SIDE SALAD - Everything crunchy is good.

JUST THIS SIDE OF HEAVEN: MONELLS

If you ever get to Nashville, make sure you save a little room to have lunch at Monell's.

Housed in a restored brick Victorian home on 6th Avenue in historic Germantown, the boardinghouse-style restaurant looks like it was sliced from the belly of the Deep South.

Walking up the sidewalk is like walking back in time... They even grow heads of cabbage along the walkway.

A meal at Monell's involves sitting around a family table with people you don't know. Think if it as a family dinner at Grandma's house with relatives you've never met. The food is good, old-fashioned home cookin' and everything is all-you-can-eat.

The house is filled with grandiose antique mantles, elaborate murals and the occasional shrine to the romance of southern gentility. (Not the least of which was embodied by Monell herself.

The main dining room is lined with windows, giving the feel that you're having lunch on the porch.

Then when it's time to pay the bill, you sidle up to the register, which resembles something from a country drug store.

A suggestion: Remember to say "please" when you ask for the meatloaf, cucumber salad or strawberry lasagne. You never know who you'll wind up meeting. One gentleman at my table named Mike wound up being a fellow alum of the University of Florida who knew someone who works at a paper just south of my own.

It's a small world, folks. Please pass the taters.