I issued a standing demand to Emily, our friend from Spatialdrift, as she and Adam continued their inexorable march north up Buford Highway eating at every single non-chain restaurant. When she got to Gu’s Bistro, I wanted to be there. Any excuse for a trip to Gu’s will bring at least one of us from our distant suburb to this one. Mind you, that Shan City Chicken at Man Chun Hong – see last week’s story – is drop-your-mouth amazing, but Gu’s is probably my overall favorite Chinese restaurant in the city.
In point of fact, my love of Gu’s and my pleasure in joining other hobbyists and writers here is so great that, at this time, I’m happy to issue the following blanket suggestion: if you’re a blogger looking for somebody else to dine at Gu’s Bistro with, drop us a line. We had a great time here with Andy and Jo from Burgers, Barbecue and Everything Else (link below), and a great time with the Spatialdrifters, and we’d be happy to have a great time here with you. If you’ve not been here before, give us a call when you want to go.
This time out, I returned to the dish that I had on our first visit last year, the Chongqing Spicy Chicken. It was as wonderful as was the last time, and the lighting was as bad as ever, too. We really should invest in a new camera, shouldn’t we?
Other dishes that we shared included the ma po tofu, cumin lamb, and a really odd dish of stir-fried shredded pork with smoke-dried tofu. This particular dish was all right, but buried under far too much cilantro for our liking. The other dishes we were familiar with from previous trips and we really enjoyed them all. We also ordered a small plate of lotus root mixed with carrots and bell peppers. Along with the steamed rice, this was a perfect little dish for the toddler to enjoy. Happily, he was in a really good mood on this trip and behaved well.
He was in such a good mood, in fact, that when he did lose patience as we boxed up our leftovers (politely saying “Get wiggles out!”) and we decamped to the sidewalk to continue our conversation, he ran back and forth up and down the length of the shops and even gave Emily one of his patented knee-hug-tackle things.
We’ll probably find another thing or two to say about Gu’s in the early fall. As first predicted by Foodie Buddha more than a year ago (in, to date, his final post), Gu’s is opening a second location in the forthcoming Krog Street Market near Inman Park. This development is far, far behind schedule and still under construction, but they’re passing out business cards now when guests finish their meal that announce Gu’s Dumplings’ launch in August of this year. It is my firm hope that the food will be every bit as good and the interior lighting a hundred times better.
Other blog posts about Gu’s Bistro:
Review Atlanta (Aug. 17 2011)
The Dry Rub (Sep. 25 2013)
BB Photographs (Oct. 28 2013)
Burgers, Barbecue and Everything Else (Feb. 8 2014)
Spatialdrift (May 9 2014)
You can see all the restaurants that we have visited for our blog on this map, with links back to the original blog posts. It’s a terrific resource for anybody planning a road trip through the southeast!
Marie, Let's Eat! 
Sadly, Gu’s Bistro closed this location in March 2015, citing lease issues. They plan to open a dumpling stall in the Krog Street Market in the spring, and reopen a bistro elsewhere in town later in the year.