Omnivore Atlanta

MING’S BAR B Q: This undisputed king of authentic Chinese staples—including Peking duck—makes some killer rice plates. Any dish using the superb honey roasted BBQ pork is a sure thing. The “Young Chow Fried Rice” is a simple version laced with carrots, peas, pork, shrimp, bean sprouts and just enough oil to coat each grain of rice in a sumptuous slickness. But there are numerous other fried rice plates to suit any craving that strikes you. 5150 Buford Highway, Doraville. 770-451-6985.

PENANG: Buford Highway regulars flock to this ethnic staple for some of the best Malaysian cuisine in Atlanta. However, the Thai dishes—especially the fried rice—deserve some recognition. The “Thai Fried Rice ” appears in a mound of stir-fried rice, chicken, shrimp and vegetables tinted red from a spicy paste made with lemongrass. Another worthy order is the “Pineapple Fried Rice,” which is stuffed with shrimp, fatty cashew nuts, eggs and shrimp paste, and served in a hollowed out pineapple half. 4897 Buford Highway. 770-220-0308. www.penangatlanta.com.

V1 BBQ & CAFÉ: V1’s version of “Yong Chow Fried Rice” has all the usual suspects—roast pork, shrimp, egg, green onions, peas and carrots—but the Chinese sausage takes it to another level. The kitchen’s light hand with the soy sauce allows the ingredients to shine. 3940 Buford Highway, Duluth. 770-623-1136.

(photo by Jennifer Zyman)

Bookmark to:

Steakhead of the Atlanta Eats blog is reminding people of his Mother’s Day brunch last year at Pastis. Read his review here….He has also published a list of recommendations from Melissa Libby and Associates here….

Tanai, one of the lovely ladies of the Atlanta Dish blog, has published basically the same list with some additions. Check it out here….

Jennifer Zyman, who writes our Cheap Eats column and the renowned Blissful Glutton blog, has a great post up about outdoor cookware. At the top of Jennifer’s personal wish list is the beehive-shaped pizza oven (left). Read her post here for details….

This is from Chow Down Atlanta:

Just a reminder that the new McDonald’s chicken biscuits will be handed out next week for free on Wednesday, May 14th from 6-9am at 1404 Spring Street (parking lot of The Center for Puppetry Arts). Rock 100.5 (my newest favorite station) will be on hand to make things lively. This should be fun.

Why does this make me picture a reformed playground drug dealer passing out junk food?…

Running with Tweezers posts a thoughtful review about dining on Richard Blais’ menu at Home…

The folks at AtlantaCuisine.com are reporting about their visits to Parish here. (I stopped by for a muffaletta in the very pleasant downstairs section myself on Thursday. I’ll report more soon.)…The AC site also features a discussion about green curry. The originator of the thread mentions the green curry at Little Bangkok as being very good. It’s long been my favorite in town, but he waxes musically, literally, about one he sampled recently at Penang:

From the first little bite of green bean, I was amazed. My problems with other places’ curry are that they are never as spicy as I ask for them to be, and that, even ignoring the spiciness, they are just bland. At Penang, I forgot to say that I wanted it spicy, so it wasn’t very spicy (though still spicier than at many places that I asked for it to be spicy), but the flavor was explosive. It was deep, complex, earthy and bright. I’m a trumpet player and I tend to think of taste [in the way] I think of sound resonance. A good sound is full of deep fundamental tones, but balanced by sparkling, ringing, higher overtones. This had that kind of balance and resonance.

The super-cool Ice Cream Fellow files this report:

The ice cream world has lost one of its 20th century pioneers. Irvine Robbins, co-founder of Baskin-Robbins passed away on Monday at the age of 90. His obituary appears in the LA Times.

It was reported that he started each day with a bowl of cereal topped with a scoop of banana ice cream. I would like to think that was his secret to living to 90.

He’s also posted a recipe for ice cream inspired by a favorite drink of Jack Daniels and ginger ale. I want some.

(Photo of Ronald McDonald under arrest from GreenPeace.org.)

Bookmark to:

Last month on this blog, I wrote about how a server at Tasty China turned into the Soup Nazi when I asked about menu items she didn’t think I would like.

At least one commenter suggested the server’s attitude was justified because too many customers send back items they don’t like.

Customers ordering, but refusing to pay for food, is indeed reason for servers getting annoyed.

But rudeness, as amusing as it is to me and the writers of Seinfeld, probably isn’t the best approach.

Tasty China should take a lesson from Penang, a Malaysian restaurant on Buford Highway.

Dining there on Saturday, I asked our server, Eva, about Penang Asam Laksa, a spicy fish soup with rice noodles.

Instead of giving me attitude, Eva gave me advice.

She said it’s very sour and pungent and that there’s a strong possibility I won’t like it. It’s one of her favorite things on the menu, she said, but she’s from Malaysia and her palate is different than mine.

I decided to order it and told her I’d happily pay for it even if I didn’t like it. It’s only $6.95.

She was right. I didn’t like it. It tasted good. But I couldn’t stand the smell.

With my permission, she mixed in some sweet coconut curry broth to take the edge off the soup’s character.

I still didn’t like it. I didn’t complain, I just didn’t eat it.

She took it away, and I ordered something else. And even though I told her again that I wanted pay for it, she took it off the bill. I paid for it anyway.

If you want to separate me from my money, guilt works a lot better than hostility.

Bookmark to:

Buford Highway remains paradise for people who like ethnic cuisine. One of my favorites has long been Penang (4897 Buford Highway, 770-220-0308). I’ve frequently taken friends who are not adventurous here and they’ve usually turned into regulars. We hit the Malaysian spot this weekend and had a mainly great meal.

Our server played the usual game of discouraging us from ordering some dishes, especially penang rojak, a fruit salad with shrimp-paste sauce. As usual, we took this as a cue to order the dish. For once, I wish we’d followed the server’s suggestion. It was unpleasant enough that the “salad” was a plate full of mainly unripe mango, pineapple and daikon, along with fried tofu. But the sauce was inedible to me.

Wayne, ever determined to be nice about everything, told the server that he liked the dish, whereas I didn’t. Then he resumed barely brushing the foul sauce on the fruit. I’m sure you could count the molecules he actually applied to the fruit. There’s an herb used in Vietnamese cooking that we call “Death in Your Mouth.” I think this sauce goes even further.

Our other starters were delicious. We had a plate of achat, pickled vegetables, and pandan ayam, deep-fried chicken wings wrapped in screwpine leaves.

The server also tried to dissuade us from ordering yong tau fu, a special featuring okra, tofu, bean curd skin, bitter melon and hot peppers (left). The latter and some of the okra were stuffed with minced fish. Very tasty. I ordered kari undang besar, sauteed jumbo shrimp in a rather Thai-like curry of lemongrass, chili paste and coconut milk. Advice: Order the shrimp cooked with the shells off. I think shrimp cooked in the shell usually tastes better, but it was a messy nightmare trying to eat this dish.

Malyasia marks its 50th year as an independent nation this month. The Malaysia Association of Georgia will celebrate at the Sheraton Atlanta downtown Saturday, Aug. 11. A bazaar begins at 5 p.m., followed by a family-style dinner at 6:30. For more information, visit the association’s website.

Bookmark to: