Omnivore Atlanta

Zagat has released its 2009 guide to the country’s best restaurants. You can find its Atlanta listings on the popular guide’s site.

Zagat’s polling of readers turned up a lot of interesting information about dining out during the present economic downturn (a.k.a.”recession”). Among the findings:

Service and Tipping: If restaurants want a remedy for the slowing economy, they should teach their staffs to be nicer. When asked what irritates them the most when dining out, a staggering 68% of surveyors said service. Noise/crowds (13%), prices (6%) and food (6%) complaints follow. Despite poor service, diners in recent years have become increasingly generous. The nationwide average tip is now 19%, having inched up from approximately 17% ten years ago.

For the full story about Zagat’s findings on dining habits, go here.

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“Top Chef,” the hit TV series that exploits the usual drama inside restaurant kitchens, has launched a restaurant finder, with reviews from the show’s participants. Atlanta has not yet made the list.

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The Grape’s parent company files for Chapter 11.

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I’ve had the cold from hell for a week, so I’ve only eaten comfort food like Dynamic Dish’s stew of great northern beans and heirloom peas from Whippoorwill Hollow Organic Farm. I drank a glass of freshly made carrot-ginger-Fuji apple juice with it.

We ate at the restaurant’s new bar counter. It has five seats and, at least to me, is more comfortable than sharing the end of a table whose other end is occupied by complete strangers. Here, you can eat with strangers, but stare at the cookies and dates stuffed with chocolate and almonds between intervals of conversation.

David Sweeney, the restaurant’s chef/owner, says he’s not going to open for Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner. Bummer.

Brad Lapin and I made our weekly trip to La Pietra Cucina where I ate short ribs over mashed potatoes. Brad ordered this (more photogenic) fish stew. Being sick, I figured I deserved the dessert, a chocolate-mousse-like concoction with hazelnuts. We’re returning for dinner this week with a visiting foodie friend from Rome.

I ran into Jennifer Zyman, CL’s cheap-eats writer, at Pietra. She reports on her own meal on her blog. Jennifer and her dining companion find certain flavors — salty and bitter — too strong in two dishes. Bitterness is a flavor I can’t get enough of, generally. (No comment necessary from the sweet peeps.) But I’m hypersensitive to saltiness and don’t recall getting an over-salted dish at Pietra.

I gave Jennifer a hug. I hope she didn’t wake up with my cold.

My final comfort food was pizza at Stella. The fall specials menu includes this white one topped with smoked prosciutto and streaked with balsamic reduction. I mainly enjoyed it, although too much of the prosciutto was stringy.

Wayne ordered another special pizza, featuring cherry tomatoes, anchovies and capers — similar to Fritti’s Napoli, but with a crispy crust instead of the billowy, melt-in-the-mouth one at Fritti.

I also sipped a good bit of juice from Arden’s Garden. During the sore-throat phase, the straight-up ginger- root juice was almost anesthetic. Of course, the price, over $10 for 10 oz. or so, is kind of numbing too.

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Richard Blais knows it.

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Aja, the latest Tom Catherall restaurant, opened Nov. 7 in the space formerly occupied by Emeril’s (3500 Lenox Rd.). Catherall has hired William Sigley, who has worked at Wolfgang Puck’s Chinois and Todd English’s Olives, as chef.

The menu is pan-Asian. You can find more details on the Here to Serve website. I can’t wait to see the 10-ft. brass Buddha.

Speaking of Catherall, I found this on his blog:

For the first time ever, four distinctive Atlanta restaurateurs – Pano Karatassos, Bob Amick, Tom Catherall and George McKerrow – will be roasted and toasted at 4 Legends of Atlanta Hospitality Roast on Monday evening, Nov. 17, at 6 p.m. at the Atlanta Community Food Bank. They are all sure to feel the heat, but they know it’s for a tremendous cause – to support the hungry and the work of the Atlanta Community Food Bank this holiday season.

Following a cocktail reception, foodies, philanthropists, and socialites will be treated to a delectable three course meal and dessert reception, prepared by four-star chefs Peter Kaiser, Jamie Adams, Carvel Gould and Jonathan St. Hilaire, each adding their own special flair and elegance to the evening. Atlanta magazine restaurant critic Christiane Lauterbauch will provide the evening’s introductions, and Carolyn O’Neil will emcee the Roast.

For more information, sponsorship opportunities or to purchase tickets, visit www.ACFB.org/ROAST or call 678-538-9000.

Tickets are $300-$500.

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I was copied on the following letter to the editor from Harold M. Barnette, relative to my review of The Bureau:

To The Editor:

After having read Cliff Bostock’s food column in CL for many, many years I was profoundly disappointed with some of the remarks about the Edgewood corridor in his review of The Bureau.

The comments were uninformed, smug, and uncalled for. They added nothing of value to the review. As one of the “original” recent migrants to Edgewood I readily attest to the mixed bag of denizens to be found here. In addition to Café 458 there is a population of formerly homeless mentally ill served by a very worthy group, Project Interconnections, Inc.

Some of us remember how the on-going disaster that our country has become originated with Ronald Reagan in 1980, whose administration gutted the social safety net, turning thousands of mentally ill into the streets.

Even as it makes strides toward revitalization Edgewood is doing its part to serve those less well off who are every bit as much citizens of this land as the more affluent you or I. Ditto with the comparison to Buford Highway. The historic and social/cultural experience of “inner city” denizens is very different from that of every group that voluntarily immigrated to this country, a fact we triumphantly acknowledged through our courageous choice in the recent presidential election.

Such snarky put-downs are not cute—they just reinforce and encourage ignorant attitudes. This is not intended to beat Cliff down. I have read enough of his stuff to know that he is a better person than this column suggests. Many if most Americans have had their moral sights lowered by our collective experience during the past 8 years.

Now may be a good time to reflect on the values of humility, modesty, and sympathy for those struggling with misfortune. And the people who could benefit from such reflection do not all live in the exurbs.

I wanted to respond to this letter because I find it mystifying. My column’s remarks about the cultural shift occurring on Edgewood are a critique of my own earlier use of the term “gentrification,” which, with a reader’s prodding, I concluded inherently suggests exactly the kind of thing that Mr. Barnette is now, oddly, accusing me of.

The term suggests “improvement” of a neighborhood by displacement of its dominant poor residents or the establishment of dependency between the underclass and its new “gentry.” I don’t think it’s arguable that the poor were displaced in Midtown, Virginia-Highland and Inman Park. I have never felt this was a good thing. But I think the term “gentrification” inherently suggests that it is indeed a good thing. I was disowning the word’s use because it disguises the suffering that this change can cause.

In my column, I said this:

It is easy to dismiss such people as nuisances, or even as exotic figures that might be depicted by Goya. But the suffering is real. Maybe nothing expresses this mélange of cultures as well as Café 458, which feeds the poor on weekdays and the comparatively affluent on weekends.

Why Mr. Barnette reads that as snarky befuddles me. It’s a description of what is true. It is not a critique of Cafe 458, whose work I greatly admire. It’s certainly not a trivialization of the suffering I see on Edgewood. I’m observing the interactions of two classes. It is way too early to assume anything about how the dynamics will resolve themselves, regardless of good intentions, which I have not questioned anywhere in my column.

As for my comparison of Edgewood to Buford Highway, my point was that the latter experienced the reversal of what seems to be happening in the former. The affluent were replaced by the poor, but the area ended up quite prosperous. Thus the assumption underlying the term “gentrification,” that improvement depends on the displacement of the poor, is false.

Mr. Barnette wants to attribute this to the enterprising motivation that brought immigrants here in the first place. Perhaps. But — and this was not part of my column’s subject — I would look deeper and ask whether it is possible for the privileged to establish ongoing residency among the poor without performing in loco parentis and reinforcing rather than rupturing the power dynamics of class hierarchy. I believe Cafe 458 and Samaritan House are sincerely addressing that question in the design of their programs. But I would refer Mr. Barnette to the expansive literature on colonialism, foreign and domestic, before assuming that differences in the behavior of immigrants and the inner-city poor are unrelated to the way affluent settlers view themselves and their own role in relationship to the poor.

I am sorry if anyone else found my comments hurtful. My brief reflection on “gentrification” was intended to show how the way we language something may say something we do not intend. It appears that I may have compounded that problem rather than clarifying it!

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Last Friday was an all-tapas day. Eclipse di Luna (lunch) and Pura Vida (dinner) have both added many new items.

Pura Vida’s additions, like the ice cream show above, exhibit increasing complexity in presentation and ingredients. This is red-wine ice cream with bits of salty, caramelized feta.

The ice cream borders on the edgy, but “mango y foie” (right) journeys to another galaxy. This is a quivering terrine of foie gras and green mango with a molasses center.

We also sampled a “pizza” made of coconut bread and topped with arugula and palm hearts, along with cheese and several other ingredients. Also: duck cracklings with warm yuca dumplings, pomegranate seeds and cabbage rolls.

Elicpse’s menu changes are not as complex. They are hearty and straightforward for the most part.

A good example (left) is this bowl of white bean stew with chorizo. (In the background are new lamb meatballs with a mint-almond chimichurri sauce.) My favorite newbie was the mofongo — plantain dumplings stuffed with artichokes, in tomato-fennel broth.

Pura Vida, by the way, has not yet opened its planned new downstairs dining room. A peek through the window revealed that it looks ready to roll, however.

(Photos by Cliff Bostock)

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I spent 2.5 hours waiting to vote yesterday. I was surprised to see that my Grant Park polling place was selling an assortment of processed junk food and soft drinks Although, I saw nobody buying the stuff, I was glad to know that if my blood sugar fell during the wait, help was nearby.

I voted for Obama – surprise! — and seeing a black man actually win the presidency has been extremely moving to me. I’m old enough that I remember segregation, which endured long after the Civil Rights Act’s adoption, in many areas of the country.

I spent my first five years out of undergrad working for newspapers in rural Georgia. Yesterday, seeing the spread of junk food at the polls and watching Obama win so definitively, caused me to flash back to those years in the sticks and recall how the ritual of dining was central then, and now, to our political life. I remember, time and again, dining with ordinary people who spouted racism as if it were a common value among all white people. And, of course, all public dining was segregated. Dining itself, so much an expression of community, was strictly controlled by the protocols of racism.

I remember, for example, that I frequently had to cover the weekly Rotary Club meeting, where lunch, prepared by black women, was usually followed by a talk by a politician. I’m not sure why, but I always recall the moment when lunch was being finished. Conversation died away and the introduction of the speaker began. Cigars and cigarettes were lit as the small-town white power brokers prepared to have their asses licked. There were smiles all around and the occasional clinking of a fork on a dessert plate.

Besides the cooks and service staff, there was not a black face in the room and it was not unusual — not remotely so — to hear a speaker prattle about states’ rights, private property rights, the value of private education and many other euphemisms for continuation of a racist society. During these speeches I often watched the black women cleaning up the dining room. Their faces did not betray any emotion….

(This post is excerpted from a much longer post on my personal blog. Click here to read the entire post.)

(Photo from BarackObama.com.)

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The closing of Kool Korner and the Havana Sandwich Shop has many in-town residents in withdrawal from their Cuban food habit. But Las Palmeras (368 Fifth St., 404-872-0846), long a favorite for me in Midtown, is still open after about 15 years.

I always get the same thing here, the masitas de puerco — pieces of slow-cooked pork, crispy and juicy, topped with the restaurant’s oniony mojo sauce. Typically, I get sides of moros (black beans cooked with rice) and fried yuca with more mojo (shown in the background).

Wayne always gets the Cuban-fried chicken.

The flan here is one of my favorites anywhere. It’s extremely dense with barely an air pocket to disturb the sweet, velvety, cold and creamy texture.

(Photo by Cliff Bostock)

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(Photo from SMH.com)

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Is it just me, or are fried eggs showing up as garnishes on lots of dishes these day? Everything’s coming up bibimbap, the Korean bowl of goodies usually topped with a fried or raw egg.

Exhibit A is a variation on shrimp and grits by Carmen Cappello at the Lamplighter (top photo). The egg’s yolk added body to the the piquant sauce, but I gotta say the dish had problems. There weren’t enough grits in the bowl to absorb the liquid and, worse, the shrimp were not good quality. But the surprise of chopped collard greens and a profusion of sliced andouille redeemed the shrimp’s flavor problem, if not the overall textural problem.

We also found a fried egg atop a burger with scrapple and American cheese. It’s kind of like gilding the cholesterol lily, but it was better than mayo. (There was no egg on our crab cakes — an incredible bargain, like most of the food here, at $8.)

Next up is the fried egg atop the “short stack” (above, right) at The Original El Taco, the successor to Sala in Virginia-Highland (1186 N. Highland Ave., 404-873-4656). Considering that the restaurant’s name makes a weird allusion to The Original House of Pancakes, this dish’s allusion to pancakes themselves seems doubly-weird.

But the pancakes here are corn tortillas heaped with red and green chili, refried beans and Mexican cheese. This Tex-Mex dish can be found here and there from Santa Fe to Houston and New York. Honestly, the description and appearance of the dish caused me to cringe, since it seems to embody the artlessness of so much Tex-Mex cooking. But the strong, smoky chili and flavorful beans, blended with the egg, lifted the dish out of the purely prosaic. Taco Bell’s chihuahua would find this too refined.

I’ll have more to say about El Taco, particularly its take on tlayuda (above, left), the “Mexican pizza” popular in Oaxaca, in Grazing. The dish is made with a giant baked tortilla and the restaurant’s is a sight to behold. The toppings are tasty, but the flatbread crust on the one we ordered was almost impossible to eat.

(Photos by Cliff Bostock)

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Check out this slideshow. The cuteness is unbearable. I mean unpandabearable.

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See photos of Obama and McCain eating on the campaign trail here.

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Guess who ate at One Midtown Kitchen and was, like, such a prima donna he wouldn’t sit where people could, like, walk by him and stuff. Really, you’ll never guess.

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You’ve probably heard that a Texas man was arrested here last week after sharing his $7 buffet plate with his girlfriend.

The Iron Skillet, a truck-stop cafe, presented him a bill for two plates and he refused to pay the extra charge. Police charged him with theft of services and threw him in the Fulton County jail, from which he was released two days later, after pleading guilty to a lesser charge.

YumSugar hosts a discussion about the absurd event here.

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I’ve been craving pizza all week, so we visited Fritti Thursday night. While I got my favorite Napoli — made with bufala, wild oregano, capers and anchovies — Wayne ordered the calzone, which arrived at the table looking like a gigantic crab, larger than the plate on which it was served.

Wayne admitted that it put the first calzone he ever tasted — when he was 10, in Columbia, S.C. — to shame. Light, crispy and creamy, it was filled with ricotta, mozzarella, salame and cotto ham. He accepted the offer of a dish of marinara on the side. It didn’t need it, but he never says no to extra food.

We also ordered my favorite starter, the fried mushrooms.

As we finished our meal, restaurant owner Riccardo Ullio arrived on his motorcycle. (Yes, we know one another.) Riccardo also owns Beleza, the groovy Brazilian cocktail lounge. He said that he is in the process of changing the menu there to all raw food. It won’t be just vegetarian food. Ceviche, carpaccio, tuna crudo and such will be on the menu, along with vegetarian dishes like the grains the spot is already serving.

Meanwhile, Cuerno, next door to Beleza, is featuring live flamenco at 7 p.m. Sundays. The show features guitar, dance and singing. If you’ve never seen authentic flamenco, you need to go. As far as I know, Cuerno remains the only Spanish restaurant in our city and the paellas estan fantasticas.

(Photo by Cliff Bostock)