Omnivore Atlanta

I dined alone at Stella in Grant Park Thursday night. I had a Caesar salad and a white pizza featuring zucchini, bacon and mozzarella, streaked with balsamic vinegar. The restaurant is slated to close and be resurrected as a Doc Chey’s Noodle House within the next few months. (The same people own both restaurants.) Meanwhile, the chef has left the restaurant to open her own venue in Florida.

I asked a server why the owners think Doc Chey’s will do better than Stella and she told me that “foot traffic” is much higher at all locations of the noodle house. She said some limited remodeling will occur before the transition. …

In my quest for new burgers, I dined Monday night at Roxx Tavern and Diner on Cheshire Bridge Road. On Mondays, the restaurant offers a build-your-own-burger special.  You start with a $5.95 Angus beef, turkey or veggie burger and add toppings of your choice.

Weirdly, the restaurant doesn’t offer a list of ingredients and their cost. You just choose whatever you like that is mentioned in the regular menu of kitchen-designed burgers and you’ll have to ask what each ingredient costs. I chose this Angus patty with caramelized onions. feta cheese and bacon. I ended up saving a couple of bucks.  It was quite good, if a bit undercooked. …

Speaking of burgers, the Shed at Glenwood featured a slider at its regular Wednesday “slider night” that included duck confit and fresh cranberries that had been marinated in port wine, jalapeño peppers and cloves. I keep craving it. …

Entice, a “Caribbean tapas restaurant and lounge,” is soon to open on Ponce de Leon Avenue near the Spaghetti Factory. …

Marketing Ploy of the Week: Over the weekend, the Ansley Publix appeared to repackage its small cobb salad in the large container, lowered the price a dollar and claimed it was on sale. Ugh. …

It appears Vesuvius, the new pizzeria on Edgewood Avenue, will not open tomorrow night, Friday, as hoped. Maybe next week. …

So light, so airy, so incredibly fattening. …

So noisy, so airy, so inedible. …

(Photo by Cliff Bostock)

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The Twitterers are tweeting that Stella in Grant Park will close at the end of December and be replaced by Doc Chey’s Noodle House. I’m not happy about that.

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Here’s a shot of my current obsession — the fig and prosciutto pizza at Stella in Grant Park. It will be on the menu as long as the supply of figs, from a nearby back yard, holds up. The pizza — a white, crispy one streaked with balsamic — is served with a salad. Choose the arugula salad and feel free to pile it on the pizza for a slightly bitter contrast to the sweet figs.

(Photo by Cliff Bostock)

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Your favorite summer pizza: Stella reprises its fig and proscuitto pie tonight. …

The futility of existence: Man cracks the KFC code. …

The Thoughtful Bread Company: Merry olde England gets its first sustainable bakery. …

Are you a lousy writer? Maybe you need to drink more. …

An alternative to heavy drinking: Morelli’s is serving two new (to me) ice cream flavors, champagne-peach and Grand Marnier-pineapple.

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Mark you calendars for next Friday. Stella in Grant Park is reprising my favorite pizza there, fresh figs with prosciutto. …

The owners of Sugo are opening the Iberian Pig in Decatur, in the space vacated by Sage. …

Marco Betti, the owner of Antica Posta, has opened Joia Restaurant and Lounge at 1100 Crescent Ave. in Midtown. It features late-night hours with an uncomplicated menu by Chef Brett Maddox.

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Monday night is your opportunity to try out one of the city’s best bargains right now — Chef Shane Devereux’s 3-course menu at Top Flr for $15. You get you choice of two entrees and two starters.

However, reader Susan Hewitt writes to issue a warning:

Had a good meal at Top Flr recently except for one thing: it was roasting in the upstairs area where we were seated. I normally am cold everywhere we go and even I was sweating. Sadly, it ruined the experience for me. I understand the difficulties with cooling old buildings, but they could at the very least put in a couple of ceiling fans. I won’t be considering a return visit until the weather changes.

I eat downstairs there and haven’t noticed a problem with the air conditioning. So you might want to make a reservation (404-685-3110) for a downstairs table or snag a seat at the bar. …

Tonight is also all-you-can-eat Mussels Night ($15) at the Peasant Bistro. And P’cheen hosts “Mike’s Bone Lick BBQ,” where you can find some mustard-based, South Carolina-style sauce — a rarity in our city. …

OK, people, I’ve been to three restaurants lately whose menus were all but unreadable. No, it’s not just me, because in each case I heard people at adjoining tables similarly complaining. In one case, I loaned them my iTouch so they could use the flashlight application. Low lighting is cool, but how about putting more thought into the font you use for your menu? …

We had an interesting meal at Stella in Grant Park over the weekend. I ordered a caprese salad, anticipating flavorful and fresh summer tomatoes. To my surprise, the restaurant was using oven-roasted tomatoes. They were quite tasty but kind of a shock.

I also ordered a special of wild scallops over white beans. Well, sort of. The “white beans” turned out to be a very watery puree without a whole bean in sight. The scallops had been hacked up and skewered on a sprig of rosemary. It was impossible to remove them without tearing them into even smaller bits.

Wayne made the wiser choice with classic spaghetti and meatballs. We like the pizzas here and hope they will reprise the fig pie they served last summer.

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I just devoured a great pizza with burrata, balsamic reduction, chopped tomatoes and (way too much) roasted garlic at Stella.

I’m in training for the Carnivore Challenge at Big Pie in the Sky, but need a partner.  (Hat tip, Brian Cohn)

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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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I’ve had three, low-to-moderately priced good meals lately. Two of them were in Grant Park.

We are really getting to love Lamplighter. Our most recent meal included braised pork over mac and cheese with truffle oil, the scrapple burger (right) and this very pink pepper mill belonging to Chef Carmen Cappello’s girlfriend. The restaurant will open for lunch soon, featuring a menu that is top-secret for the present.

I’ve had quite a few inquiries about Cappello’s scrapple burger. Here’s a description from the chef’s PR folks:

When patrons come into Lamplighter on Connally Street in Grant Park, most of them don’t even know what scrapple is. Yet, Chef Carmen Cappello (formerly of M!X in Brookhaven and Sweet Lowdown in Midtown) uses slices of this loaf made of offal meat to make a burger that will put you in a food coma while jonesing for another. Cappello uses two patties of ground beef, two slices of American cheese, a fat slice of fried scrapple and, as a garnish: a fried egg with a runny yolk that runs down the side of this pile of heart-stopping goodness – all tucked inside a toasted hamburger bun. Oh yeah…fries come with this Lipitor-inducing plate.

A native Philadelphian, Cappello grew up eating scrapple and makes it in-house to complete his meaty masterpieces. He says that it is regarded as the king of breakfast meats up there. His restaurant has only been open for a matter of weeks and he already has regular customers who come in weekly – some twice a week – for this heady delight. For folks who are curious about this ingredient – think hot dog without the casing – Cappello fries up a slice to induce the craving….

We also continue to enjoy Stella. The most recent surprise on the regularly changing menu was the Capricciosa pizza. It included prosciutto crudo, cremini mushrooms, artichoke hearts, mozzarella, organic tomato sauce and hardboiled eggs.

Hardboiled eggs?

The chef happened to come by our table and I mentioned that I’d never had pizza with hardboiled eggs. She said that it is commonplace in Italy to break a single egg over a pizza before putting it in the oven. When it’s served, the egg is still runny.

But, she said, brief experimentation with that resulted in diners returning their pizzas to the kitchen. So she switched to hardboiled eggs.

“You really have to adapt to people’s tastes,” she said….

We finally made it to Ecco to try the restaurant’s Tuesday-night special of Cocido Madrileño. It’s a $17 bargain ($24 with wine) and is a gigantic serving. This picture doesn’t do the dish justice — the restaurant is too dark not to use the unflattering flash — but, believe me, it’s delicious, especially the house-cured brisket.

I was most surprised by the complex, rich broth. Technically, the soup is a starter, usually served in a separate course in Madrid. Don’t let the server talk you into a separate starter, because you couldn’t possibly finish the dish if you order one.

(Photos by Cliff Bostock)

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