Omnivore Atlanta

Dynamic Dish is a restaurant where I would happily eat daily. Unfortunately, it’s also a restaurant that is booked most evenings, so lunch is usually the most convenient option. David Sweeney’s brilliant, mainly organic, mainly vegetarian cuisine has gained national kudos.

Favorite Dishes: Anything Sweeny does with collards instantly attracts me, but Saturday night’s organic pizzas are amazingly playful, healthy riffs on everyone’s favorite unhealthy food. 427 Edgewood Ave. 404-688-4344. www.dynamicdish.net.

We will be counting down Cliff’s Top 10 Favorites every day between now and Oct. 21, the day our Food Issue 2009 launches. Check back tomorrow for Number 1.

(Photo by James Camp)

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This week has been what Wayne and I call a “Freedom from Food Week.” That means we didn’t have to eat anything for first-time review. The reason is that I wrote the list of my 10 favorite restaurants instead of Grazing for next week’s paper. That put me a week ahead.

By the way, some people don’t seem to distinguish between the “best” and a “favorite” restaurant. A favorite restaurant is one that I go to regularly because the food is consistently good, it’s fairly inexpensive and it’s relatively convenient to where I live.  I would, for example, consider Restaurant Eugene among the best restaurants in the city but it’s not a favorite for regular dining week in and week out.

I’ve had several terrific meals this week at favorites. Above is the gigantic pickle we brought home from the Shed at Glenwood Wednesday night after our usual indulgence of $3 sliders. Wayne asked for an extra slice of pickle and the waiter brought him this dinner-plate-sized monster. It seems owner Cindy Shera bought an entire barrel of them, thinking she was buying the usual size.

We had two excellent newbie sliders — fried oysters and coleslaw, and pork belly with pork and beans.

I lunched Friday with my friend Frank Miller at La Pietra Cucina, where I haven’t been in nearly a month. Our meal was flat-out spectacular, starting with a large bowl of soup featuring octopus and chickpeas with a bit of escarole and delectable Olivastro oil. That was followed by lemony tagliatelle with chunks of Dungeness crab, which was followed by porchetta paninos. No, I did not take a nap in the car after lunch, but I sure felt like it.

Last night, Thursday, I scored a seat at the bar at the always-crowded Dynamic Dish for an amazing-as-usual meal: creamy, slightly crispy aubergine croquettes over San Marzano tomato sauce with steamed kale and crowder peas. I followed that with owner-chef David Sweeney’s interesting take on bread pudding — more like toast pudding — topped with whiskey sauce and toasted walnuts.

Last Monday, I visited the new Antico Pizza for another Naples-style pie, this time the San Gennaro topped with sweet sausage, bufala, cippolini and sweet pickled red peppers. Like the week before, I carried the pizza home in a box and it was way too gooey by the time I arrived, but nonetheless a really stimulating play of sweet flavors. I wish the restaurant included seating — there is one table where you can stand and eat — because the pizza is really not suited for travel. It’s not on my list of favorites yet, but it’s only been open a few weeks and I’ve been twice!

(Photos by Cliff Bostock)

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We hit Dynamic Dish Friday night for the first time in several weeks. Hey, we got seated without a reservation!

I ordered this dish of two borekas — filo pastry stuffed with roasted red peppers, feta cheese and arugula pesto. On the side were zipper peas, fresh corn and heirloom tomatoes. Wayne ordered smoked salmon with German potato salad. The abundance of summer produce makes the restaurant more appealing than ever right now.

By the way, the place was apparently full of foodies one night earlier this week. They all seemed to be Twittering at one another while guzzling wine and sampling David Sweeney’s incomparable cooking. Speech is so yesterday.

(Photo by Cliff Bostock)

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I had the week’s best meal last night at Dynamic Dish. It’s been a couple of months since we’ve eaten there. Every time we’ve gone by, the restaurant has been booked full. Unless it’s a meal for review, I don’t do reservations.

I ordered baby eggplants stuffed with pureed artichokes, topped with a bit of cheese. On the side was steamed kale in EVOO and some wedges of roasted Gold Yukons. Wayne got a zucchini quiche that was a bit too oniony but otherwise perfect. It was served with some mixed greens.

For our starter, we split a caesar salad. The romaine lettuce was topped with sliced avocados sprinkled with black sesame seeds. Crunchy “nutritional yeast croutons” garnished the salad, whose dressing was made from a vegan mayo spiked with a hot chili powder. Delicious.

The restaurant has five matching community tables now and looks better than ever. …

We hit Spoon in East Atlanta again Tuesday night. I’m addicted, but I have to admit the nearby presence of Morelli’s Ice Cream reinforces my compulsion. You get a 20-percent discount after 6 p.m. Tuesdays, if you dance for nine seconds. I wish I’d had my camera to record what people will do for a 20-percent discount. I remained in control of myself but Wayne danced at least 27 seconds, expecting a 60-percent reduction. …

Grant Central has perfected its puttanesca sauce, available as an occasional special. Yay!

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LOOKING FOR A DONOR: Tierra's Dan Krinsky

I’m back to pizza this week, but first, I want to cite some important news in Atlanta’s culinary community. Dan Krinksy, co-chef and owner of Tierra with his wife, Ticha, is in need of a kidney donor.

Krinsky was diagnosed with polycistic kidney disease, a genetic disorder, about six years ago. He has been seeking a donor for two years and although he’s had seven offers, none of them turned out to be a match. He is now undergoing dialysis three times a week.

His blood type is O, the most common, so the competition for a donor kidney, including a cadaver organ, is intense. He prefers a living donor because, he says, cadaver kidneys are not as reliable over the long term. Recent research has concluded that donating a kidney does not affect health or life expectancy.

All donor costs will be paid by Krinksy’s insurance company. Recovery from the laparoscopic surgery is usually about two weeks.

Continue reading “Grazing: Tierra’s Dan Krinsky needs a kidney”

(Photo by James Camp)

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Our frequent commenter Kali asked us a few weeks back to come up with a list for her of 10 things she should eat in Atlanta before she deserts us for the Great North. She wrote:

Besha and Cliff,

I am sure I have hinted, if not outright said (and I know I have!), that I am leaving my beloved Atlanta for Canadian climes in 8 weeks now. Please give me a list of 10 tastes I should have before I go. Atlanta is a city of foods, cuisines, and delicacies I am glad to know are out there. It makes me proud. My only caveat is this: I don’t eat beef. It’s something weird with me I am sure. Pork is fine, lamb is so-so, fish is ace, and there you go. But please: I would like recommendations.

So here we go – Cliff and I came up with five each. Cliff’s list first: (more…)

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Years ago, a friend who was a well known dining critic used to tell me that the principal hazard of his occupation was coming to hate everything. He was being a bit facetious — and only a bit — but, several decades later, I’ve come to feel something of the same.

The problem isn’t that different from absorbing yourself in any other form of art. After a point, it becomes hard not to resent the way hype, trends, celebrity and theatrics of the outrageous continually substitute for the precision of the imaginative inherent in “the real.”

The fraud of the concocted memoir is a good example in literature. Rather than make meaning out of the actual, a growing number of memoirists simply ramp up the outrageous by fictionalizing their lives. The reason they don’t call their stories fiction is because they wouldn’t be impressive as such. The author merely would be a writer with a fertile imagination instead of a celebrity with an outrageous tale of wild-‘n’-wacky survival.

So it often goes in the restaurant world too. Flashy dramatics, celebrity and subscription to trends turn dining into the culinary equal of gossip. It can be an amusing game — and I’m certainly not saying that chefs shouldn’t push every envelope in their experimentation — but, in my view, the more experimentation is in service to “the real,” the ingredient’s inherent flavor, the more valuable it is. (Richard Blais, for example, is wildly experimental but it’s clear that flavor always comes first for him.)

That brings me to the bowl of collards shown here. I ordered it at Dynamic Dish on a recent Saturday night. The tender greens were picked the morning before in East Point and owner-chef David Sweeney tossed them with some olive oil and umeboshi vinegar.

I’ve seldom encountered a dish as evocative. First of all, the taste of the greens themselves was amazing. I grew up eating the usual treatment of long cooking with ham hocks or some other fatty meat. My Southern mother always served them with a small glass bowl full of ordinary cider vinegar, a zillion chopped onions and so much freshly-ground pepper that the solution was black and gold. Corn bread was often on the side, good for absorbing the greens’ pot liquor.

Sweeney’s umbeboshi (plum) vinegar was a perfect complement for the lightly cooked collards he served as a starter on the restaurant’s popular pizza night. The first bite was intensely salty. The intensity dissolved as the olive oil spread over the tongue and the peppery flavor of the greens built up.

I love that peppery taste. Ethiopian cuisine, which employs collards (gomen) in various dishes, plays with that quality by often cooking them with hot peppers and nearly as much black pepper as my mother put in her vinegar.

But Sweeney’s simple treatment was revelatory. One taste evoked a world, as much of his cooking does. It’s no wonder Bon Appetit has named Dynamic Dish among the top three modern vegetarian restaurants in the country.

Of course, “farm-to-table” dining is all the trend now. Unfortunately there’s a sad but frequent glitch in the trend: Too many chefs don’t have a clue how to treat a farm-fresh ingredient, so that there isn’t any recognizable difference from the usual ingredients.

That’s not a problem at Dynamic Dish and I feel confident in saying that the restaurant’s cuisine is as much an education as an experience of pleasure. It’s required eating!

(Photo by Cliff Bostock)

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Bon Appetit has named Dynamic Dish the third-best modern vegetarian restaurant in the country:

Dynamic Dish
Atlanta
At this Old Fourth Ward neighborhood café, chef-owner David Sweeney changes the small menu (a few salads, soups, and entrées) daily. Saturday night is organic pizza night, with toppings ranging from butternut squash, sweet onion, and jalapeño to crimini mushrooms sautéed in Riesling and thyme.
427 Edgewood Ave.; 404-688-4344

Congratulations to David Sweeney and his staff!

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LET THEM EAT PIE: The "Founder's Pizza" at Pizza Fusion

“Are you here for gluten-free pizza?” the young woman at the door of Pizza Fusion (2233 Peachtree Road, 404-351-9334) asked us.

“Of course,” I said. “Isn’t that the main selling point about this place?”

“Well,” she said, “I need to tell you that we have sold out of the gluten-free crust.”

Wayne and I looked at one another and gasped. The young woman tilted her head and cooed, “I’m so sorry.”

Actually, neither of us has celiac disease, the intestinal disorder for which a gluten-free diet is prescribed. It’s common. As many as one in every 133 Americans can’t digest gluten, a protein in wheat, barley and rye. Gluten also occurs frequently as a secondary ingredient in all sorts of products.

The increasing diagnosis of the disease has caused many restaurants to add gluten-free dishes to their menus or, like Shaun’s, to sponsor regular dinners for people with celiac disease.

But Pizza Fusion is, as far as I know, the only restaurant in town to offer gluten-free pizza, at least when they have it. Two days after our visit, the restaurant was still waiting for a shipment of the mysterious flour necessary to make the gluten-free crust.

But Pizza Fusion, a franchise out of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., also advertises itself as “green.” Vegetables are mainly organic. Meats and poultry are free of chemicals. The restaurant’s interior is built from recycled this and that. You can recycle your pizza boxes. The toilets are “low-flow.” Food is delivered in “hybrid, electric and fuel-efficient vehicles.” I could go on. In short, the restaurant calls itself “the greenest restaurant in America.” (more…)

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THE OFFAL TRUTH: Foie gras and buttermilk pancakes at Home

We love lists – especially at the end of the year. And so, in no particular order, here are my top 10 picks for the best dishes I had in 2008.

The almond croissant at Parish.

Mussel and salami salad at Cakes and Ale.

The Proscuitto de Parma at La Pietra Cucina.

Fesenjan stew at Falafel Café.

The vegetable plate at the National in Athens

Buttermilk pancakes and foie gras at Home.

The burger at Holeman and Finch.

Apple and beet soup at Dynamic Dish.

Korean BBQ at Hanil Kwan.

Monkfish liver at Sushi House Hayakawa.

(Photo by James Camp)

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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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We are still eating at Dynamic Dish several times a week. We especially like Saturday pizza night when you occasionally encounter psychedelic pies like this one fit for a flower child just off a mellow yellow high. It’s the Georgia Pizza, topped with Blue Hubbard squash, hot peppers, mozzarella, tomato sauce and nasturtium blossoms.

We also had a Turkish Pizza with chopped baby collards, mozzarella, feta and garlic. Lots of garlic. Way too much garlic for a love-in.

The menu of pizzas changes every week. There are usually five or more.

Check it out this Saturday night…But, hey, if you’re going to Dynamic Dish, be sure to wear some pizza in your hair….If you’re going to Dynamic Dish, you’re gonna meet some gentle people there.

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Georgia Organics and the Atlanta Local Food Initiative are throwing CHEWS LOCAL!, an organic soirée in East Atlanta Village, Thurs., Sept. 25. The event, which celebrates the launch of Georgia Organics’ new local food guide, takes place at the Glenwood. A reception will be held from 5:30-7:30 p.m, where chefs from the Glenwood, Dynamic Dish, Slush, Kasan Red and the Graveyard Tavern will join forces to whip up some seriously nutritious and delicious apps. Cost for the reception is $15. Immediately following the reception is dinner for $65, beginning at 8 p.m. Reservations for both the reception and/or the dinner are required via www.georgiaorganics.org/events. Don’t miss out!

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Dynamic Dish, my favorite informal dining spot these days, has set up a blog where you can read the daily menu — sort of. For reasons I don’t quite understand, the restaurant isn’t posting the menu every day, just some days. Anyway, check it out here.

We visited Dynamic Dish Saturday, which is (organic) pizza night. After a starter of incredible mustard greens topped with a walnut pate, Wayne and I each ordered a pizza. Wayne got one with anchovies and I got one with a Japanese squash, sweet onions and feta cheese. Don’t miss this.

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Friday was a good day for eating. I met my friends Brad and Todd for lunch at JCT (1198 Howell Mill Rd., 404-355-2252). It’s in the same development that hosts Bacchanalia, Star Provisions, Figo and Taqueria del Sol.

All of the restaurants seemed to be packed, so that finding a parking space was an ordeal. Actually, getting there was an ordeal too. I took 17th Street, which runs from Peachtree through Atlantic Station, to Howell Mill.

As usual, the intersection of 17th and Howell Mill was a damn nightmare, with traffic backed-up all the way to Northside Drive. There’s no stop sign on Howell Mill there, so it can take a good 10 minutes or longer to get through the intersection. It’s another example of terrible planning by the city. The 14th Street bridge over the connector is gone, so a lot of westbound traffic is diverted to 17th Street. You’d think they would have thought to install a light or a stop sign.

Lunch at JCT was good. I had sauteed shrimp over creamy grits (above). Brad had iceberg lettuce with shrimp and Todd ordered a roasted-pork sandwich. Portions were on the small side, so Todd and I ordered dessert — chocolate fried pies for him and gingerbread pudding with lemon curd for me.

We had a great server, a young woman from Latvia.

Friday night, Wayne and I went to Dynamic Dish, where we shared our table with a cluster of pineapples. We’ve been eating here at least once a week and Friday’s meal was as exceptional as usual. An asparagus soup made with celeriac broth and a bit of creme fraiche was tangy and fragrant. We both ordered the day’s sandwich — a Reuben made with tempeh, sauerkraut and Russian dressing. On the side, we had a bowl of local black-eyed peas with butter. They were yet another lesson in the value of simplicity when ingredients are first-rate.

Honestly, I consider Dynamic Dish the best restaurant to have opened in our city in the last year. Owner/Chef David Sweeney’s cooking has no equal here.

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It was Wayne’s idea. After eating veal recently, I had my usual attack of guilt. As I told him, I didn’t eat veal for ethical reasons for more than 10 years. He said he doesn’t feel right about eating meat of any type much of the time.

“Why don’t we experiment and not eat meat for a week?” he said.

“Well,” I said, “I have decided to stop eating pasta and bread, so that would be difficult.”

Boy howdy. We could have eaten every meal at Dynamic Dish and been quite happy. But part of the initial plan, besides staying within our usual intown dining zones, was to go to our regular haunts that serve meat. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, nearly every restaurant these days offers “vegetarian options.” I never order these, unless it’s a straightforward salad, so I thought this would be an opportunity to experiment.

Read the rest of this article here.

(Photo by James Camp)

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Among my favorite summer tastes is figs and the dish above, which I ordered Thursday night at Dynamic Dish, made superb use of them.

Owner/Chef David Sweeney found the organic Black Mission figs at the Dekalb Farmers Market on Thursday morning. They were ripe, but not over-ripe, still a bit coarse, but with a pointed sweetness. He served them atop whipped chevre spread on bread. They were garnished with lightly candied pecans.

Interestingly, the open-face sandwich was served with a purple potato salad, garnished with cucumber slices. I say “interestingly,” because the skin of Black Mission figs turns purple with ripening, so it was cool to see the color turn up unexpectedly.

I also ordered a gazpacho made from local tomatoes, tinted with yellow turmeric and garnished with sunflower sprouts. For dessert: warmed rhubarb compote, almost shockingly sour, sweetened with vanilla ice cream dusted with cardamon.

Honestly, the array of flavors in this and every other meal I’ve had at Dynamic Dish is staggering.

The restaurant was doing a brisk business Thursday night and the most exuberant diner was the youngster pictured here, throwing his arms up in victory as he stepped on another of his toy cars, like Godzilla destroying Tokyo.

Incidentally, Atlanta magazine featured Dynamic Dish in its July issue. You can read Christiane Lauterbach’s review here.

(Photos by Cliff Bostock)

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I live in Grant Park. Ever since the tornado came through Cabbagetown, Boulevard has been closed. Hill Street has also been blocked for many months. So getting over to Edgewood and Dynamic Dish has been a pain.

I took a circuitous route there for lunch recently and ordered this soup (I have not photoshopped the color) made with cucumber, watercress and mint. It had a slightly bitter undertone that David Sweeney, owner/chef of the cafe, said was probably due to the broth, made with kale.

I also ordered this sandwich of roasted beets with herbed cream cheese.

I’d still rather lunch here than anywhere else these days. Now that summer is approaching, we can expect more creative fare with local and organic ingredients.

(Photos by Cliff Bostock)

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Jennifer Zyman, the Blissful Glutton, recently returned from a trip to San Francisco and she recorded every bite of food. Check out her blog here, and scroll down a bit to find the San Francisco material. Jennifer reports that she is sick with pneumonia. Get well soon, Jennifer.

Dynamic Dish continues to draw raves from everyone who visits. I took picky friends there last week for lunch and they were awestruck. Besides the food, we enjoyed our server Paul, a deaf comedian. The proprietors of RowdyFood.com and DirtySouthWine.com had dinner there recently and both recounted their experiences, here and here, respectively. They’ve renamed the cafe “Dynamic Dave’s” after the owner, David Sweeney. Even the devoted carnivore named Steakhead raved about the place on his Atlanta Eats blog.

The foodies at AtlantaCuisine.com are promoting their favorite dive bars, past and present, in this thread. It’s like a road map of the years I used to drink.

Cathy, of Live to Nibble, has a great post on Huong Giang, a Vietnamese restaurant on Buford Highway. Cathy reports that the restaurant has deviated from its focus on Hue cuisine by adding pho to its menu. Check out her interesting post here.

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There’s good news from Dynamic Dish (427 Edgewood Ave., 404-688-4344), the mostly vegetarian, mostly organic and always delicious cafe in the Sweet Auburn District.

Owner David Sweeney is now open evenings, 5-9 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The menu is the same as the lunchtime one but that, of course, changes daily. I lunched there Wednesday on the amazing dish of celeriac “schnitzel” pictured here. It was not unlike upgraded fried green tomatoes and was accompanied by roasted potatoes and a puree of beets and horseradish garnished with pink peppercorns. My friend Troy ate a lentil-walnut pâté on bread with sliced pears and pickled beets.

During lunch, I happened to run into Landon Brown, owner of the defunct and much-missed Teaspace in Little Five Points. He told me that he and Sweeney are planning a Valentine’s Day “food happening” Feb. 14 at the restaurant. Besides Sweeney’s incomparable food, there will be music, videos and some performance art. The restaurant is also hosting a Tupperware party. You’ll have to call or stop by for details on that.

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Healthy pizza: Jeff Melnick writes, “I am bringing Pizza Fusion to Atlanta. Pizza Fusion is an organic fast casual pizza restaurant that serves organic pizza, sandwiches, salads, beer and wine, and we deliver pizzas in hybrid cars. Our first location (5 in total) will be located at 2233 Peachtree Rd. in the Aramore building. Unfortunately we do not open until July of this year. In addition, we will be the 1st LEED-certified restaurant in Atlanta.” Check out the website here. …

Celebrate: David Sweeney writes to say he is opening his mainly organic cafe, Dynamic Dish, this Monday, Jan. 21, which is Martin Luther King Jr. Day: “Come in on Monday. Take time to sit, reflect and share your thoughts. Enjoy a slice of cake and a cup of coffee. Be a part of the Sweet Auburn and Old Fourth Ward celebration — the true heart and spirit of downtown Atlanta.” Dynamic Dish is a one-of-a-kind jewel at 427 Edgewood Ave. (404-688-4344). It is normally closed on Mondays. …

Gimme the skinny one with some hyperbole: “Just in time for the New Year, Starbucks helps customers keep their resolutions without sacrificing flavor with the introduction of the ‘Skinny’ platform, a nonfat latte made with sugar-free syrup. Bringing the sugar-free syrups to the forefront of the menu, Starbucks is adding a new flavor – mocha – to the already sweet selection of vanilla, hazelnut, caramel and cinnamon-dolce,” a press release says.

In case you’ve never heard of Starbucks, the same press release sums it up with some grand hyperbole: “Starbucks Coffee Company provides an uplifting experience that enriches people’s lives one moment, one human being, one extraordinary cup of coffee at a time. To share in the experience, visit www.starbucks.com.”

Be sure to check the foam on your skinny latte. You just might make out the face of the Virgin Mary or Jesus himself. …

Arf Arf: Emily Carmon writes, “I am writing in hopes to have you come visit us at 2 Dog….We are located in historic downtown Gainesville and our unique menu includes locally grown produce and almost everything thing made in-house (breads, sauces, desserts, etc.).” Check out its website here, where you’ll find the restaurant’s cuisine described as “rustic Euro soul food.” The dinner menu seems to be mainly mix-and-match sauces and pasta, but there are daily specials, too. …

You are a happy person who must reserve ahead: Pyng Ho has announced the dates for its popular Chinese New Year menu, Feb. 7-11. The menu itself has not been announced, but the restaurant encourages diners to make reservations now. Call 404-634-4477. Find its website here. … Silk in Midtown is also planning a special five-course menu Feb. 9. Reservations and a credit-card deposit are required. Call 678-705-8888. Browse its website here.

Where??: The 11th annual Georgia Organics Conference and Trade Show will be held Feb. 28-March 1 in Dalton. Last year over 600 people attended — everyone from chefs and farmers to foodies. Check out the website for more information here. …

Chef change at Shout: Chef Julio Castillo, formerly of Noche, is now executive chef of Shout. His new menu offers a large selection of tapas, pizza, sushi, including a lobster taco, BBQ chicken pizza and beer-braised lamb shank. …

I screwed up: Carl writes to tell me Zyka is Pakistani, not Indian. Craig writes to chastise me for my weirdly dyslexic rewriting of Spanish chef Ferran Adria’s name in my Grazing column this week.

Bummer: Village Pizza has closed, as reported in the comments section of an earlier post. The owner of Ria’s Bluebird, the popular diner on Memorial Drive, is taking the restaurant over.

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Jay Pontrelli reports: “Had a wonderful ‘free range’ chicken soup (MEAT!) at Dynamic Dish with rice and beans and all kinds of goodness…The place is a gem.” Damn, I am sorry I missed a chance to taste what owner David Sweeney does with meat …

The Reynolds condominium building at 565 Peachtree St. will be home to a new restaurant, Dogwood, in April. The owners are Shane Touhy, also the chef, and Scott Black, the managing partner. Both have extensive experience in the industry including a lengthy stint at Blue Ridge Grill. The menu will feature progressive American cuisine with a Southern accent …

Valencia Coty writes to say that only two restaurants in Atlanta have “green” certification from the national Green Restaurant Association. They are My Panini at Lindberg City Center and Radial on Dekalb Avenue …

Put down that Co’ Cola! Doesn’t matter if it’s sugar-free, soft drinks are killers, according to a recent study:

Drinking more than one soft drink each day may increase your risk for diabetes and cardiovascular disease, according to a recent study. Surprisingly, the effect is the same whether you’re quaffing regular soft drinks or the diet version. Scientists found that people who drink one or more soft drinks a day are 48 percent more likely to have metabolic syndrome, a group of factors that increases your odds of developing diabetes and heart disease. Those factors include high blood pressure, obesity, high triglycerides, high blood sugar and low HDL (“good” cholesterol). The findings are part of a large, ongoing, government-directed research project called the Framingham Heart Study.

Will someone please name a processed food that doesn’t kill …

Via Elisa, our city’s incomparable source for hand-made pastas, is now marketing its sauces. I want several jars of Sofia Sicilian Caper sauce. Elisa Gambino writes on her website:

CAPERS! My daughter Sofia is crazy about them and she is the inspiration for this sauce that reminds me of childhood summers in Sicily with my cousins. Luscious imported Italian plum tomatoes, capers, sun-dried tomatoes, peppers and extra virgin olive oil combine to create a dramatic flavor steeped in the traditions of Italy’s most intriguing island. Heat to simmer and serve over any Via Elisa fresh pasta. For a special Sicilian treat, after tossing the pasta with sauce, sprinkle grated ricotta salata on top.

Elisa is now shipping her pasta nationwide, by the way.

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Eating. It’s all in a day’s work. My partner Wayne and I call days when we don’t have to eat somewhere new for a review “freedom from food days.” Saturday was such a day. Indeed, my diet that day ranged from healthy fare to junk food.

For lunch, I stopped at Dynamic Dish for a sandwich — remarkable, as always — but I found myself caught up in owner David Sweeney’s festive displays, like the persimmons in the photo above, the red Bartlett pears, and the herbs and produce on the counter behind the register.

Granted, the persimmons are sharing space with a poinsettia and some green candles, but the place is otherwise mercifully free of the usual Christmas kitsch. It’s unusual to find a chef/owner who projects such personal style. Most these days are trying to out-Johnson Studio one another, which usually means a frenetic interior. Dynamic Dish is as restful to the eye as its food is comforting.

By the way, Dynamic Dish is vending beautiful fruit baskets for Christmas gift-giving. They’re made with fruit that actually tastes good.

For dinner Saturday night, we headed to Eats on Ponce de Leon. Both of us ordered the jerk chicken, a delicious bargain. The vegetables here are always good, too. I ordered corn on the cob, lima beans and collards. Wayne ordered broccoli, my least favorite vegetable on earth. Broccoli seems to be everywhere these days. It’s just about impossible to order a special at Grant Central without it arriving with a pile of the stuff dominating the plate.

At dinner, I told Wayne that someone had pulled me aside at the gym earlier Saturday to tell me, “You seem to have led a very strange life.” I told Wayne I couldn’t protest because, for example, here I was at Eats with my partner, who had brought along the Bible to read while he ate jerk chicken and swilled a PBR.

This is not an unusual occurrence. I believe he is engaged in an ongoing debate with fundamentalists on some wacky site on the Internets. “I believe Jesus was gay,” he said. “I am combing the Bible for evidence.”

After dinner, I couldn’t help stopping at Zesto, up the road, to order a toffee-coffee arctic swirl — soft-serve ice cream blended with something like Heath bars and coffee syrup. Very addictive.

Although Ponce de Leon has been undergoing steady gentrification, Zesto is almost always filled with characters — urban ones and people visiting from the sticks. Many were ordering ice cream cones dipped in chocolate and rolled in nuts. Then they’d invert the cone in a cup to eat with a spoon. What’s that all about? I’d never seen it before, but Wayne, who continued to read the Bible and resist Satan’s menu of ice cream novelties, said it’s commonplace.

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Some updates: David Sweeney has set hours at Dynamic Dish. They are 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday. I returned for lunch there today and had a delicious pumpkin soup intense with ginger and an amazing pate of butternut squash and sunflower seeds. …

I mentioned in an earlier post that Matt Rupert of the Big Gay Supper Club (and grad student in French lit) is opening a cafe in the Sweet Auburn area. Actually, it will be an Italian deli with prepared dishes. …

Check out Sawicki’s in Decatur (250 W. Ponce de Leon Ave., 404-377-0992) . It’s a butcher shop specializing in grass-fed meats and fresh seafood. Salads and sandwiches are available, too. …

Taqueria del Sol is serving one of my faves at lunch and dinner this week: boneless fried chicken over ancho-mashed potatoes with low-country gravy and siracha sauce. Check out the site. …

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Meet David Sweeney, proprietor of the new Dynamic Dish (427 Edgewood Ave., 404-688-4344) in the Sweet Auburn District. Sweeney, an Army brat, has spent most of his life in Germany, returning to the United States just three months ago. “Yes, I feel like a foreigner,” he says. “I know nothing.”

Sweeney’s shop is about the coolest place I’ve hit since Zennubian opened in Castleberry Hill. He prepares one entree daily and three or four sandwiches. Everything is made with organic produce, like this tagine (above) featuring pumpkin, peppers, fennel and chickpeas over cous cous. That’s a glass of pomegranate tea, sweetened with agave syrup (safe for diabetics), with the tagine.

Sandwiches today included a tofu club with tempeh bacon, tomatoes and lettuce on whole wheat with Russian dressing and a rosemary-roasted tofu wrap with roasted carrots and onions with pine-nut pesto. Sweeney says he’s “meat-friendly,” even though none of the dishes today included a meat.

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