Jody “King Faison” is our special guest for this month’s Songwriter Salon. He’s known by many as the original Nashville foodie, because of the many restaurants he created in the ‘80s and ‘90s.
We’ve been asking him about his restaurants, recipes and reminiscing about nostalgic Nashville these past few weeks in preparation for the show.
7695: What was the next restaurant you started after 12th and Porter (note – 12th and Porter still exists under new ownership.)
Jody: The next restaurant we opened was The Iguana. It was originally Los Cuidados and we converted it to The Iguana and featured Southwestern Cuisine, which was starting to be trendy, but nobody was doing it in Nashville at the time.
That was kind of an upscale Mexican, and we also used some of the Nashville indigenous flavors and styles to make a Mexican type menu there. Probably our most popular dish there was called Lisa’s Enchiladas. It was a chicken tortilla enchilada with green tomatillo sauce and pecans that a friend of mine from Texas gave me the recipe for.
But my favorite dish there was called “A Tisket, A Tasket, a Brisket in a basket.” And what I liked about it was going by and hearing somebody actually order that off the menu.
You know it was like they were reciting my poetry at the tableside.
Get your tickets to the Songwriter Salon at the 7695 to hear Jody perform some of his poems and original songs, along with sharing recipes and tastings from his Nashville foodie days.