Willie Rae’s, Marietta GA (CLOSED)

Here’s another long overdue visit to a very popular destination in Marietta, this one right on the square. I added Willie Rae’s, which is about to celebrate its eleventh anniversary, to my to-do list many months ago after seeing a good writeup of it somewhere. This is a place that tries, with some success, to mix up a menu of southwestern, southern, and Creole-styled dishes in an upscale environment surrounded by lovely, folksy artwork on the walls.

They don’t always pull it off. One black hole on the menu is the inclusion of Lay’s potato chips as a side to some of their dishes. Try as I might, I just don’t see the point of lavishing attention on a burger in the kitchen and then serving it with plain Lay’s. But when they get it right, the results are magnificent.

Location is everything in the world of restaurants, deciding what is hip and cool. If Willie Rae’s was inside the perimeter, people would have been raving about it for ages. Sitting quietly on the Marietta Square, it’s easily ignored by the ITP crowd. Interestingly, walking around the square, you can see quite a few very good restaurants, none of which attract much commentary or blogging. Hollie Guacamole! and Tommy’s Sandwich Shop are both pretty good, as are Johnnie McCracken’s and the Marietta Pizza Company. There are four or more very nice, upscale restaurants, at least three places to get desserts, including a cupcake place – one of the latest trends – and Traveling Fare, which sells wonderful pot pies at the weekly farmer’s market, but despite ample free parking, nobody wants to venture up here except office workers and people with court business.

Well, if you do feel like braving the mean streets of Cobb County, you’re certain to get a pretty good meal at Willie Rae’s. I arrived early and looked around in a cute toy store two doors down while waiting for them to open. Within twenty minutes, there was a pretty good crowd in the place, proving that just because us weirdos with blogs aren’t yammering about it, business is still pretty good.

I was a little disappointed that I would have to pay a bit more than I wanted for some chips and salsa – apparently you can only get some by paying six bucks for a really big appetizer with cheese dip and an avocado sauce as well – so I had a small cup of very good jambalaya instead. It was served piping hot in a coffee mug on a little saucer and they didn’t scrimp on any of the meats. This was really tasty, although I don’t know that I’d like a full-sized serving of it with so many other interesting things on the menu.

I had the chicken burrito, served with a very good Caesar salad. The burrito was absolutely packed with really tasty chicken and just a few peppers. I was so pleased to pay a good price for a meal here and really get my money’s worth in very good, seasoned meat, not a big pile of rice or other fillers. The burrito was covered in a wonderful cheese sauce. I think I might have asked for a very small cup of salsa for the chicken, but it was just fine without it. It’s really a good feeling when a place meets your expectations so fully, you know?

I’d love to see some of my peers with larger audiences come up to the square and give these places a try. If Willie Rae’s was on Howell Mill, or in Asheville, people would be raving about the food and the atmosphere. The food certainly warrants it, and you’re guaranteed to get a kick out of all the fun artwork. Well, people are raving, just not people with blogs.

Stilesboro Biscuits, Kennesaw GA

Ooooh. Our otherwise impeccable timing was off a couple of Saturdays ago and we missed some live bluegrass!

Marie had been looking around for breakfast places in our area and found rave reviews for Stilesboro Biscuits, a tiny little place on Stilesboro Road. This is a long suburban corridor that runs parallel to US-41 north of Barrett Parkway and is mostly residential. How on earth they squeeze a bluegrass band in here when there’s barely room for a dozen guests, I have no idea. We did luck out in having a table open up just after we entered and got in line, otherwise we’d have been eating in the car. I love the ramshackle feel of this place, with all the mismatched furniture and constant, busy energy of people bustling around in such a small place.

Anyway, it was a very lazy, drizzly Saturday and I graciously allowed the children to come with us for some really excellent biscuits. The four of us each had a different filling – chicken, steak, bacon and country ham – but you know, these biscuits don’t need any meat. They’re just amazing. You’ve probably guessed that I’m given to occasional fits of hyperbole, but even Marie, the level-headed one, was saying that these were the best biscuits she’s had in ages.

This place is possibly just a bit out of the way for just going out for breakfast and then coming home, but it is certainly on our radar for any times that we’re heading in that direction. Grabbing a bag of biscuits and a bowl of grits to enjoy before hiking Kennesaw Mountain sounds like a really nice morning. We might need to do that some Saturday soon. Well, maybe a couple of months after the baby’s born, anyway. I wish they weren’t so far out of the way; I would love to swing by on my way to work. Heaven knows you don’t get biscuits this good from anybody’s drive-thru window.

Mister Up’s, Middlebury VT

(Honeymoon flashback: In July 2009, Marie and I took a road trip up to Montreal and back, enjoying some really terrific meals over our ten-day expedition. I’ve selected some of those great restaurants, and, once per month, we’ll tell you about them.)

This is Marie, contributing a honeymoon flashback about a trip we took to Middlebury in Vermont. When we were planning the itinerary for this trip, it became fairly clear that a visit to Vermont and my old alma mater would be easy to work into the plan. Vermont, after all, could fit into Georgia several times over, and although in my memory of carless college days the state was inconveniently large, to my Georgia-trained eye now everything there is convenient to everywhere else.

The drive down from Montreal was a treat. The countryside in that area is beautiful. In an upcoming flashback, my husband will provide commentary on that topic, because he tells the Tale of The Spooky Hotel better than I do. We even got to stop at a little roadside fruit stand in southern Quebec (I do love those, sometimes to the apparent bafflement of my guy) and pick up some of the proprietor’s homemade jam and fruit syrup.

As we got closer to Middlebury I realized what a treasure box of memories the place is to me. Even the drive through the countryside made me happy, bringing up memories of the field I looked for on every trip where the farmer had buffalo, and the pick-your-own place where a friend of mine and I went together and I got my first chance to fill a bucket with blueberries.

Along the way from Burlington to Middlebury, we passed a little store that I’d always looked at while being driven in someone else’s car or the van pool to or from the airport, Dakin Farms. Man, I had been missing out all along, and so had the people whose cars I was using. When we left Middlebury and returned north, we stopped and had a great time shopping. Dakin Farms has some fabulous stuff, and whoever was driving me all those years ago would have done well to stop and get a jug of their syrup, or a bottle of their small label soft drinks, or a can of their baked beans which are unlike any others I’ve had. Seriously, they may be locally famous for their ham and smoked meats, but if you are any kind of BBQ fan you will want to try out those maple flavored beans. I could eat a can by themselves as a meal.

As we came into the town of Middlebury itself, I was planning on having us eat at the little sandwich place where I had spent the bulk of my college-constrained pittance of outside-the-meal-plan lunch dollars. It was sadly no longer around, although we had a fun time wandering around looking for it in case it had moved. The shopping area where it had lived was still quirky and had many local businesses, but nothing that had remained of the ones I remembered. The only place that would do for a second was Mr. Ups, of which more in a bit.

The second and third places where I spent my money (on food, that is – I did of course bring Grant to the used book stores which are delightful but there is no room for them here) were the Otter Creek Bakery and the Middlebury Market (which back then wasn’t also a cafe). The Market was just a place to pick up snacks and ice cream and black plums ripened in the sun in front of the store. To a Georgia-trained eye that seemed decadent; you could not possibly expect to keep fruit long enough to sell it if you did that down in these parts.

The bakery was a place to revel in the delights of all things sugary and yeasty. I loved that place as a college student –as I recall, they provided the bread for the sandwich place I loved– and should have bought up half the store when we stopped by. Regrettably I restrained myself to a few cookies and some moments lingering to admire the loaves stacked up on the shelves behind the counter and the cheeses they had added since my last visits. They, too, had added a cafe to their repertoire, though since the space was still very small it was a touch crowded. However, we had already decided on Mr. Ups for lunch, so I tore myself away. The raspberry jam cookies purchased on that visit would come in very handy the next day, when I would regret not having bought twice as many. Oh, I miss that place! If cheap teleportation is ever invented they will have me back as a loyal customer instantly. But on to our lunch.

It took me a moment and some directions from a local to find the restaurant, because although it was a highly memorable place it wasn’t one I actually had gone to very often. My budget was more of the $2.50 sandwich level than the (then) $7 or $10 meal variety. Still, it was the place to go for special occasions, and where I brought my folks when they came up for my graduation. Also, they had baked goods themselves, some wonderful zucchini bread available on the salad bar being a particular favorite of mine. Honestly, although I remember the food as being tasty, the memories of sitting on the deck with my guy and watching the river flow past are stronger for me from this visit – I think I was having memories for lunch instead of the sandwich that was actually on my plate.

It was deeply satisfactory to be able to provide Grant with an opportunity to have some gazpacho, since he’d had a number of disappointments in the cold tomato soup area for quite a few times that year. I can’t exactly claim credit for that since I’d no recollection at the time of any such item being on the menu, but seeing his eyes light up on noticing that was worth stopping all on its own, and luckily it was even quite good.