This week Tim Dutton takes Taste of the Town to The Chef Place by Julio, located on Maple Street on the Murfreesboro town square, and spends some time tasting a variety of dishes prepared by Chef Julio. This week's Taste of the Town Special? Buy one meal at The Chef Place and get the second one 50% off just for mentioning Taste of the Town. That's breakfast, lunch or dinner. Now you can't beat that!

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Transcript

TIM:  Tim Dutton here with another edition of Taste of the Town.  Listen y’all, today, I’m here at the Chef’s Place, and I’m sitting with Chef Julio.  Julio, thank you for having us, man.

JULIO:  How are you guys doing?

TIM:  Good.  Now you guys have moved.  You’re now located on the square right on Maple Street, right?

JULIO:  Yes, sir.  Like I tell people, “We are moving uptown.”  We were on Medical Center Parkway for almost 3-1/2 years, and we got the opportunity to come to the square and we just jumped into it.  This is probably the most beautiful square in Tennessee period.

TIM:  Now Julio, something that a lot of folks don’t know or a some folks don’t know, you also cater; you also do a personal chef.  Tell people about the different aspects of what you do as a chef?

JULIO:  We are a full catering company.  We have been voted three years in a row favorite caterer in Rutherford County.  We do personal chef.  We go to people’s houses and cook and serve the meal and on a smaller scale of course.  We do cooking classes here in the store, and we have frozen casseroles to go.

TIM:  So you take them home and cook?

JULIO:  Yeah, if your wife doesn’t feel like cooking, she can just come here, fill up the freezer.  And when she comes home, put them in the oven, and you have your meal ready—a good home-cooked meal.

TIM:  Guys, you’re a phone call away from having Julio at your house being your personal chef if you choose.  Now Julio, you guys are also going to start opening up in the morning through the month of August to kind of test the breakfast situation.

JULIO:  Well, we started last week serving a lot of our neighbors who asked us to serve breakfast, so we are trying to test the waters.  That’s why on our flyer it says this is just a test.

TIM:  Right.  Good.  Now are we just talking about eggs, bacon?

JULIO:  We have biscuits, eggs, bacon.  Today, we made some fresh banana muffins.  And I need to get one of the girls to bring you one because you’re going to die for them.

TIM:  I’m a muffin lover from way back.

JULIO:  Bring him a banana muffin.

TIM:  Tell me a little bit about what we have here.

JULIO:  We’re emphasizing health salads.  This is our Caribbean salad.  It’s baby greens with black beans, mandarin oranges, grilled chicken, tortilla strips, and don’t forget the champagne dressing.  That’s our house dressing.

TIM:  Now this is healthy?

JULIO:  As healthy as it’s going to get.

TIM:  And you guys make all of your own dressings, right?

JULIO:  We make our dressings.

TIM:  It’s your recipe.

JULIO:  Well, champagne dressing, that was Arthur’s Restaurant’s dressing.  That was their house dressing, but I was the one making it.  So since the restaurant closed, I talked to the owners and they said you’re more than welcome to make it.

TIM:  Take another bite here, man.

JULIO:  Then we have sandwiches.  Like that one is the maple strip club made the old-fashioned way, bunches of meat, fresh tomatoes.  We are using homegrown tomatoes.

TIM:  We’re doing a little business with the farmers out there at the farmer’s market.

JULIO:  Yes, sir, we are.  Well, when you cut a tomato and it looks like a watermelon inside, you know it’s going to be good.  There is no reason to have white tomatoes right now with the temperature 100 degrees outside.

TIM:  Right. 

 

JULIO:  You can have nice red tomatoes, and that’s what we are serving.

 

TIM:  That’s what you guys—

 

JULIO:  We don’t serve anything pre-made.  Everything is fresh.

 

TIM:  Now Julio, I took a little sneak bite—

 

JULIO:  Mashed potatoes.

 

TIM:  —of your mashed potatoes.

 

JULIO:  Good old-fashioned mashed potatoes.

 

TIM:  Well, I don’t know, man.  Grandma’s is good, but this has got something else different in it.

 

JULIO:  Well, my idea of old fashioned is garlic, is parsley, is butter, is cream.

 

TIM:  It is outstanding.

 

JULIO:  It ain’t diet.  I’ll tell you that much.  Mashed potatoes are not diet.

 

TIM:  Now what do you have right here?

 

JULIO:  That is a polish sausage.  That is a company from Chicago that I buy all my sausage from.  And they have polish sausage.  But the secret is to start with a real sausage.  I try not to buy commercial sausages from the store.  Like I say, I bring my own sausage from Chicago.

 

TIM:  Now you had mentioned the muffin.

 

JULIO:  Well, Vanessa, my helper in the kitchen, she’s the one that started breakfast.  And she came up with a recipe to make banana muffins.  And I think she has a winner because it’s really good.

 

TIM:  That is good.

 

JULIO:  Made 100 percent from scratch.  Nothing synthetic.  And I don’t even know how to make it.  That’s Vanessa’s deal.

 

TIM:  Julio, do you have a special for anybody that comes in and says they saw you guys on Taste of the Town?

 

JULIO:  Well, I’ve been thinking about that.  And I think since they are your customers and I want to get them to be my customers, if somebody comes and mentions that they saw you on your show, how about we give them buy one, get the second one half price?

 

TIM:  And I guarantee the food, folks.  Well, that’s about it for this edition of Taste of the Town.  And remember, if you’re thinking real estate, think Tim Dutton.