I have an unfathomable amount of work to do this week (second week of school and all) so instead of leaving you empty-handed, how about you readers entertain each other?
Here’s how we’ll do it. In the comments for this post, write a review of the last restaurant you ate in. Not the last fancy restaurant you ate in, but simply the last restaurant you ate in. So it can be The French Laundry or it can be Denny’s. It should be very interesting.
Happy writing! (And happy reading…)
I went to a dim sum restaurant on Mott Street with a friend this past Sunday after more than 20 minutes of wandering in the snow. The name of the restaurant escapse me but it didn’t seem like a place tourists would frequent. It was pretty large and spacious and despite the snow the restaurant had good business. I stared sadly at the many dim sum carts because I’m on a diet…that I made up. My friend helped me order veggies since she knows Cantonese and letting her take care of things was easier than me having to speak English. My friend enjoyed her dim sum (she couldn’t finish them though) and I ate all my steamed veggies. MM, STEAMED VEGGIES!!!! If I could remember the name of the place I guess I’d recommend it but I don’t know how English friendly it is.
And then we went to the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory. Ice cream is good in cold weather; it doesn’t melt as quickly. That’s my excuse at least. The coconut ice cream is awesome, if you like coconut. I’d like to believe steamed veggies canceled the effects of the massive amounts of ice cream.
…it’s hard to make steamed veggies very exciting. :P
A report from the other side of the country…
On Sunday, I was shopping by myself in downtown San Luis Obispo and by 1 p.m. I was hungry.
I decided to check out the sushi place that had opened relatively recently — maybe a month ago. They still had their “Grand Opening! Half price rolls!” banner out. I had very little cash. A match made in heaven.
I took a seat at the bar and ordered a Dragon Roll with eel and avocado and a Bonzai roll, a steal at $3.50 for tempura crab and other goodies.
I also had sumonomo (vinegared cucumber) in place of edamame, as it was nowhere to be found on the menu. I’m slowly learning the ins and outs of sushi ordering. I feel virtuous eating raw fish, but the tempura calls to me, so I compromised. I got both.
So my rolls were tasty, though they fell apart a bit due to my chopstick mangling, and I enjoyed my Isabel Allende novel (Daughter of Fortune) while absentmindedly swirling bits of rice and fish in the soy sauce.
Afterwards, I wandered out into the 75-degree sun and figured that if I can’t have New York food, at least I get California sunshine as compensation. Can’t have everything, I suppose. :-) And I was happily sated on yummy fish.
Hope your workload lets up soon, Adam, I’m not near as good at this as you. :-P
I recently moved to Chugiak, Alaska. It is about 40 minutes north of Anchorage, which in Georgia is a trip to the store, but here, is more like the other side of the planet. One of first things I noticed after moving was the lack of decent restaurants in Alaska. It’s not from a lack of ingredients. The local farmer’s market, although expensive, still has enough bounty to make a beautiful and rich table, and the choice of wild game meats here is astounding. Point in case, Alaska geese. The geese in Alaska (Canadian Geese) look positively prehistoric, weighing in at anywhere from 8 to 15 pounds! The snow goose, another Alaska giant, weighs in at nearly 20 pounds. That’s a lot of foie gras! I’m fortunate enough to have a roommate who is a hunter/fisherman as well as an amateur gourmet. He joyfully serves up huge moose ribsteaks or giant slabs of fresh halibut that have been boiled, yes boiled, in water that has been seasoned with salt, sugar and butter. Served with clarified butter, Alaskan’s call this dish, “poor man’s lobster”. It tastes amazingly like the real thing. Moose and caribou are a bit lean for my taste, and unless cooked to death in a crockpot, tend on the dry side. Porcupine (no kidding!), on the other hand, is a delicacy that if given the opportunity, no true gourmet should pass up.
Why should you care about the gastronomic goings-on up here in Alaska? Hmmm…well, you shouldn’t, but it took me moving nearly 4000 miles from my Georgia home to learn a valuable lesson…there are maybe 10 cities in this great big country as gastronomically blessed as Atlanta. Don’t take it for granted. Eat out often, and never choose hash browns over grits. North of the Mason-Dixon line, they don’t know what a grit is. While the rest of the country is obsessing about carbs and transfats, my southern mom still puts a whole stick of butter in the creamed corn that she scrapes from the cob. I was in Alaska for Thanksgiving and made homemade chicken and dumplings, hen dressing, and sweet potato pie for my roomies who are from Montana. They keep promising to lower my rent if I will cook southern meals for them on a regular basis. Ha!
Even the ethnic food in Atlanta soars above what I have encountered in other parts of the country (Chicago, San Fran, N.Y. and Seattle being the exceptions – if I left any city out, feel free to educate me). Alaska doesn’t have an Ethiopian restaurant, a decent Indian restaurant, and the Mediterranean restaurants that exist here have the annoying habit of combining Greek, North African and Middle Eastern fare. The “home cooking” diners, somewhat plentiful in Anchorage, serve the kind of food that reminds me of times during my childhood when I ate dinner at a friend’s house and was proufoundly disappointed to find that not every mom knew how to cook.
I really miss eating in Georgia, but I guess being able to woo my new Alaska foodie friends with southern fare kind of keeps the homesickness at bay…for now.
Eat well and be well,
B.G. in Chugiak, AK
Well if you think Alaska is bad ;)
I think Helsinki suffers from similar traits – lack of fresh produce, especially at this time of year, and a local preference for ‘hearty’ meals. Here you are lucky to get vegetables on your plate, unless you cook for yourself.
My last meal was at a restaurant called Neuvo, meant to be mid-scale Spanish. I had meat four ways. It was ok, if a bit bland. To be honest, I couldn’t even tell the difference between some of the meats. Meat quality is not great here, and worst of all, no one seems to care. There was an organic market, but it closed due to lack of interest. Sigh.
Other elements in the meal were a ‘cava de rhubarb’ aperitif, and then a Lustau East India Solera sherry rather than dessert (and a forkful of others desserts).
Service was rather baffling, and one wrong dish came. They’d also run out of my first choice of dessert drink, Pedro Ximenez sherry.
So ok, rather than great, and the bill came to 40 Euros, which is expensive compared to anywhere in the US, or even London, but average for Helsinki.
tonight in San Francisco, my friend Angela and I went to E&O Trading Company….I’d never been. Thought it was going to be more casual and not as much of a “theme thing” iside. But this was a good thing. It was very done up in like all the themes you’d expect from all the tsunamified countries of asia, pre-tsunami. We sat at the bar, because that’s what I do. I don’t usually like sitting at a table and being locked into the service of an appetizer, soup/salad and entre. What if I want to just sit and order a few different apps and cocktails and call it good? And the bar lends itself to people watching better than a table. But to the food: first up was an ahi tuna tartare, it was good but needed something. Angela and I decided it needed just plain ol’ salt! It was served with casava chips (casaVa not to be confused with casaBa, the melon, casava is a root) which were nice and crispy. The other apps were salmon sate’s (satays), in a great soy/ginger marinade and cooked over some sort of flame, you could taste the nice char and the salmon was still tender and med/rare. Next, garlic clams. Mmmmmm, I like both garlic and clams, and this lived up to my expectations. Clams were not overcooked (it’s all too common for that to happen) and the garlic was there, in the broth, in full force. Would have been nice to have a bit of bread with which to sop up the clam juice, but bread really isn’t an east asian accoutrament, you know? After a couple more cocktails (pomegranite margaritas) we ordered a lamb sate (saatay). BOOM, this was last but certainly not least. Mmmmmm, lamma lamma ding dong! Great blending of the lamb and soy/ginger/whatever it was marinade and again flamed just to perfection. Dessert was a banana in phylo with lots of sugar and nuts and gelato (jay-lah-toe, or “jay-toe” back in the hood). Errrr, dessert, not my bag Baybee! All in all E&O rated 2.5 out of 4 stars for food (flavors were too mild, food felt bland, use some damn spice), 3.0 for decor, and 3.5 for service (our bartender had an amazing ready smile, not forced. Whew, this is hard work. Now where did I put my cocktail. Any more of your work I can do for you Adam??? Slacker.
What a fantastic idea!! But instead of abusing your comment box, I’ll just say that I ate at Bar Donizetti and I’ll go post something about it right now!
Business lunch at Rutherford Grill in Yountville, CA where I *almost* enjoyed the hacked chicken salad with peanut dressing.
Still, my first bite was a gritty, unexpected peanut butter ball that stuck my mouth together like I was a stoned freshman all over again.
Sigh.
On Monday, I met my friend Hoolya at Chilepeno’s in Cedar Crest, New Mexico. It is the only place I know of east of the Sandia Mountains that’s open on a Monday.
The parking lot was full of county vehicles…firepeep carrying out white foam boxes…a green Forest Service vehicle…
This place is smaller than my living area, and it has two rooms — the front room with maybe 6 booths, and the main room, with booths along the walls and tables in the center, and a fake fica tree that kept bugging Hoolya from behind after we were seated. (Wait: 3 minutes.)
The room is painted sort of adobe orange, and there are typical strange New Mexican — “art projects” on the walls, like a Native American baby doll setting in the middle of a straw wreath, with a big plaid bow on it.
I ordered my usual cheese enchiladas, which comes with a tiny side of lettuce & tomatoes. With red sauce, which is blander than green sauce.
Something that bugs me at Chilepeno’s, you have to choose between rice OR beans on the Luncheon menu. Everybody knows that they should be properly served together to provide the correct nutrition, which neither have on their own. If you want them both, you have to order off the more-expensive Dinner menu.
I chose refried beans, AND a side ground beef taco with my enchiladas. Hoolya ordered the chile (we spell it like that in New Mexico for some reason) rellanjo but instead of beans or rice, she requested French, uh, Freedom fries. These were plentiful.
I ate my lunch very neatly, with a fork and knife. Hoolya mixed hers all up like a three year old, and ate the fries with a fork. Not that there’s anything wrong with this.
The meal was capped by perfectly-cooked sopapillas with local honey. We left the waitress a $3 tip. She was good, she deserved it.
Hey, I noticed that SLO Lindsay ate at a new sushi place in SLO, so I think I will write about a new sushi place in SLO, too, even though since then I have eaten at Quizno’s (sorry, my husband loves the place) and a coffee shop/sandwich place called the Nautical Bean. Isn’t it weird that there are TWO SLO county people responding to your post? What are the odds!
The sushi place we tried (Sushi Kokko) is sort of a fast-food sushi place, but their prices were egg-spensive! I got the veggie roll combo, which included a veggie roll with gobo (LOVE gobo) and, you know, some other veggies, a cucumber roll, and an avocado roll. It was just under $10 for that! My husband got the teriyaki beef bowl. I thought the amount of rice was on the skimpy side, but my husband said it was just right. There was a lot of beef, and it looked as though it was grilled very nicely (the place is run, I believe, by Koreans, and those Koreans are good at grilling meat!). My sushi, on the other hand, was not horrendous (i.e., it was not squeezed so that every last drop of liquid was gone), but they do not season their sushi rice (so I guess it’s not really sushi rice, is it?), so it was kind of bland. TEN BUCKS for that!
Anyway, sorry to hear you’re so busy, but when you get a chance, I would love to read a review on Beard Papa and OMS/B (or whatever the rice ball place is called).
This is a fun game! Here’s mine:
I usually bring my lunch to work but yesterday morning for some reason I thought it would be a good idea to bring spagetti with beef stew on top. By lunchtime it didn’t seem like a good idea, so I went to the coffee shop across the street. I got a veggie burger with cheese, tomato, ketchup, and mustard and a bag of Cape Cod salt and vinegar chips. I get salt and vinegar chips at every opportunity, and I have to say Cape Cod are some of the best I’ve had. Crispy, greasy, very vinegarry but not so much as to burn the roof of your mouth off. The veggie burger was also decent. Earthy, beany, distinct vegetable flavors, kind of like the original Garden Burgers but with a much mushier texture. Service was only adequate, with my microwaved burger taking at least 15 minutes to prepare. Overall, a B+. Nothing worth trekking all the way out to 25th street and 10th avenue in New York for, though.
Mariko, I’ve seen you on chowhound. :-) Paso, right?
My post was about Shin’s Sushi on Monterey. A good deal but call ahead for take-out, the college kids pack it in every evening.
And I’ll have to try beef at Sushi Kokku. Oh, and the random everything-Asian place (Asian Cuisine?), which I think is the only place in this WHOLE COUNTY where you can get pho. *sniff*
At Mike’s Chili Parlor, you know what you’re going to get….
In the shadows of the Ballard Bridge (Seattle, WA) lies a small brick building that is anything but non-descript, screaming out in art-deco architecture. This is Mike’s Chili Parlor, and has been for some 80 years.
The bar feels like a dive, and, I guess it is. Its a neighborhood place, but the neighborhood is old fishing town. Sure, now there’s the BioMed building across the street and the ultra hip Mars Hill Community Church down the way, but the area still feels gritty. Regulars come and go as you sit down for your bowl. Sure, you can get it over spaghetti, or on a burger, or fries or a hotdog, but there is a certain simplicity in a bowl of chili, even after you add the cheese and onions and oyster crackers. It is the one bowl meal paradigm (buzzword bingo!)
So, I guess that leaves the question… just how good is the chili at Mike’s? Well, that depends on how you like your chili.
Chili is one of those dishes that come in too many different forms (ask 100 chefs, get 125 recipes.) Do you like it spicy, hot, spicy-hot, mild? Do you like it drier or moister? With or without beans?
Lets start with this. I like the chili. I think its good. And thats what a review is about, telling you what I like. But again, chili isn’t a steak. Let us describe the chili.
It is moist. But it isn’t like, say, Wendy’s Chili, which has that thick sauce, it’s more big pieces of ground beef, cooked into each other, with some oily liquid goodness to give them an environment to live in[1].
It isn’t very hot, but is flavorfull. Occasionally, there will be a tiny bit of bite to it, but overall it is more of a comforting experience. Of course, heat in food is all in the buds of the eater, so your mileage may vary.
It does have beans. I’m so used to going there and ordering what I know, I don’t even pay attention to the menu. I believe they now have beanless chili too, but I haven’t ventured from my path to chili-vana.
It is inexpensive. I’ll be honest, Mike’s is my ‘I only have $10 in my pocket’ restaurant. They are cash only, and a pint of Rainier beer and a bowl of chili with cheese and onions comes in at a very palatable ‘just under $7.’
The service is… well.. the service is odd. I’ve had my water glass go empty for long periods of time, but there isn’t a waitress, there’s just two people behind the bar running the place. A bowl of chili comes out fast (think
Last week, I was in California and ate lunch at In’N’Out Burger. For the uninitiated, In’N’Out is a famous fast-food joint. The prices are low, the food is fresh, staff wages are high, and it’s the only fast food endorsed by Eric Schlosser in Fast Food Nation. I had a cheesburger with onions, french fries, and a vanilla milkshake. The cheeseburger was perfect, with big slices of fresh onion and tomato, a hot and juicy burger and just enough sauce to add tang. The fries are hand cut from fresh potatoes in the shops and you can absolutely taste the difference. And the milkshake? It was just thick enough and tasted like real vanilla ice cream.
There were probably about a bazillion calories in my meal, but the food was fresh and tasted perfect to me. In’N’Out only serves those three things–no options for vegetarians, no salads for dieters, no chicken mctenderselects. But as a result, what they do is perfection. It’s the best burger in the world.
I am a grad student at UCLA. (You need that for context.)
Yesterday afternoon I was completely falling asleep in a small seminar. A bad situation. I was ready to put my head down on the table in full view of professor and classmates and just call it a day. Fortunately the prof called a break so I made my woozy way to Northern Lights, one of several on-campus eating complex things. Got Spicy Shrimp and Avocado Roll for $6.29. I have no problem with spending lots of money on food, but it always bothers me that take-away sushi boxes aren’t really really cheap. It always feels to me like if I’m not going to get cute little soy sauce pitchers and Japanese tableware then the sushi should cost less.
But never mind. This time, I have to consider it a $6.29 well spent. I ate the sushi, enjoyed it, and stayed awake for the second half of class. Then on the way out I realized that by taking the bus that day instead of driving to campus, I’d saved myself the $7 that a daily parking permit costs. So, with a little bit of convoluted thinking, I’d just had free sushi.
Honestly, I just can’t remember the last restaurant I ate at before this. ;b
I’m a student at the University of Texas. I’m trying to be good and bring my lunch most days so as not to spend all of my money on restaurants. Today there weren’t many palatable options at home, so I opted to eat on campus. After class and a couple hours of analyzing marital structure in an 18th century British novel, it was clearly time for some lunch. You would think that UT would have a good measure of decent places to eat lunch, but there are only four or five within walking distance of campus.
I opted for O’s Cafe, which is on campus and has several O’s to Go carts. They are owned by the people who own Cioppolina (a great neighborhood bistro) and Jeffrey’s (one of the nicest restaurants here, now also in DC at Watergate b/c the prez couldn’t live without it). It’s the absolute best place to eat at school. The prices are reasonably normal: $4.50-5.00 for a sandwich, $7-8 for a salad, and then there’s a daily hot lunch, a couple of soups, etc. And they have these really great coconut pistachio cookies.
I am taking nutrition this semester and have become very conscious of portion sizes and what I eat. I opted for the nutritious and delicious veggie wrap. A fresh spinach flour tortilla is the base. For you Yankees, that’s a flour tortilla made with pureed spinach rendering a lovely green color and subtle flavor. Inside this was freshly made roasted red pepper hummus, spinach, red bell peppers, crimini mushrooms, carrots and very thinly sliced red onions. Overall, it was excellent. I’m learning to like bell peppers and have (mostly) succeeded. There were a bit too many for my taste, but they did lend a nice crunchy texture.
Using all raw ingredients was a good choice becuase they already present a variety of complimentary textures in their natural states. Had they used roasted red peppers it would have been slimy. The onions had been marinated in something. A simple balsalmic vinegarette? It was a great sandwich, especially for $4.50. I rounded out the sandwich with some iced tea (I am Southern after all). This brought my grand total, with tax, to $6.17. I was happy and satisfied. And then I had to go discuss the nicomachean ethics of Shakespeare’s Richard III. Neuhaus chocolate was required to re-lift my spirits after an hour of that stuff.
My last meal I was an ANGRY GIRL!!!
I had 20 dollar ravioli that was not made at the restaurant, which really irks me. Ok. Give me frozen ravioli, but 20 dollars???? Plus eight dollars for wine and a 10 dollar salad? I do not usually curse, I hate bad language but sometimes there are no other options.
Although it was some time ago, I still recall my last external dining experience with delight. It was pizza at Mancini’s in Summer Hill (Inner West Sydney, Australia) – a veritable symphony of salami, anchovies, olives, sundried tomatoes, and artichokes on a tomato base with cheese all atop a woodfired creation of beauty that is the Mancini crust. Coupled with the fact that it was only AU$9 this was by far the best pizza I have ever had in my life. Mancini pizza crusts are phenomenal, chewy and crispy at the same time with an authentic woodfired texture and flavour that is seldom replicated to this level of perfection. All their ingredients are fresh and of high quality, and they don’t scrimp on the cheese (none of this cheeseless pizza behaviour for me thank you very much!). After eating four relatively small slices (our pizzas aren’t as big as those in the US)I was full but not TOO full which is a feeling I find is often associate with pizza-eating. Mancini’s manage to achieve the guilt free pizza whereby you manage to sate your belly’s desire for something a little indulgent but at the same time feel like you just shared in an experience of culinary genius. And their service is always great, our waitress was cheerful and precise and the 20-something boys who make all the pizzas are very easy on the eye indeed ;)
There is an ongoing competiton in Summer Hill about who has the best pizza as Mancini’s is located right next door to Da Vinci’s, another Italian haunt. People either like one or the other, that’s just how it is. In my opinion there is no competition what so ever. LONG LIVE MANCINI’S!
Last time I went to a restaurant was Monday, downtown Ottawa (Canada) for a birthday lunch of a co-worker.
The place was called “The Golden Oak” and its a scottish pub-type place.
I got the scottich meat pie and it was well, a disaster. The pie crust was all soggy and undercooked and the gravy in it had no flavour. The tatties had no taste. In fact only the neeps were good. They were the only part of the meal that didn’t taste horribly bland.
I knew I should have gotten the haggis.
Not only are there two SLO county sushi eaters reading this site, but I am now the *second* UCLA grad student who had my last meal out from the sushi counter at Northern Lights. (actually, my last meal out was at Pacos Tacos on Centinela last night, which was excellent, but my second-to-last dining adventure was the sushi… I swear.)
I ordered the $6.29 spicy tuna avocado roll, a splurge compared to my normal Northern Lights feast of tuna pasta salad (a steal at $2.29, or something close to that). I removed the little green fake grass from my box, mixed 4 packets of soy sauce with the wasabi, and dug in. Good rice, teeny pieces of fish, generous quantities of avocado, and entirely too much spicy mayo in proportion to the meager tuna.
As far as campus food (especially north campus food) goes, my rolls were a solid 7. If compared to other sushi options in LA, I generously give these rolls a 4.5.
Oh… and I payed for parking on campus instead of taking the bus. Total cost of sushi: $13.29.
sigh…
That is, I *paid* for parking.
I’m done now. ;)
I just wrote about a place! Cool! Click my name-o!
I live in Tokyo, but my last two meals were not Japanese food.
For lunch yesterday, I went to one of our favorite Thai hole-in-the-wall restaurant with my husband near his office in Akasaka. He had stir-fried spicy minced chicken with rice (not Thai rice unfortunately). It was so spicy I couldn’t eat more than one bite. He enjoyed it immensely with half of pitcher of icewater though. My pad thai was one of the best I’ve had, the perfect blend of flavors and the noodles were cooked to the exact tenderness.
For dinner, I took some friends to the Tokyo American Club Mixed Grille restaurant. It’s a very good place to have American food but last night, the theme was Aussie food. We ordered the buffet, which had four different main dishes: grilled steak with potatoes, grilled catabarra fish (or something like that), lamb chops with tomato and zucchini topping, and tuna skewers with peanut and teriyaki sauce. The Mixed Grille usually has a very good buffet but I was a bit disappointed last night. Except for the fish, everything else was just blah. Maybe I just don’t like Aussie food because when I went to Queensland last year I was deeply disappointed with the food too.
For dessert (not Aussie) we shared three among the four of us: good-old American styled apple pie, Mississipi mudpie icecream (an icecream pecan pie), and a lemon tart with marshmellow topping. I think dessert was the best part of the meal.
The last place I ate out at was this great little place called Dots in Portland. (Its so hard to find a good place that allows minors and isn’t completely packed on a Saturday night in Portland, and we managed the snag the last table!) First off the room itself is really cool, along the walls is a silvery paint with black velvet cut outs in intricate patterns (it sounds tacky but the place is really dark and has different lights shining off of it so it really isn’t) and then the lower half of the wall is painted black.
The menu had a lot of vegetarian options as well as meat options. My brother and I split some chedder fries which were good with more salt and a little ketchup and they give you way more than two people can eat. He had the gentle ben, which is a vegetarian ruben. He seemed to enjoy it. And I had a Garden Border Melt. It was really good and really greesey. It was a grilled cheese sandwich with a garden burger, roasted red peppers, green chiles, and a special sauce. It was really heavy in a good way. I totally suggest Dots, they serve minors until ten, take cash only and serve some really good (although heavy) food for a pretty good price (everything including tip could be paid with a twenty).
I’m following Rowena’s and Molly’s examples — posting my review of NYC’s Savoy Restaurant over at my place. Give my name a click…
Din Ho Chinese BBQ in Austin, TX.
Every time I eat here I feel that I have been teleported directly to China (or at least San Francisco). This place is authentic Chinese, not American Chinese. BBQ ducks, chickens and pork hang in the front window (along with the BBQ pig’s head). Family owned and operated, it runs like a machine. Food is hot and fresh, with lots of “off menu” specials on the black board, all in Chinese only. Big aquariums with various fishes and crabs for your dinner, not entertainment. Clientele is 80% Chinese. I had scallops with Chinese Vegetables. Prices are relatively high for a Chinese place, but servings are huge, and all come with rice. No-frills atmosphere, with a large screen TV in the wall. 3 big stars!
The last restaurant meal I ate was near my office at work called Rio Mar in New Orleans. I had a pressed eggplant and roasted pepper sandwich, Peruvian ceviche and Fried oysters with garlic and parsley sauce. For dessert, it was the Tres Leche Cake. Delish!
Atlanta is home to mine fine eateries, ethnic food, local food, or just plain and simple food. I miss them, and though it wasn’t the last time I had eaten out, in Atlanta, it was probably the cheapest and most enjoyable dining experience I’ve had since I have been gone. To start with, they have good Cuban in some items on the menu at La Fonda on Ponce, and at Las Palmeras on the way to Midtown. La Fonda also has Spanish Paella and the best salsa I have had in Atlanta. Ponce is also blessed with Felini’s: good pizza and calzones, also with various options; also, cheap. And then there are the tons of thai food restaurants in the Highlands, but the best being Pad Thai. It is the most unpretentious, and subtle of all of them. And on that note, the thai food in the Highlands may be a bit too commercialized. But Pad Thai is quiet and serves up a good plate of Pad Thai, or Thai Tempura (lots of batter). But if you’re a vegetarian, Surin is a good choice because it has the biggest pieces of tofu to substitute for dishes that otherwise contain meat. Good southern food comes in the way of what else but the Flying Biscuit either in Decatur or Midtown; or The Original Pancake House near Lenox. Both have their specialties that cannot be duplicated in taste: grits at the Flying Biscuit and fluffy omelettes at the OHOP. The grits at The Flying Biscuit are so good because they are doused in butter, and also because they are creamy, maybe from the amount of time they are cooked, but maybe because of the size of the grains they use. Also, the apple butter sauce there is good. And they have original dishes, good for vegetarians like tofu scrambled eggs, tofu burritos, wheat pancakes with peaches on top. Their shrimp over grits is one of their best dishes also. At the OHOP, the omelettes are amazing. They are fluffy, with the scrambled eggs in layers, and ingredients between and in between them. From what I understand, they blend the eggs in a blender and then cook them with lots of oil. Often, I have left saying, “Just roll me out of here.” It’s a good full though, and worth it. You might not have to eat for the rest of the day! Figo must be mentioned for its good pasta, good ambience, orginality, and affordability. There, mentioned. For desert, of course, there is Jake’s icecream, in the highlands, decatur, midtown, and in the Emory village. The later one is the smallest and with the fewest flavor options. Jake’s has meal items, but I have never had those. This ice creamery is decorated like a house in some rooms, with sofas and a fireplace, and like a fifty’s diner in some rooms. But it’s ice cream is definitely the best part. They have flavors like tiramisu, chocolate peanut butter, cheesecake, blueberry pie, key lime pie, all with names like chocolate slap yo mamma, elvis nutter butter, and I can’t remember the rest of the names. So this was supposed to be about the last time we went out to eat, but here’s an amalgam of restaurants, in the interest of pleasant reveries.
Thanks to everyone who wrote on here. I almost read them all and they’re all great. It’s so cool how people are reading from all over the world…
There was this new sushi place i went to and it was SOO GOOD!! (called sushi kokku the best YUMMY!!)all of my friends gose there and the price of the sushi is really good becauce in la they well give you less and UGLYER sushi there
Kelly’s (a restaurant known for its roast beef) is awful-the roast beef isn’t cooked well (blood dripping from it out of the sandwich and onto the plate). Don’t eat there unless you are prepared to catch e.coli or other illnesses caused by undercooked meat!!!