Omnivore Atlanta

Playing ketchup

By Russ Marshalek

I first discovered ketchup as a weight-loss tool when I was in my early teens. My Marietta trailer-park youth contributed to some serious adolescent obesity in terms of me shopping the husky section of Wal-Mart for cheap jeans (which my family called “dungarees”). Around the age of thirteen, three major turning points happened in my life. First, I got really, really physically ill, as a result of weighing somewhere close to a billion pounds. Second, I became a vegetarian as a direct result of said illness. Third, I realized that (and this only applies to then, not now) I really, really hated most vegetarian options available to me.

Growing up on fast food, my new-found attempts at healthier eating and vegetarianism found me alienated from my family in regards to food. It was possibly a cool, crisp autumn day, or maybe a stinking hot mid-summer afternoon, or all/none of the above, when I was standing in line at a Wendy’s with my folks and suddenly realized that a plain baked potato, with no butter or sour cream, would, in fact, be the healthiest option on the menu.

Upon ordering and digging into the foil-wrapped bundle steaming with the blandness of a tennis ball covered in a sneaker, I realized that baked potato ordered from a fast-food establishment and eaten entirely plain was way better in theory than in actuality. I frantically scoured the restaurant for something, anything, to make the potato better: salt? My minimal knowledge of health and food was enough to know that “salt=bad”. Pepper? My limited taste palette had yet to experiment with it. Ditto with mustard (thank god — a plain baked potato covered in yellow fast-food mustard? Ugh). Ketchup? Ketchup … my still-acclimating-to-healthy-eating-choices brain raced: Ketchup works on French fries. French fries are potatoes+death. Remove death and you still have potatoes. Ketchup!

And thus, it began. (more…)

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Sometimes on “Project Runway,” fashion guru Tim Gunn approaches one of the show’s designers, and after a dramatic appraisal of his or her garment he says, “You know, I think you need to bring an editing eye to this.” I’ll admit, reality TV isn’t the most reliable of cultural references, but I’m sure you get the idea. Frequently, when people undertake an artistic endeavor, the artistry runs rampant, and the artist is unable to see that none of his ideas are discernible among the clutter.

That’s the experience I’ve had most recently at Vine, the Virginia-Highland restaurant that’s changed ownership three times in the past four years. The current owner is Stephen McGuffin, the former chef de cuisine at Virginia-Highland’s Dish. He left to work in Nashville, but returned to Atlanta with the intention of purchasing Dish when it went out of business. When that deal fell through, he turned his attention to Vine, and with some family backing, the restaurant became chef-owned.

Vine’s always been something of a conundrum – it’s a fantastic space, and it sits smack in the middle of Virginia-Highland. Parking is easy, the patio is sprawling, and the local residents live in million-dollar houses. A wine-focused New American bistro seems like the perfect concept for the location. But it’s as if the kitchen has a curse on it – the food has never lived up to the setting. I ate at Vine once last year and it was so bad, so poorly executed, I decided not to write about it. Not because I’m squeamish about that kind of thing, but because I figured it would only be a matter of time before someone else took over.

Read the rest of this review here.

(Photo by James Camp)

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Check out Jeff Holland’s Talking Head column this week for news about the Brick Store Pub’s latest expansion plans.

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Haute vs. Budget

By Lindsey Zuckerman

In years past, burgers weren’t served at fancy restaurants and toppings didn’t get much more exciting than cheese, bacon or chili. But today, you can find burgers at all price points with a huge array of possible ingredients and toppings. Of course these haute cuisine burgers come at a price, so you better save up for a $16 wagyu beef burger at Shaun’s or a $150 double truffle burger at DB Bistro Moderne in NY.

So, is there cause for burgers to cost more than $8? The Wall Street Journal doesn’t think so. It called the Ghetto Burger at Ann’s Snack Bar the best burger in America, and there is nothing fancy about it. Ann’s is an old school hole-in-the- wall that serves up big, sloppy burgers. For less than half the price of a fancy-pants Kobe beef burger, Ann will serve up two-giant patties topped with bacon, American cheese, and chili. It’s a delicious mess.

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Jim writes to ask:

Some friends and I had a few questions about the propriety of allowing non-service dogs in restaurants. We thought you and the readers might be able to offer some insight.

1) Are there any laws/health code regulations governing this? I am presuming animals are not allowed in food prep areas, but what about indoors?

2) If there are, is it more permissible to allow dogs on a patio vs. inside a restaurant?

I asked our news writer Scott Henry to look into it, and he came up with this from Fulton County:

Fulton Co. Code Sec. 34-160
Animals
Live animals, including birds and turtles, shall be excluded from within the food service operational premises and  from adjacent areas under the control of the permit holder. This exclusion does not apply to edible fish,  crustacean, shellfish or the fish in aquariums. Patrol dogs accompanying security or police officers, or guide  dogs accompanying blind persons, shall be permitted in dining areas.

So, no – under Fulton County’s health code, most dogs are not allowed in restaurants, or on the patios adjacent to the restaurant. But they can hang out in bars all day!

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Zen cooking

By Julia Stedman

I turned to my husband and said “if Mama asks me to cook supper, will you give me five dollars?” He gave me a very knowing half smile. Surely to God, with an hour left on our four hour drive and the sun setting, I was in the clear. Not so. Fifteen minutes later mama called asking us to retrieve my sociopathically late sister and bring her to join the rest of the family, their families, and a dozen or so out-of-towners all there to celebrate my sister’s wedding. That’s fine Mama, we’re happy to pick her up. Then it came, in a voice that chirped like a song bird – “oh, and when you get here can you cook the etouffe? I’ve already peeled the shrimp for you.” I held the phone towards my husband and asked her to repeat the question, feigning cosmic cellular interference. He gave me another knowing half smile. Of course Mama, I’m happy to help.

While my mother is a perfectly respectable Cajun cook, I tend to be on the more adventurous side. So when some twenty years ago I announced my newfound avoidance of meat, I was pretty much left to my own devices if actually wanted to eat when I visited. Accommodating my constraints was not considered considerable.

We arrived to a chaotic household, and an even more chaotic kitchen. There were two aunts, one uncle, and at least one sister-in-law buzzing about with all the grace one expects from bumblebees. I went into “sarge” mode, which didn’t quite have the effect I was hoping for – looks like I’m dealing with a bevy of conscientious objectors. (more…)

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Nick Melvin is replacing Nicholas Bour (who left for DC) as the chef at the Farmhouse at Serenbe. Melvin comes to Serenbe from Concentrics, where he worked as sous chef for a few of their projects, including Murphy’s, Room and Tap.

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I’ll take Atlanta

By Jessica Goldbogen Harlan

When I told my friends that, after a decade in New York City, I was moving to Atlanta, they were aghast. “But won’t you miss the bagels and pizza?” they asked.

I just marked my two-year anniversary of living here in Atlanta, and I’m happy to report that I miss neither. In fact, there is very little, food-wise, that I do miss from my previous home.

Tasty, cheap ethnic food that my husband and I would eat while waiting for Friday’s paycheck? Now we just take a trip to have awesome pho on Buford Highway (incidentally, my favorite, Pho Hua, has a location in Flushing, NY, though I’ve never been).

A see-and-be-seen hotspot where my girlfriends and I could down large quantities of great wine, accompanied by tapas-style plates of all varieties? When the girls come to visit, I book a table at Rathbun’s. They’re always especially impressed by those $3 desserts, which we usually order way too many of.

(more…)

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In this week’s review of Sushi House Hayakawa, I made a point about how different customers can create different dining experiences. This was especially apparent on my Saturday night visit to Hayakawa. A bunch of diners who rarely frequent Buford Highway (my assumption, not a fact) were there, probably in part because of the restaurant’s inclusion in Christiane Lauterbach’s Top 15 Best New Restaurants feature in Atlanta Magazine. But it felt weird, like some breach had been made - those of us who spend a lot of time eating on Buford Highway are used to it being a safe haven from the trend-seeking mobs you might find in Buckhead or Midtown.

After I finished writing the review, I came across this post on Frank Bruni’s New York Times blog about how other customers can ruin a perfectly good dining experience. He then goes on to wonder how much influence customers have over the food, not just the atmosphere. In Atlanta, the real or perceived limitations of customers’ palates has influenced the ambitions of kitchens for years. But that seems to be changing. In my Holeman and Finch review, I made the point that our best new restaurants have totally disregarded the idea that customers can’t handle interesting or daring food. But that doesn’t mean customers don’t drive change - Beleza changed its menu after opening to deal with customer expectations regarding price and serving size.

Still, for me, the greatest impact customers can have is on other diners and the vibe of a restaurant. There are places I simply won’t go because I’m sure the customers there will drive me batty. Sometimes, I find myself somewhere for work and look around the room, and ask myself “what am I doing here? How did my life come to this place where I’m spending time surrounded by these people?”

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Adventurous eating

By Cathy Ding

Friends call me an adventurous eater. By that, they mean that I’ll eat anything, from tripe to grasshopper to durian, as long as it is considered a food by some culture out there. While I love being labeled “adventurous,” it’s not quite fitting. After all, I don’t go to the ends of the world in search of food frontiers unknown to man. I’m simply not picky when it comes to eating what others have already determined to be nontoxic and delicious.

In my experiences eating with people who turn away food, the major turnoff is not the food itself, but some preconceived negative perception of the food, which clouds the actual encounters. The head has already decided that the food tastes bad before it ever makes its way into the mouth. Along those lines, it’s far easier for me to try something unfamiliar and like it, because, thanks to my Chinese heritage, I grew up with very few taboos as to what should not be eaten or what doesn’t taste good.

As a child, I was exposed to a large variety of vegetables and encouraged to eat all parts of animals. During extended family feasts, the adults often gave me and my cousins soy braised chicken feet to gnaw on. The dozens of tiny bones and chewy tendons kept us occupied for hours.

The word “delicacy,” which scares most western diners, makes a Chinese menu reader perk up and take notice. The philosophy, as articulated by my doctor mom, is that every food provides a unique source of nutrients, and delicacies are those hard to find sources that complete the eater’s spectrum of nutrients, which in turn, improves longevity. My grandma’s traditional wisdom would also have us believe that eating animal parts supplements the corresponding parts in the human body. In her mind, for growing children, nothing could be better than that wobbly pig’s brain. In a society where elders are respected above all, we don’t question such wisdom. Under this thinking, my parents often ordered things when dining out that they didn’t typically cook at home, and encouraged me to experience the different textures and tastes.

For my family, this was never more evident than when we headed out for Chongqing hot pot, a specialty of my region of Sichuan. The centerpiece is the fiery Sichuan peppercorn and chili imbued broth pot. But equally important are the “exotic” selections of meats for cooking in the broth. Seasoned hot pot eaters never pick the usual chicken or beef. Instead, they focus their attention on sliced dark tripe, more prized than white tripe for its ability to hold on to the spice within the pebbled surface. Also popular were the duck intestines, which, when cooked quickly, retain a delightful crunchy texture. But the most celebrated were always the snowy white pork neck cartilages. Slivered in diagonal halves, the cooked cartilage took on an appearance and a slight chew akin to that of fresh calamari.

No matter the selection, eating everything the parents ordered was a requirement, not a request. Pickiness was frowned upon. In this environment, I learned to embrace variations and to appreciate the different and new.

(more…)

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Brad writes to ask:

Have you heard anything about the remodeling activity at the former Pie Bar location? I saw a for lease sign up just before they started, so I wonder if it is not Concentrics venture.

We called Concentrics to ask, and they said they are no longer involved with the location and don’t know who has leased it. Anyone else have any info?

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Varsity love

By Molly Spruill

When co-workers ask where I am from and I tell them “Atlanta”, they say, “That’s a rarity!” As the hub of the Southeast, Atlanta seems to have far more out-of-towners than native Atlantans. As a result, many of the people that I work with don’t have the history or memories of our fair city that I do.

These memories often come up when people want to know why I have an affinity for places like the Varsity. Just take a glance at the reviews for the Varsity on Yelp. Many of the negative ones are from people who went to the Varsity because it’s an “Atlanta institution”. That’s like a vegan telling a hardcore meat eater that tofu tastes just like chicken. People who haven’t gone to the Varsity all their lives probably won’t appreciate it in the same way that native Atlantans do.

Okay, yes, it is greasy — incredibly greasy — and don’t even think about going there if you have a rigorous day planned. But, if you grew up in Atlanta like me, you probably have a soft spot for The Varsity, too. Early memories of trips to there include always getting a trademark Varsity paper hat! (more…)

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I’ve always wondered exactly what the pro and con arguments were for honey consumption by vegans. Slate spells it out here.

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It appears that Frank Ma is back! Here’s one that came through the grapevine - we heard it from the Blissful Glutton, who heard it from Atlanta Magazine’s Jennifer Senator that if all goes well Frank Ma South will be open tonight at 2088 Briarcliff Road. Dumpling lovers rejoice!

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The L.A. Times reports that the Los Angeles City Council has passed an ordinance prohibiting construction of fast food restaurants in a 32-square-mile area inhabited by 500,000 low-income people.

Read Slate’s take on the issue here.

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Got this question from Sarah about Cafe Lapin:

Can anyone find out more information on Cafe Lapin that is going to open in the Peachtree Battle shopping center? It seems to have an outpost at ADAC, but there’s not a lot of info on the place on the web. It’s going in where Great Wraps used to be - seems like it’s going to be a “ladies who lunch” kind of place.

I found this on Micropundit’s blog on Egullet:

Mattie Hines, owner of LA LAPIN in the Atlanta Decorative Arts Center, will open his second restaurant, CAFÉ LAPIN, a neighborhood bistro, in the Peachtree Battle shopping center this summer.

Anyone out there know anything else?

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The Gourmet-ification of everywhere

By Lindsey Zuckerman

It used to be that you could only find great food at home or in a restaurant. Lately, though, good food is popping up in all sorts of unexpected places.

Whether you’re enjoying BBQ Pork Ribs at Turner Field, sushi at Seattle’s Safeco Field or clam chowder at San Francisco’s AT&T Park, you’ll know this isn’t the baseball grub you remember from childhood. More and more, stadiums are upgrading their food in an attempt to lure casual baseball fans to the game. The idea makes sense — I am far more likely to brave the blazing Atlanta afternoon heat if delicious food is involved.

Turner Field still seems a bit behind the curve on upscale baseball dining. There’s nothing coming out of its concessions to compete with San Francisco’s fresh crab sandwich or Seattle’s Pad Thai. What Turner lacks in quality, though, is made up for in volume, and you can now purchase an all-you-can eat ticket. Whether your waistline can handle a pulled pork sandwich, 50-chicken wing and 3-beer calorie bomb is another issue.

(more…)

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This email just in from Brian:

Read your review. My wife and I recently tried to go on her birthday. However upon arriving, the valet told us that the parking lot was full and to “come back in like 15 minutes”. Given valet is the only option, we left. I wrote a letter to the restaurant, but in true concentrics style, I’ve not heard back. It’s too bad because it’s now on our ‘no go’ list.

I have always refused to use the valet at Parish. I’m happy to find parking the old fashioned way — driving around the neighborhood until I find a street spot. The strange new condo neighborhood directly across the street from Parish often has street parking. But isn’t Brian’s point a funny Atlanta conundrum — when your valet parking situation dictates your restaurant’s viability, there’s no real winner. If all your tables are full, that’s one thing, but empty tables and a full parking lot are not good business.

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