apartments, and have survived Oakie getting tossed in the clink for having an after-hours party for the staff and the government shutting down the kitchen for a few months due to “old” black pepper.
This skip dude sounds like a blog (or Seoul Magazine) interview waiting to happen.
BTW, I prefer my fries thick; crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. Those critters at Nashville were more like potato chips.
I remember when Nashville’s got closed down for the “old pepper” violation–it was the first and only time I’ve ever heard of city health inspectors doing that to a restaurant in Seoul.
If they had California’s health inspection grading system there’d be a sign with “F” on it in all the windows here.
Not kidding. I want to put my burger to the test. jollyrocsta@hotmail.com
PS> no fries. had a deep frier too much mess
A burger joint w/ no fries?! One hopes you’ve substituted canned corn medley. Served up cold.