Atlanta eats, 2013 edition.

I’ve got a new draft blog post up on likely top ten pick Austin Meadows of Grayson High School. Also, if you missed my review of dinner at The Spence, Top Chef All-Stars winner Richard Blais’ newest venture, you should head there first. I was still thinking about that meal two days later.

I did have another memorable dinner in Atlanta, at Decatur’s Cakes & Ale, which has twice made Bon Appetit‘s list of the ten best new restaurants in the country (they bent the rules and listed it again in 2012 when C&A opened a new location with a bakery attached). The name is accurate, as they sell both cakes and ales, but the standouts on their menu involve local produce, factoring heavily in every dish.

After a helpful chat with the server, I went with three smaller plates instead of a single entree, paying a few dollars more (maybe $3-5 more) but getting more variety and I think more food overall. The menu changes frequently, so these items may not be available a few weeks from this review. First up was the house-cured lardo on crostini with browned broccolini, mirin, and a side salad of tatsoi, a green leafy member of the Brassica family with a mustardy flavor. The lardo was indulgent, of course, infused into the bread by the heat of the latter, but balanced with the acidity of the mirin and slight sweetness of the caramelized, crispy bits of the baby broccoli. I could have done without the tatsoi salad, however, which was also very acidic and more than the plate required, but the crostini were unforgettable right down to the golden color where the lardo had melted into the bread.

Next up was a verdant spring salad of baby golden beets, sliced radishes, kohlrabi matchsticks, shaved celery, frisee, and sliced almonds, tossed with a rhubarb vinaigrette and served over creamy fromage blanc (a white farmer’s cheese). Hugh Acheson would have approved of this salad: it had texture, it had color, it had sweet and bitter elements, and it had a light tang from the dressing. I doubt I’ve ever eaten a salad faster and it certainly didn’t advertise itself as “health food,” even though it was an antioxidant bomb.

The third small plate was the polenta verde with roasted asparagus, a fried egg, and a small salad of frisee, roasted (I assume) shiitake mushrooms, and pancetta. The polenta was rich and creamy but still had some tooth to it, and could have stood as a side item on its own. The asparagus spears were cooked perfectly, tender but not mushy or stringy, and played well with the polenta and the salad. The one disappointment was the sunnyside-up egg, which was overcooked; the yolk was congealed underneath and didn’t run, which meant no sauce for the asparagus. It’s harder to poach eggs to order than fry them, but a poached egg would make this dish more cohesive. You can bury me in that polenta verde, though.

I mentioned to the server that “I was told there was cake,” which produced a dessert menu featuring an item called Coffee & cream: a layered torte of devil’s food cake, espresso-chocolate mousse, and praline crunch underneath, served with a smear of dark chocolate fudge sauce. This dessert could have been designed especially for me – rich, dark, slightly bitter underneath the sweetness, featuring two of my favorite flavors, chocolate and coffee, together. The hazelnut gelato on the side was nice but unnecessary as a potential obstacle between me and the chocolate.

I should also mention the solid cocktail menu, featuring the Welcome Wagon – Gosling’s Black Seal dark rum from Bermuda, Aperol (a low-alcohol amargo similar to Campari), aquavit, lemon bitters, and ginger ale. It sounds like a lot of alcohol, but the flavors worked well together for a warm, rounded punch. I also tried a local beer, a red rye ale that I believe was from Terrapin Brewery in Athens, although from their site I’m not sure if that was the Mosaic or another offering.

Moving away from fine dining to Q, I had the chance to meet a friend at Fox Brothers BBQ, not far from Cakes & Ale’s location in Decatur. Fox Brothers’ menu is straightforward Q, but to their credit there’s some attention paid to seasonal items – they won’t serve fried okra out of season, for example. The chicken fried ribs starter was a new thing for me – just what it sounds like, smoked ribs, cut up and deep fried. They were surprisingly un-greasy, probably fried very fast at a very high temperature, and of course, very, very delicious. At the server’s suggestion I got the sliced brisket plate with tater tots and collard greens. The meat was a little dry but had a powerful smoke flavor, as much as any brisket I’ve ever tried, even though the smoke ring itself was small. The point of smoked meat is to taste the smoke as well as the meat, so Fox Brothers hit on that. The sides were solid, and I mostly had to stop eating them because this was an absurd amount of food. It’s good Q for anywhere, but in Atlanta, which seems to be a Q desert, this was superb.

And if you find yourself in Sylvester, Georgia, down in Worth County south of Macon and west of I-75, I can recommend Fat Boy for some solid Q as well, with very good “chipped” (shredded) pork at really reasonable prices. I’d skip the fried okra there, though, as it clearly came from a freezer bag. Several sites suggested Pap’s in Sylvester for fried chicken, but it appears to be abandoned and the phone has been disconnected.

Comments

  1. Fox Brothers is a great place. If you ever get the chance again, give Heirloom BBQ a shot. It’s on the other side of town and pretty much a hole in the wall, but has some great food.

    Good call on Terrapin as well. Mosaic is the in season side project, so that’s most likely it.

  2. Agreed on Heirloom. A bit of a hike from Decatur, but the best Q in town. Keith- you hit some good spots and in limited time, you did well. But I think you’d find Holeman and Finch to be the best execution in Atlanta. It’s creative and local and very bold. Worth a visit. Cocktails are the best in town as well.

  3. Sriracha Demon

    If you like coffee and chocolate together, you might wanna explore using wattleseed in your cooking. It’s an Australian seed that has a flavour reminiscent of those two.

  4. there’s plenty of good Q in atlanta – there are several of places that outpace fox bros.

    you’ll be sad to hear that HD1 is probably turning into another Flip Burger outpost. most people in atlanta won’t care, because HD1 is phenomenally mediocre, but i know you, quite bizarrely, raved over it.

  5. Im afraid that dark chocolate (or so called ‘real’ chocolate, if it can so be called) is revolting. Not a matter of taste- just irrefutable fact. On this, there can be no debate.

  6. Since you’re an unabashed burger fan, I have to recommend The Vortex in Little Five Points, an area sort of between Decatur and the Ted, actually pretty near Fox Bros. Every single thing on the menu there is crazy good. I always suggest the Elvis Burger–bacon, fried bananas, and peanut butter–to the uninitiated.

    As far as Atlanta Q–and I know I’m not the first you’ve heard say this–Fat Matt’s for ribs, and Daddy D’s for pulled pork (and sides as well).

  7. Keith – I take it from your limited comments that you didn’t much care for the beer? Shame, because Terrapin put out some good stuff (and we’re lucky to get a fair portion of it here in VA).

    @bbg – I’m sad to hear that. I was in Atlanta last year, and both I and the wife really enjoyed HD1 (in fact, we both wish they’d bring one up here instead of opening yet another burger joint or cupcakery). We both really liked Flip Burger too, but like Keith, came back raving about HD1. If not HD!, what would you recoommend?

  8. well, it really depends on what you’re looking to eat? if it’s another hotdog place, i really have no idea, but there are tons of cool restaurants in atlanta.

    also, if anyone is in atlanta, make sure you get a king of pops popsicle – they are awesome.

  9. I know how much I’d miss my wife and 2 year old son if I had a job that required extensive travel, but I have to think it’d help if the actual job part was to watch and write about baseball with the added bonus of getting to try out each city’s best restaurants. What a great gig. I read all these restaurant reviews and can’t help but think, “man, I really want to be there.”

    I don’t really have anything else to say since I’ve never been to Atlanta so I can provide no opinion on the restaurants reviewed here. But damn if I’m not a bit jealous of some of Keith’s posts. BBQ and baseball. Doesn’t get much better than that.

  10. the only thing that bottega louie in downtown LA does REALLY well, besides having a great space/cool vibe is the asparagus + poached egg

    http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/bottega-louie-los-angeles?menu-item=asparagus-and-poached-egg&select=YokVisbormJlKvlMQJCPcQ#YokVisbormJlKvlMQJCPcQ