Omnivore Atlanta

Hector Santiago is used to surprising people. The highly acclaimed chef had to change Atlantans’ perceptions when he opened Pura Vida (656 N. Highland Ave., 404-870-9797) eight years ago.

Not only were diners still getting used to tapas, but they were used to Spanish-style tapas, and Santiago was experimenting with a variety of Latin American approaches to small plates. Now Pura Vida is considered one of the best tapas restaurants in town.

This time around, Santiago wants to change the way we think about Sunday brunch.

“I wanted to do a brunch menu but didn’t want to do one like the ones you can get everywhere,” says Santiago, who started his tapas-style Sunday brunch in May. “I wanted some familiarity, but not like you were going somewhere to have brunch all over again. I wanted to make it exciting to have eggs so many different ways, not poached eggs over easy.

“Eggs Benedict and french toast were not what I wanted to serve.”

Read the rest of this article here.

(Photo by James Camp)

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For years, I’ve studiously avoided “Top Chef,” Bravo’s reality chef-competition show — which is unusual for me considering my near obsession with practically all things Bravo reality-TV programming. (And in my defense, I do believe the best of the crop, “Project Runway,” is a multi-Emmy nominee, no?)

But “Top Chef” eluded me for years mainly on the argument that there was really no way for me to “judge” whether or not the resultant work was any good. And so, generally speaking, it all came down to the drama, and even during those unavoidable Bravo marathon screenings of the series — helpful at times, annoying the other 90 percent of the time — I just couldn’t get on board. Until now.

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Thanks to everyone who played our Summer Guide Contest this year. We had 180 submissions, which if memory serves was double the total of last year’s contest. Last Friday was the deadline, and we had a flurry of last-minute entries for the drawing that was held under a pounding June sun on Monday afternoon. As you can see, it was quite a challenge for Marketing Director Shana Langfur (pictured above right and below), who had her hands full in keeping track not only of all the submissions, but also of the prize package. Before we announce the winner, let’s tell her what she won:

* Two passes to see the IMAX film Ends of the Earth: From Polar Bears to Penguins, which opens Saturday, June 7, at the Fernbank Museum of Natural History. (We also threw in two general-admission Fernbank passes.)
* Two tickets to the opening-night performance of Broadway Across America’s touring production of Mamma Mia!, which opens Tuesday., June 10, at the Fox Theatre.
* Two tickets good for any performance of Georgia Shakespeare’s season: As You Like It (June 11-Aug. 1), The Merchant of Venice (June 26-Aug. 2) and All’s Well That Ends Well (July 10-Aug. 3). Performances are held at the Conant Performing Arts Center. Two tickets (good for any performance).
* Two tickets to Creative Loafing’s BeerFest: Beer’lympics, on Saturday, June 14, at Woodruff Park.
* Two tickets to any remaining screening of the Coca-Cola Film Festival: Shine a Light (June 5), Horton Hears a Who! or Atonement (June 8), Casablanca (June 17), No Country for Old Men (June 18), Enchanted or Ben-Hur (July 13). Screenings at the Fox Theatre.
* Four tickets and two parking passes to the series-opening game between the Atlanta Braves and the Milwaukee Brewers on Monday, June 23, at Turner Field.
* Admission for two on the guest list for Corndogorama on June 26-29 at Lenny’s Bar.
* Two tickets to see the Dave Matthews Band on Monday, July 7, at Lakewood Amphitheatre.
* Two tickets for Cocktails in the Garden, which runs from July 10-Sept. 1 at the Atlanta Botanical Garden. Also, two general-admission passes for Atlanta Botanical Garden.
* Two tickets to attend the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival, which runs from June 12-15 in Manchester, Tenn.
* Two tickets to see Mark Knopfler on Tuesday, July 29, at the Delta Classic Chastain Park Amphitheater.

Shana did plenty of rummaging through the lottery bin before finally pulling out the name … BARBARA PAYNE! She found all 11 of the (oh so hard to find) clues to the best of the 111 things to do this summer. Thanks for playing, Barbara.

(Photo by Ed Adams)

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In this week’s Summer Guide, we did something a little sneaky to make your summer a fairly cool one. Embedded in 11 of the “111 things to do” is a little sentence that reads: “Wanna attend this event for free?”
If you click on that sentence, you will be whisked away to a magical place, where you can enter our contest for tickets to those 11 fun things. Within that link is a link to a form to fill out all 11 events once you’ve found them. Then email that form to: summerguide@cln.com.
You’ll be glad you did.
Oh, and that photo? Take it as a very nice, very broad hint about one of the 11.
Start clicking …

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In this week’s issue, we offer our readers our 2008 Summer Guide, with the theme “111 Things to Do This Summer.” But really, we lied. There are tons of things to do this summer. This was just the tip of the iceberg.When I sat down to edit it, I had well more than 111 to choose from (which was the idea), so there was some serious whittling down. But that shouldn’t stop us from providing the ones that didn’t make it into print, should it? So here are the rest of the blurbs. We should also note that with the comprehensive work done on the Summer Guide often means an even healthier updating of all of our listings, which I strongly recommend checking out for further summer planning.

Continue reading Pop Smart post.

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The tricky five-point intersection that joins Bouldercrest Drive, Fayetteville Road, Brannen Road and Eastland Road would otherwise be a desolate dining dead spot in East Atlanta were it not for the smokehouse of a barbecue joint that is Ms. Betty’s House of Ribs. Equidistant from most viable eating options by a solid mile or so, Ms. Betty’s features some of the most tender barbecue selections in town.

Continue reading Cheap Eats.

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Our very own Besha Rodell took third-place honors in both the Best Newspaper Restaurant Criticism and Best Newspaper Food Feature categories at this weekend’s Association of Food Journalists (AFJ) awards competition and conference held in Minneapolis.

In the food feature category, Besha went up against fellow alt-weekly writer Zach Dundas of Willamette Week and Rebekah Denn of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in the 150,000-below circulation division (for her 2006 Food Issue). In the restaurant criticism category she competed against Gail Shepherd of New Times Broward/Palm Beach and Tom Sietsema of the Washington Post — in a competition that for the first time ever had no circulation limit. In other words, she went up against everyone.

Rodell also received a nod earlier this year for her work from the prestigious James Beard Foundation.

So if she struts around this week claiming to be one of the three best food critics in the nation, don’t argue. She can back it up.

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Pableaux Johnson was absolutely giddy. One of New Orleans’ most passionate food and travel writers, Pableaux was giddy with the excitement over the completion of his labor of love, Eating New Orleans: From French Quarter Creole Dining to the Perfect Poboy. The book was an exhaustively researched guide through the food-and-cocktail culture of the city, from the little hideaway neighborhood joints all the way up to the old warhorses of the Quarter. But Johnson’s excitement was short-lived. Eating New Orleans was published June 21, 2005 — two months before Hurricane Katrina. It is now a very nice literary time capsule for the former James Beard Award nominee.

Over the past two years, Johnson — who in full disclosure I must confess is a friend of mine with whom I shared more than one evacuation experience out in his native southwest Louisiana — has busied himself with his steady gigs with the New York Times and Bon Apetit. But now he’s really rebounded with a different culinary tour altogether. Last month, Johnson produced ESPN GameDay Gourmet: More Than 80 All-American Tailgate Recipes. Published by ESPN Books with lots of football-friendly help from network sportscasters Chris Fowler, Kirk Herbstreit and Lee Corso, GameDay Gourmet is a breezy collection of cutely named football-season recipes.

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We should send Besha Rodell out of town more often. While CL’s food editor has been away on vacation, we learned that Besha — previously a James Beard Foundation Award finalist — recently received two nominations from the Association of Food Journalists (AFJ).

Besha was nominated for Best Newspaper Restaurant Criticism and for Best Newspaper Food Feature (Circulation 150,000 or Fewer) — the latter for her 2006 Food Issue (“Down to Earth”), which also earned her the James Beard nomination.

It gets better. This is the first year the AFJ eliminated circulation categories in Best Newspaper Restaurant Criticism. (Bill Addison, her predecessor, frequently placed in the Circulation 150,000 or Fewer category. He’s now at the Dallas Morning News.)

That means that Besha competed against all the participating restaurant critics around the country; the other two finalists are Gail Shepherd of New Times Broward-Palm Beach and, ahem, Tom Sietsema of the Washington Post.
Her competitors in the Best Newspaper Food Feature category are Rebekah Denn of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Zach Dundas of Portland, Ore., newspaper Willamette Week. (How ’bout those alt-weeklies, eh?)

Unlike the James Beard Awards, which is a winner-take-all proposition, she’s guaranteed a first-, second- or third-place finish.

The awards will be held Aug. 22-25 in Minneapolis.

Check out Besha’s reviews here.

Congrats, Besha. Now come back home.

Oh, and don’t forget: The Besha-coordinated Beer Issue is just around the corner!

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