Omnivore Atlanta

Yay! I’ve solved my micro-foam problem. I reported recently that I wasn’t any longer able to make good foam for my morning latte with Lactaid, a lactose-free brand of milk I’ve bought at Publix for years. I followed commenter Amy’s advice and tried Kroger’s own brand and it works great.

Sort of Yay! The wireless Internet service at the Ansley Starbucks now works 95 percent of the time. Actually, it’s the free AT&T service that works. Tmobile, for which I pay $30 a month, still goes down regularly. Hey, it’s as if Baghdad residents got an extra hour of electrical service after five years of only three hours a day. Can’t complain about that extra hour!

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I’m looking for office space in the Midtown area. The Ansley Starbucks’ Internet access has been totally f***ed up for months, so I need to find a place that won’t boot me off-line three times an hour…or charge me more than the cost of a few shots of espresso.

The problem, this time, began after Starbucks introduced sort-of-free WiFi through AT&T. I still pay $30 monthly for Tmobile’s service there, but neither service works half the time. No matter how much people complain, nothing happens.

My theory is that because the service is basically free now, nobody in the upper echelons of their corporate office, including the alleged AT&T liaison, feels the need to really do anything about the complaints. Further, I learned today, that allegedly nobody besides me calls to complain. As if. But it’s certainly true that many have become virtually acclimated to the WiFi dysfunction, like Baghdad residents who have become accustomed to having electricity only half the day.

Please don’t tell me it’s what I get for patronizing the corporate coffee culture. The shop’s baristas are great and the store is located next door to my gym. I tried Octane, which I love, but it’s out of the way….

La Pietra Cucina opens Saturday nights for the first time tomorrow. I’m happy to learn that the restaurant is booked except for one two-top. As usual, I lunched there today with my pals Brad Lapin and Todd Doane.

We had a gigantic meal, including tortellini al brodo (the popular Italian Christmas soup), a wild boar ragu with chitarra and a sorbet made with fresh huckleberries, olive oil and a touch of sea salt. My entree was pork slices over a thyme-laced salad of chopped red beets, placed over sliced yellow beets, with a dollop of blueberry confit spread about the plate. I could go on, but you’d do better to go sample the food yourself….

Speaking of pork slices, I have been ruminating a dish I sampled at Taqueria del Sol on Cheshire Bridge yesterday. Chef Eddie Hernandez offered me a taste of an off-the-menu dish — slices of roasted pork with a sauce made of New Mexico green chilies. The fiery sauce contained large chunks of the smoky chilies. I want more! It reminded me of the old Sundown Cafe days when such items appeared on the menu regularly….Eddie was headed to the Original El Taco last night. He promised to give me a report….By the way, the Athens Taqueria del Sol is scheduled to open within a few weeks….

Bill Pruitt writes to recommend the new Mai Thai (4394 Hugh Howell Rd., 770-493-8002) in Tucker. He likes the masaman curry with chicken, the basil rolls and the coconut soup. Prices range from $6.95 to $14.95….

News Flash from the Melting Pot in Kennesaw:

It’s time to bring out the kids for a day of fun, while teaching them the importance of giving back. From 11 a.m. until 3 p.m. on Saturday, Nov.r 8, The Melting Pot in Kennesaw will join forces with Bears-4-Hope Charity for Fondue Festival! This will be a day filled with entertainment for the whole family, including music from The Tom and Chad Show, jewelry, a moon walk, face painting, a magic show, a “special” spiced cider for the parents and, of course, fondue for everyone. Guests will indulge in creamy cheese and rich chocolate fondues from The Melting Pot while supporting a worthy cause.

Admission is $20 for adults, $12 for each additional adult and $7.50 for children under 12. Proceeds will be donated to Bears-4-HopMa Charity and will be used to purchase blankets and pillows for children in the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Seating is limited; please call 770.425.1411 to make a reservation. The Melting Pot is the country’s premier fondue restaurant franchise. Visit www.themeltingpot.com for details…..

More than 5,000 homeless men, women and children inhabit our city’s streets every night. Support Samaritan House by attending a benefit photography exhibit and reception 6-9 p.m. Thursday, Oct., 30, at Cator Woolford Gardens on Ponce de Leon Ave. Call 404-446-4691 or write GJenkins@SamHouse.org for more information and to purchase tickets, which are $55 each.

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Don’t forget: This is Downtown Atlanta Restaurant Week. All week, through July 27, you can have a three-course meal for $25 in some good restaurants (including Spoon, Cafe Circa and French American Brasserie).

The event coincides with the National Black Arts Festival, so you should definitely make reservations before heading out. For full details, go here….

Paging Miss Ann. You have competition! Best burger in town? As if….

Slate, the online magazine, is tracking the closing of 600 Starbucks stores. It’s issued an invitation to readers to participate in a memorial project:

We want to hear from you. If you frequented a Starbucks that’s soon to be closed, write a testimonial about it for the map. What’s the history of the place? Did it force a mom-and-pop joint out of business? Or was it the kaffeeklatsch of the community? Did the service suck? Was there a certain demographic (hipsters, old folk, caffeine-addled yuppies) who swarmed the premises? Pictures and video are all welcome, as well.

Get the whole story here. You can read some of the submissions here….

The Standard in Grant Park is toying with its Wednesday night specials. For weeks, it was Korean barbecue, which didn’t really rock my palate. Last week it was a Thai curry whose appearance on another table immediately convinced me not to order it. This week it was a very strange and quite tasty “South African curry” made of ground beef served like meat loaf over rice….

It’s a hassle to find a parking space in the booming Luckie Marietta District downtown, right? Stop your complaining and go whirlybird…..

Nathalie Dupree re-emerges….

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Undoubtedly, you’ve already heard that Starbucks will be closing 600 stores and has cut expansion plans way back.

If you want the full story of Starbucks’ troubles, check out the lengthy profile of returning CEO Howard Schultz in Portfolio magazine. The article says:

Schultz convinced people that Starbucks was the best coffee in the world and conferred cachet on anyone carrying a cup of it. He convinced them that Starbucks stores were latter-day settlement houses, a “third place” between home and work. He convinced them that Starbucks was healing a planet rent by waning faith in religion, politics, institutions, and corporations: Instead of bowling alone, they could come in and sip caramel macchiatos in company. (It was a neat trick, providing comfort and caffeine, a jolt and a caress, all at once.) He also convinced them that they could indulge themselves philanthropically. His coffee growers were well compensated, his workers content; as he regularly reminds people, Starbucks spends more annually on health insurance than on coffee beans. Why would employees need unions? They had him. Starbucks could be inescapable, homogenizing, and globalizing and still not be McDonald’s.

So far, Starbucks hasn’t released a list of stores that will be closed in Atlanta.

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Hey, look — it’s my Powerbook and a triple espresso macchiato. The picture was taken at Octane, the Westside coffee shop whose “Thursday Night Throwdown” invites baristas to compete to create artsy forms like the heart atop my macchiato.

The espresso here may be the city’s best — rich, almost oily, with layered flavors. The shop also serves real pastries and sandwiches.

But the really cool thing is that they offer free wireless internet service (WiFi) and — get this — it actually works!

My usual coffee hangout is the Ansley Starbucks but, once again, their WiFi doesn’t work about half the time. Never mind that I pay T-Mobile $30 a month to use it.

The latest problems began when they started offering two-hour blocks of free wireless through AT&T, as well as the T-Mobile service. For several weeks now, neither service has worked consistently. Moreover, nobody knows how to get it fixed. The Starbucks peeps say they don’t know what to do about it. Call T-Mobile or AT&T and they apologize, tell you they are working on it — and nothing changes.

Because my gym is an apple fritter’s throw from Starbucks, it’s more convenient for me to use. But I’ll be spending more time at Octane until Starbucks gets its WiFi fixed, which shouldn’t take more than 2, 3 or more months and 10 zillion phone calls to AT&T and T-Mobile.

You can find a mixed-media account of a Thursday Night Throwdown here.

(Photos by Cliff Bostock)

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Here’s another tale of food and madness.

I reported a few days back that the ultra-right-wing blogger Michelle Malkin (right) has given up Starbucks. She objected to the company’s foisting its evil “corporate social responsibility” on her, when all she wanted was a caramel macchiato. Then she learned that Starbucks refused to put the phrase “laissez faire” on someone’s customized card. Starbucks couldn’t explain why the phrase was rejected but Michelle of course suspects the company doesn’t really support laissez faire capitalism…or something.

So, she quit Starbucks cold turkey, switching to Dunkin’ Donuts. She has been a longtime champion of the company because it has been very aggressive in requiring its franchise owners to document that immigrant employees are legal. This has been a special problem along the southern border, apparently, where Mexicans by the truckload sneak across the Rio Grande to pursue the American Dream of becoming a waitress in a donut shop.

Well, the latest installment gets even weirder. Michelle learned that food star Rachel Ray (left) had done a video ad for Dunkin Donuts. But — oh my god! — Rachael is wearing a type of scarf worn all over the Middle East. It’s become trendy in Europe and America, too. But Michelle identifies the scarf as a “jihadi chic keffiyeh,” a favorite garment of terrorists. She is actually concerned that Dunkin’ Donuts and Rachel Ray may be tools of jihad — unwittingly perhaps, but who can deny that if you dress like a terrorist, you might be a terrorist? I’m not making this up.

In the interest of my readers’ welfare, I decided to visit the Dunkin’ Donuts shop on Ponce de Leon Avenue — the one in the shopping center with Whole Foods. A friend told me he recently tried to stop there but was impeded by swarming Mexican day laborers begging him for work. He assured me that he didn’t see any Mexicans decked out in jihadi chic couture, but I was nonetheless surprised that the Indian owner of a franchise so dedicated to immigration law would tolerate this spectacle.

And really, who knows? Dunkin’ Donuts could be dispatching Mexican surrogate jihadists with explosive donuts under their shirts. Imagine the horror of pink shrapnel — it looks like innocent icing — exploding in your face! Imagine your ear drums punctured by candy sprinkles and chocolate jimmies!

We entered the blindingly bright store, which shares the space with Baskin-Robbins, and found it almost deserted. I ordered three donuts and a cup of coffee (right). I am pleased to tell you that none of the three exploded. I am not so pleased to tell you that I have rarely tasted anything as repulsive as these dried-out donuts with super-sweet, almost crispy icing. This was my first visit ever to a Dunkin’ Donuts and it was on Memorial Day. Maybe the donuts were not as fresh as usual?

I will say that the coffee, which the company calls its “number one priority” was good. It wasn’t as strong as I like, but the flavor was rich.

So far, Michelle Malkin, whose insanity is so intense that she lost her gig on Bill O’Reilly’s TV show, has decided not to call for a boycott of Dunkin’ Donuts. After all, terrorists are not nearly as bad as advocates of corporate social responsibility. Meanwhile, the pussy jihadists at Dunkin’ Donuts have pulled the offending ad.

I’m stickin’ to good ole Protestant Krispy Kremes.

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Here’s a reason to love Starbucks. Michelle Malkin, the kooky right-wing blogger, hates it.

Malkin writes that she’s given up her regular Starbucks habit in large part to support Dunkin’ Donuts, which is an aggressive supporter of immigration law. Yes, really. Read Malkin’s other reasons for quitting Starbucks here.

Here’s another good reason to love the coffee chain: Malkin also links to a report that a Christian right-wing group in San Diego is boycotting Starbucks because of its new logo:

A Christian group based in San Diego found grounds for outrage over the new retro-style logo for Starbucks Coffee.

The Resistance says the new image “has a naked woman on it with her legs spread like a prostitute,” Mark Dice, founder of the group, said in a news release. “Need I say more? It’s extremely poor taste, and the company might as well call themselves Slutbucks.”

The group, which claims more than 3,000 members nationwide and has found a place on the fringe advancing various conspiracy theories, is calling for a national boycott of the coffee-selling giant.

Oy. The slutty logo is a mermaid! Fight stupidity! Drink frappuccinos!

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Two baristas at the Ansley Starbucks play Vanna White to an announcement of the coffee shop’s latest gimmick — an “energy packet” containing B vitamins, ginseng and guarana. You can add it to any drink for 50 cents.

This picture was made only minutes after they tested the supplement themselves. As you can see, it works.

(Photo by Cliff Bostock)

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The baristas at the Ansley Starbucks were all, um, eagerly anticipating the much publicized closing of more than 7,000 stores for three hours at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday. The purpose was for all employees to undergo training ordered by Howard Schultz, the company’s recently reappointed CEO, to recapture the “soul of the past,” according to the New York Times.

Actually, Schultz wouldn’t call it training. He told employees via a video message: “This is not about training. This is about the love and compassion and commitment that we all need to have for the customer.” Oh yeah! In a memo a year ago, he talked about losing “much of the romance and theater” at the shops that seem to dot the corner of every urban intersection.

Actually, the Times reports that sales have been slacking at Starbucks and the company is closing 100 shops, including one here on North Highland Avenue. It has also cut back expansion plans.

I asked the Starbucks baristas Tuesday what there was to learn about making espresso when the shop uses an automated machine. One explained that the barista can still control certain factors that affect the taste of the drink. One of those, certainly, is the steaming of milk. It’s very true that some baristas seem more talented at that than others.

(more…)

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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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The Starbucks on North Highland Avenue in Virginia-Highland is scheduled to close soon.

Fat Louie’s on Marietta Street has closed.

The Prince of Wales, on Piedmont across from Piedmont Park, has closed after many years in business.

Parish Foods and Goods, the latest restaurant from Bob Amick, will open in the early spring on North Highland Avenue, in Inman Park’s Terminal Building. The three-level restaurant will feature New Orleans-style cooking, along with a specialty market.

Cakes and Ale is scheduled to open soon in Decatur in the space last occupied by Viet Chateau. Taking its name from a line in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, the restaurant provides this description on its website:

Cakes & Ale diners can expect an eclectic, seasonal menu featuring only the freshest organic ingredients, non-endangered fish and the highest quality meats. For those diners who recognize that fresh, unfussy food must take center stage and be enjoyed in a casual, unpretentious atmosphere…

The building that once housed Harvest on North Highland Avenue has become a bridal shop, according to reports on Atlanta Cuisine.

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If you didn’t hear, you can still stop and shed a tear for Robert Cade, who died at 80 on Nov. 27. Cade was the University of Florida researcher who invented Gatorade, an incomparable blend of water, sugar and salt with a heady Kool-Aid-like bouquet and a mouth-feel resembling diluted motor oil. But it will keep you hydrated at the gym or in the club while you’re doing Ecstasy. …

I find this strange. Jim Romenesko runs the newsiest journalism page on the Internet. If you want to dish the media dirt, it’s the place to go. It turns out, he also runs a site called StarbucksGossip.com. Its role is “monitoring America’s favorite drug dealer.” Although unaffiliated with Starbucks, it includes plenty of insider gossip from baristas. The Seattle Times recently interviewed Romenesko about the site. Check it out here. …

Ugh. USA Today recently reported the latest gourmet delight in Lima, Peru. It’s deep-fried guinea pigs. The paper reports:

“It was delicious. Marinated whole overnight in orange juice and garlic and spit roasted over an open fire,” Andrew Zimmern, host of the Travel Channel series “Bizarre Foods,” said in an e-mail interview. He sampled the delicacy in neighboring Ecuador last year. “Cuy should be popular in the USA once we adopt a different attitude about alternative foods, especially ones that some people keep as pets.”

This is nothing especially new, according to USA Today:

Guinea pigs are native to the high Andes, and have been an important source of protein for millenia. Today, they are common in rural Andean households as a sort of savings account — they are so easy and cheap to breed, that when a family needs money, they can sell a dozen or so.

I’m not eating guinea pigs. Would you?

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This is Justin, a barista (and a very good one) at the Ansley Mall Starbucks. He is smiling, I theorize, because he’s so happy to be working someplace that begins celebrating Christmas as soon as Halloween is over. Besides getting to wear a red shirt and green apron for the next two months, Justin gets to make eggnog lattes and sell gingerbread cookies shaped like mittens.

Happily, the store has not yet begun assaulting customers’ ears with the usual gruesome Christmas music. But it won’t be long.

I’ll be on the lookout for holiday-time culinary atrocities. Please let me know of any you encounter.

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The October issue of Psychology Today includes an article about Starbucks‘ meteoric rise from 100 coffeehouses 15 years ago to 13,000 today. It opens 2,000 new locations each year.

Interestingly, the article relates that Starbucks’ original vision did not encourage lingering: “Efficiency, not coziness had been the design goal.”

Then, in 1996, the company conducted extensive research and discovered that most people were more interested in “feeling and atmosphere” than in the coffee itself. Most of the article is devoted to describing the psychological means by which the company creates a sense of “warmth, luxury and emotion,” in exchange for lots of money.

Some interesting mentions:

Flavors of Frappuccinos are tied to fashion trends. The company attempts to divine next season’s trendy colors a year in advance and then develops the right-color Frappuccino. (I sampled a blueberry one this week. I guess we’re supposed to be dressing in purplish blue.)

Store design avoids hard edges. Everything is curved. Why does the store use such tiny tables? “Tables are small and round to preserve the self-esteem of customers drinking alone, since a circular table has no ‘empty’ seats.”

The company intentionally developed the annoying language (”grande Valencia latte”) for its products, both to add a sense of sophistication and to get consumers always “thinking” in Starbucks-ese, so that they will feel out of place at other coffeehouses. The company even publishes a 22-page booklet of the lingo to help customers “build confidence in beverage ordering.” (Photo of Jesus from SubversiveInfluence.com. Check out the post there that specifically reacts to Starbucks lingo and compares the coffeehouse to a church.)

The same issue of the magazine has a feature on the healthful qualities of green and black tea. Who knew black tea “speeds recovery from stressful events, reducing levels of cortisol and diminishing blood platelet activation”? Green tea “mitigates sunburn,” and both types may promote brain health. I wonder if they cure erectile dysfunction and depression.

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I was blogging at the Ansley Starbucks today, lunching on an arugula salad with goat cheese from MetroFresh. It’s full of intensely flavored strawberries and intensely flavorless plum slices. (”This is the prettiest salad I ever did see,” the counter person told me.) I ate it along with a triple-macchiato that the baristas here are nice enough to make for me in a real ceramic cup.

I just met a bunch of Starbucks marketing people who told me that celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson will be giving a cooking demonstration here 1-3 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 13. Samuelsson will be cooking recipes from his new book Discovery of a Continent, which will also be available for purchase (and autographing).

The good news is that Starbucks will be selling two new pastries created by Samuelsson starting Aug. 28. They are chocolate-cinnamon bread and a caramelized apple-pecan pastry. These were designed for pairing with two new coffee blends, Ubora and Joya del Dia.

I’m calling that good news because, as I told the marketing peeps, most of the Starbucks pastries suck — especially the croissant, which tastes like misshapen, spongy white bread. I asked them exactly where the monstrosity is made, but nobody seemed to know. Considering that you can buy flawless croissants about a mile away at either the Bread Garden or Alon’s, it seems Starbucks might want to try what Whole Foods is doing with produce: Buy local.