Omnivore Atlanta

When Braves fans head to the game, a few things must be considered. Parking is a prime issue, as is food before the game — even though the not-so-cheap hot dogs and crunchy packs of peanuts are always tempting when surrounded by fellow fans munching as they scream for their team. And of course, there’s the question of who’s gonna be the designated driver.

STATS hopes to be your game day problem solver. Its FoodPlay Pass is cheap (only $50 for the entire package), and includes complimentary pre-game food at STATS, beverages aboard the shuttle and one game ticket on the Golden Moon Pavilion level.

The shuttle leaves one hour prior to the start of the game. Sign up with the hostess or call 404.885.1472.

Visit www.statsatl.com for more information.

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The East Atlanta Beer Festival blog has a couple of posts about beers you are likely to see this year. The list is unofficial, but since it is similar to last year’s, it is probably not far off the mark.

Two new entrants into the Atlanta market that will be represented are Magic Hat and Kona Brewing. Both are independently owned, but have distribution deals with Anheuser-Busch. Look for a story on these two newcomers, along with some tasting notes in next week’s Talking Head column.

My short list includes Innis & Gunn, Jolly Pumpkin Biere de Mars, Atlantic Brewing’s MacFoochie’s Scottish Ale, the Whiskey-Aged Gonzo Imperial Porter from Flying Dog, Left Hand’s Twin Sisters Double IPA, and whatever Unibroue brings to the party.

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Keith Olbermann declares Dunkin’ Donuts “worst person in the world” for dumping Rachel Ray and her terrifying scarf:

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DirtySouthWine is a master of suspense:

When I was invited up to Wolf Mountain Vineyards to join a crew for a dosage trial of Georgia’s first méthode Champenoise sparkling wine, I was curious, but a little pessimistic of what I’d taste “up in them hills”. My previous experience with Georgia wines was never more than pleasant, often far less.

To learn how his journey turned out, click here….

Steakhead does suspense too:

I am a big fan of ceviches, the tangy Latin American marinated seafood dish. When in Cozumel earlier this year, we made a specific trip to the east side of the island where beach bars without electricity serve up ceviches and cold margaritas. When I heard about a restaurant in Roswell with the same name, you could imagine how excited I was.

Continue reading here….

Oh my God! The Glenwood is serving calf brains … or something. Look here….

Oh my God! Oh my God! Chocolate ice cream with chocolate chips and blueberry-port wine swirl! Get the recipe here (but be sure to read the comments)….

The Georgia Restaurant Association reports on a growing coalition that opposes Congressional food-to-fuel mandates because they are contributing to the global food shortage. Read about it here….

At long last, a reusable screw-top cap for canned drinks! Find it here…

Here’s some good news from Chow Down Atlanta about the former chef of the defunct Epicurean:

I have been a fan of Chef Peter Golaszewski since The Epicurean, where I tasted the best English peas risotto on earth. He’s now back as the executive chef at The Feed Store Restaurant down south, close to the airport. While it may be a trek just to get to where he is, believe me, it’s worth the drive.

Check out the full story, including tantalizing pictures, here.

(Image from the Marvel Database.)

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Oskar Blues Gordon

Oskar Blues Grill and Brewery
Lyons, CO
8.7% ABV

Cans are the new bottle in craft brewing. They are easy to transport, cool faster, block out damaging UV rays, and can be taken where glass is verboten. And with improved linings, the metallic taste is no longer a problem. Perfect for the cooler poolside this summer. The label on the can promises “Big, Red, Sticky,” and the beer inside delivers. The can opens without the satisfying “pfft” of typical fizzy, yellow lagers, but a straight pour delivers plenty of clingy, clumpy foam. A deep whiff transports you to a wet Colorado fir forest. There is a hint of brown sugar sweetness, but the hops dominate. The taste is full of piney hop goodness, mixing nicely with some caramel and sugary spice-cake malts and a hint of fleshy fruit like apricot and peach. There is ginger, pepper, and grapefruit bitterness in the long, resiny finish. The mouthfeel is like honeysuckle nectar—sticky, but relatively light for such a big beer. The finish is a bit harsh, but a minor flaw in such a lip-smackingly good brew.

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“Flavor tripping” sounds like a 2 a.m. case of the psychedelic munchies. But it actually refers to parties organized by a New Yorker who doles out the strange “miracle fruit” to his fellow trippers. The New York Times featured a story about the fruit and its followers recently:

Carrie Dashow dropped a large dollop of lemon sorbet into a glass of Guinness, stirred, drank and proclaimed that it tasted like a “chocolate shake.”

Nearby, Yuka Yoneda tilted her head back as her boyfriend, Albert Yuen, drizzled Tabasco sauce onto her tongue. She swallowed and considered the flavor: “Doughnut glaze, hot doughnut glaze!”

They were among 40 or so people who were tasting under the influence of a small red berry called miracle fruit at a rooftop party in Long Island City, Queens, last Friday night. The berry rewires the way the palate perceives sour flavors for an hour or so, rendering lemons as sweet as candy.

Read the whole story here. You can also check out this website for more practical information about the magical berries.

These berries sound like something Richard Blais could design a 30-course meal around.

(Photo from www.miraclefruitman.com.)

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This is from the PR folks at Shaun’s Restaurant in Inman Park. It sounds like a great opportunity to savor some of the city’s best cooking for a reasonable price:

This summer, Chef Shaun Doty invites diners to enjoy fine, neighborhood dining at an attainable price with a special Early-Bird Dinner for just $29. Shaun’s Restaurant is offering a three-course, nightly changing prix-fixe menu, along with the regular seasonal menu options. The special menu features a choice of two appetizers, two entrées and two desserts. The Early-Bird Dinner is available every day from 5 to 6:30 p.m. through August 1.

Check out the restaurant’s website here.

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Mounds of crumpled paper napkins, sauce-stained chins and finger licking are an entrance fee most hardcore grubbers gladly pay for good wings. If the getting’s good, people will drive miles for chicken wings, but you don’t have to go far if you know where to look. The South is littered with freestanding wing shacks offering stellar wings that rival the top-notch restaurant versions.

Continue reading Cheap Eats.

(Photo by Jennifer Zyman)

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My “first look” at Straits is out this week. Above is a shot of my favorite dish during our meal — “banana blossom salad.” It resembles the Vietnamese papaya salad but includes thin slices of the red-purple outer leaf of the banana flower instead. They are tossed with chicken and slices of Asian pear in a Vietnamese vinaigrette.

In my review, I also make reference to a dessert called “Flaming Alaska,” an allusion to the classic Baked Alaska. This is mango ice cream wrapped in meringue, flambéed at the table, and it’s quite tasty. Indeed, Wayne plowed through half of it before I got a shot.

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The rising cost of food hasn’t made everyone unhappy. Hormel, the folks who make Spam, are ecstatic, according to the Associated Press:

What once was cheeky, silly and the subject of a Monty Python musical (”Spamalot”) is back on the table as people turn to the once-snubbed meat, analysts say.

Food prices are increasing faster than they have risen since 1990, at a 4 percent rate in the U.S. last year, according to the Agriculture Department. Many staples are rising even faster, with white bread up 13 percent last year, bacon up 7 percent and peanut butter up 9 percent…

Spam’s maker, Hormel Foods Corp., reported last week that it saw strong sales of the pork meat in the second quarter, helping push up its profits 14 percent.

Get the full AP story here, or listen to NPR’s report here. The grotesque canned meat marked its 30th birthday last month, by the way.

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Our fine friends at Decatur Metro did some digging about the Brick Store gastro-pub rumors and unearthed this nugget:

“According to Dave [BSP co-owner] this will be a separate venture in the vein of cool bar/bistro/beer/food concept (dare we call it a Gastro Pub?). If the lease negotiations go through they will take over July 1.

No word on the East Atlanta location, but from what I have heard getting a liquor license in the City of Atlanta is harder than getting into Augusta Country Club.”

They say it’ll be located in Rue de Leon’s current space right around the corner.

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Hummus is showing up on menus everywhere. I had a particularly good version at the new Artistry last week. It was flavored with sundried tomatoes and had a peppery bite to it. But my favorite in town remains this straight-up version at Olive Bistro (650 Ponce de Leon Ave., 404-874-5336). Everything about it, from its creamy texture to its high-quality olive oil, makes it stand out. There are no overpowering seasonings.

We dined at Olive Bistro before heading to nearby Dunkin’ Donuts (see post below). Wayne ordered a half-portion of each of the day’s special ravioli, one made with smoked chicken and the other stuffed with spinach and mozzarella. They were in the house sauce — a blend of basil, tomatoes and lemon. I ordered lamb kabobs, a generous portion of grilled, marinated lamb with onions, peppers and tomatoes, served over lentils and rice. Both dishes were flavorful and inexpensive.

I also love the cafe’s falafel and white bean salad.

(Photo by Cliff Bostock)

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I heard some interesting news yesterday — the new W Hotel in Buckhead will also feature a restaurant by Jean-Georges Vongerichten. It will not be Spice Market, but the theme is not yet known — apparently it will be revealed to the hotel’s PR people in two weeks (the guess was that it would somehow fit in with the “country club chic” theme of the hotel). I’ll keep you posted…

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Here’s another tale of food and madness.

I reported a few days back that the ultra-right-wing blogger Michelle Malkin (right) has given up Starbucks. She objected to the company’s foisting its evil “corporate social responsibility” on her, when all she wanted was a caramel macchiato. Then she learned that Starbucks refused to put the phrase “laissez faire” on someone’s customized card. Starbucks couldn’t explain why the phrase was rejected but Michelle of course suspects the company doesn’t really support laissez faire capitalism…or something.

So, she quit Starbucks cold turkey, switching to Dunkin’ Donuts. She has been a longtime champion of the company because it has been very aggressive in requiring its franchise owners to document that immigrant employees are legal. This has been a special problem along the southern border, apparently, where Mexicans by the truckload sneak across the Rio Grande to pursue the American Dream of becoming a waitress in a donut shop.

Well, the latest installment gets even weirder. Michelle learned that food star Rachel Ray (left) had done a video ad for Dunkin Donuts. But — oh my god! — Rachael is wearing a type of scarf worn all over the Middle East. It’s become trendy in Europe and America, too. But Michelle identifies the scarf as a “jihadi chic keffiyeh,” a favorite garment of terrorists. She is actually concerned that Dunkin’ Donuts and Rachel Ray may be tools of jihad — unwittingly perhaps, but who can deny that if you dress like a terrorist, you might be a terrorist? I’m not making this up.

In the interest of my readers’ welfare, I decided to visit the Dunkin’ Donuts shop on Ponce de Leon Avenue — the one in the shopping center with Whole Foods. A friend told me he recently tried to stop there but was impeded by swarming Mexican day laborers begging him for work. He assured me that he didn’t see any Mexicans decked out in jihadi chic couture, but I was nonetheless surprised that the Indian owner of a franchise so dedicated to immigration law would tolerate this spectacle.

And really, who knows? Dunkin’ Donuts could be dispatching Mexican surrogate jihadists with explosive donuts under their shirts. Imagine the horror of pink shrapnel — it looks like innocent icing — exploding in your face! Imagine your ear drums punctured by candy sprinkles and chocolate jimmies!

We entered the blindingly bright store, which shares the space with Baskin-Robbins, and found it almost deserted. I ordered three donuts and a cup of coffee (right). I am pleased to tell you that none of the three exploded. I am not so pleased to tell you that I have rarely tasted anything as repulsive as these dried-out donuts with super-sweet, almost crispy icing. This was my first visit ever to a Dunkin’ Donuts and it was on Memorial Day. Maybe the donuts were not as fresh as usual?

I will say that the coffee, which the company calls its “number one priority” was good. It wasn’t as strong as I like, but the flavor was rich.

So far, Michelle Malkin, whose insanity is so intense that she lost her gig on Bill O’Reilly’s TV show, has decided not to call for a boycott of Dunkin’ Donuts. After all, terrorists are not nearly as bad as advocates of corporate social responsibility. Meanwhile, the pussy jihadists at Dunkin’ Donuts have pulled the offending ad.

I’m stickin’ to good ole Protestant Krispy Kremes.

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I ate lunch today with my longtime friend Bette Harrison, a former writer with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. We decided to visit Artistry (942 Peachtree St., 404-888-0101), which has opened in the space vacated by Sweet Lowdown.

The restaurant has been serving a limited preview menu during the last week or so, but the entire menu will be available this weekend, according to our server. I suggest you call ahead to verify that before visiting.

Lunch was OK — not terrific, not awful. I ordered a Cuban sandwich with new potatoes and a cup of spicy gazpacho. Bette ordered avocado eggrolls (above) and gyro (top photo). Dessert was very mediocre chocolate cake with strawberry coulis.

The restaurant features live music upstairs most nights and hosts art exhibits and various other events. Check its website here.

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Somebody’s running a You Tube campaign against the McDonald’s at 30 Marietta St. in downtown Atlanta. The angry diner has uploaded two videos documenting the claims. (Warning: the second is mind-numbingly long.)

OK, so there’s porn and panhandling there. But what about the food? Why are you eating there?

By the way, McDonald’s announced this week that it’s completely giving up trans fats. The Wall Street Journal reports:

The world’s largest restaurant chain is now cooking French fries, hash browns, Filet-O-Fish sandwiches and chicken in a blend of canola, corn and soybean oils, Chief Executive Jim Skinner said at the company’s annual meeting here Thursday. Those items are now considered to have zero grams of trans fat per serving; some items may still contain a trace amount of the substance, though it is negligible. McDonald’s plans to finish converting pies and cookies so they also qualify as free of trans fat by year end.

Read more here.

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Epicurious.com, the website for Gourmet and Bon Appetit magazines, is featuring a story entitled “The Top 10 Farm-to-Table Restaurants.” Among the 10 is Atlanta’s Woodfire Grill:

Chef Michael Tuohy has long been a supporter of organic growing, and helped launch Georgia’s Organics, a nonprofit group that promotes healthy, local, sustainable food in the diet of people across the state. While he uses local produce to create dishes, his cooking shows North Californian influences, hinting at his San Francisco roots.

His commitment to adapting his menu with the seasons is clear: The day’s fresh, local ingredients take center stage on the homepage. And even the decor has a local theme: Tuohy asked Atlanta-based craftsman Tracy Hartley to make some of the tables and wood paneling for the Grill.

In many cases, the menu pays homage to the farms that provided the fare: There’s a Wood-Oven-Roasted Bramlett Farm Trout with Anson Mills Grits, Steel-Pan Greens, and Herb Butter; and a Chilled French White Asparagus with Sauce Gribiche (an aïoli sauce with chopped herbs, capers, lemon juice, and spices) and Ashland Farm Micro Celery.

Tuohy is indisputably our city’s pioneer in this area. Be sure to check out his blog here.

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