Red Elephant Thai Cuisine, Marietta GA

Let’s start the new year off right by trying to bring some business to a place that’s having some slow Saturday nights. Continue reading “Red Elephant Thai Cuisine, Marietta GA” →

CamiCakes, Vinings GA and Sugar Shack, Atlanta GA

Sweet stuff! Normally, Marie tackles the little chapters about snacks and desserts, but in today’s post, I wanted to share about a couple of treats that we enjoyed a couple of Saturdays back.

Cupcake boutiques have been growing in popularity a lot lately, probably led by the success of the Gigi’s chain. It’s led to a few other locally-owned places that we have visited once or twice, and a few other small chains. One of these is CamiCakes, which has two stores in Florida and two in the Atlanta area. The second of these opened up in Vinings, and a part of me swears that they moved into a space that, until recently, housed another cupcake place. Then again, I’m so old that I remember when the ground that this strip mall occupies was home to a Majik Market.

Marie and I took the children over to my mom’s house, and she watched the baby while the three of us and Neal, whom we had not seen in a few weeks, had lunch at Vinings’ Figo Pasta. We then walked over to get some desserts here. This was not very easy, as Vinings is really, really pedestrian unfriendly.

I think that these probably do the job better than anyplace else in town. They are just terrific, and so rich that a single cake is perfectly satisfying. I had a “black and white” of chocolate cake with vanilla frosting, Marie had the chocolate raspberry almond cream – yes, you read that correctly – and Ivy had mint chocolate. We brought one back for my mom as thanks for watching the baby while we ate, because we’re even sweeter than cupcakes, we are.

So, some hours and one heck of a great football game later, we came back down I-75. This time, we were without my daughter, who went over to a friend’s house to stay up all night and drink lots of soda, as tween girls do. We had supper with friends, as you’ll see in the next chapter, and as we were leaving, I started thinking about some place we could get a late-night treat. I recalled that we passed a place called Sugar Shack in the strip malls across the street from the Brookhaven MARTA station, and hoped that it might be open.

This appears to be the only Sugar Shack around at this time, but it is looks to be corporate-designed by an ownership group, Metrotainment Cafes, for easy exporting into other locations should the demand arise. I have to say, though, that when we stopped by, things were pretty slow and there wasn’t a lot of demand for their cakes and treats.

Marie had a slice of one of their extremely good chocolate cakes, but my eye was taken by a great big round red thing. It was a red velvet Whoopie Pie. I had never heard of these treats before, although, in a really weird coincidence, my friend Natalia, who’s from upstate New York, mentioned literally three days later that she had just tried to bake one for a friend and failed. Whoopie Pies are two big “cookies” of cake surrounding an icing. The layers are softer than cookies yet firmer and less crumbly than cake and, in the case of the red velvet variety, the icing is cream cheese. It’s apparently more traditional to see them as chocolate cakes surrounding vanilla frosting.

I looked up Whoopie Pies on Wikipedia and was amused to see that Pennsylvanians and Mainers are in a long-running war of attrition as to which state can claim the delicacy. Each side has my sympathies; as a Georgian, I’m not about to cede the origin of Brunswick stew to anybody who thinks it came from some county in Virginia. The idea!

The other Camicakes store in town, on Peachtree, was where I snuck off to find myself a banana cream cupcake, and it was wonderful. I’m conspiring to stop by one or the other location again really soon for another.

Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack and Pied Piper Creamery, Nashville TN

I was told two things before going to Prince’s: that the wait would be long and that the chicken would be unbelievably hot. You know that Daffy Duck cartoon where the genie warns him very sternly that he’s going to suffer dearly for his insolence, and Daffy just dismisses him with a “Consequences, shmonsequences” and learns the genie was not kidding? I felt a bit like that. Continue reading “Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack and Pied Piper Creamery, Nashville TN” →

Hd1, Atlanta GA (CLOSED)

Marie and I found a great way to get stuck in traffic. We went down to Poncey-Highlands to try Richard Blais’s new hot dog place around the time that the Little Five Points Halloween parade was wrapping up. Getting there wasn’t hard, and parking, for perhaps the only time in Hd1’s short, popular life, was no trouble at all. Going home, however, now that was a headache.

But before we joined that long line of cars attempting to move out of town, we enjoyed some pretty good dogs, and some really good fries, at the latest intown eatery aimed at people half our age. It really was a curious visual experience. Like Flip Burger Boutique, the music is entirely too loud to enjoy conversations, and there are elegantly-framed wide-screen TVs behind the bar playing music videos that don’t match the pulsing, robot techno above us. Late nights, they have a DJ. Well, when I was in my twenties, I enjoyed yelling at my friends above the soundtrack of Yakitori Den-Chan in Buckhead. It’s lost its charm. I did enjoy wondering what in the world was on the TV. I think it might have been clips from the film Velvet Goldmine before it all dissolved in a solarized wash of pink pastel, like a bad acid dream. The design is fussy, the seats are uncomfortable and the hot dogs are pretty good.

We split an order of waffle fries, which were completely delicious to start with even before they poured a wonderful, thin maple syrup all over them. I can definitely see myself stopping by to get an order of these fries to go.

The hot dogs were certainly good, but really, my favorite three dog places in the region – America’s Top Dog, Barkers and Brandi’s – have it all over these. They’ve got nothing to fear from Blais. That’s just because those guys are that good, and not because these are in any way lacking. The meat is really good, and I liked the toppings. Marie ordered, if you can stand the cooler-than-you list, a fennel sausage dog with San Marzano ketchup (no Heinz here, of course), fontina and grilled radicchio. I had the red haute dog, which came with brisket chili, pepper jack “foam” and Vidalia onions.

It’s good, but we’re clearly not the target audience any longer, and America’s Top Dog is better. It’s been too long since we’ve indulged over there, anyway.

After supper, we risked the wrath of the parking gods for a quick ten-minute hop down to Atlanta Cupcake Factory and back. We’ve really pushed our luck doing this lately; I think we’ll quit before our parking lot karma runs out. There, we briefly commiserated with the owner, who prepared too many cupcakes on a day that many of her regulars would be unlikely to risk the Halloween parade traffic to visit.

Her regulars obviously are onto a good thing. Marie bought cupcakes for us to take home and share with our daughter. They were really tasty and light, and the time we spent drumming our fingers waiting for traffic on Freedom Parkway to clear move was made worse knowing that we had those desserts in the back seat, and were anxious to try them. They were worth the wait.

Walker’s Fried Pies and BBQ, Ellijay GA

We try to make our way up to Ellijay each October, but not on one of the weekends that Gilmer County goes tourist-mad with the apple festival. The I-575/GA-515 artery up through Ellijay and Blue Ridge will give travelers a gorgeous drive, but it is not really built for the incredible volume that comes that way during the festival, resulting in a big logjam. So, once the madness had faded, we drove up to get some apples at Panorama, about which more next time, and then went looking for barbecue.

I had a mind to visit two places in Ellijay. Poole’s, we learned last year, was remarkably reliable and wonderful, but we wanted to try a couple of new places. Unfortunately, one of them, Wolf Creek Canyon, had moved without anybody notifying Urbanspoon of their new address or hanging a sign in the window of their abandoned storefront on Main Street.

The other, providing more evidence for my belief that Urbanspoon means a whole lot less to both restaurant owners and potential customers the further you get from a major population center, was not listed in Urbanspoon at all, despite being in business since 1996. Walker’s Fried Pies and BBQ is just a hop and a skip east of Ellijay along GA-52. That it’s avoiding internet notice is a blasted shame, because they’re serving up some pretty good food here.

The Walker family no longer owns this business, although the building is still theirs’, and the interior is decorated with many stories and photographs about their family. The business is now run by Betty and Jerry Clonts, who smoke their meat over hickory wood. The result is only a little moist and quite flavorful. Marie and I each had chopped pork, although word in the community seems to favor the beef here. Two other parties came through while we were here, and only one of the people in the groups ordered pork instead of beef. They also offer ribs, chicken, turkey and pork tenderloin.

There are two sauces on the table. The hotter sauce is an orange homemade approximation of something like Texas Pete, and the other is a sweet, brown Memphis-style. It was just sweet enough for Marie and I both to find it agreeable. The sides are the usual suspects: beans, potato salad, slaw and Brunswick stew, although sadly, like some of the less agreeable joints in suburban Atlanta, the stew here is only available for a fifty-cent upcharge.

Perhaps the real selling point here is the selection of desserts. Walker’s makes fresh fried pies in six flavors – apple, peach, cherry, strawberry, coconut and chocolate – along with funnel cakes and fried Oreos. Marie ordered an apple pie as a side for her sandwich and was incredibly pleased. These pies are just fantastic.

I’m not certain why Walker’s has been hiding from internet travelers and barbecue bloggers for so long, but I hope they won’t stay a secret any longer. This is a good place, and certainly worth a visit when visiting in this gorgeous part of the country.

Kitsch’n 155, Atlanta GA (CLOSED)

I first read about Kitsch’n 155 back in the summer when the excellent Tomorrow’s News Today blog did a really encouraging preview of the place. I don’t have quite the love of silly ’60s kitsch that I once did – Marie and I, finding less of value in possessions of late, seem to be decluttering down to a zero point of stark austerity to compensate for the unbelievable clutter that comes with a baby – but certain design elements of this retro style are still incredibly appealing. I love clocks and ceiling fixtures with all those silly antenna-like appendages, and the jaunty “kitsch” font – I’m not sure what it is called – that invariably accompanies photo books about the silly 1950s and 1960s found objects that inform the style.

In their report, Tomorrow’s News Today also linked to a favorite site of mine, Not Fooling Anybody, a glorious site that has been promising updates for ages and ages. It’s become so much a part of our road tripping vocabulary that whenever we see a distinctive, vintage fast food building that has been retrofitted to become some other business, we point it out and say “Not fooling anybody!” One fantastic example, just down the road from us, is Dive Shop on Sandy Plains Road, which clearly used to be a Taco Bell. It’s actually about three doors down from a former Del Taco, known to area residents in the late ’80s as “The Murder Del Taco,” which later became a breakfast and meat-and-three place called Joyful Diner. We were sad to see that diner close.

I mention this because owners Randy and Lisa Stewart, serendipity on their side, found a terrific location for their restaurant. It’s the former Athens Pizza Express on Clairmont, which, of course, used to be an Arby’s. A lot of garish paint later, and they are cooking up some mean burgers. Ten essential Atlanta burger joints. Does that sound like a good chapter for a first-of-the-month entry? Maybe in January.

David had driven past this place a few months back and thought, correctly, that I’d like to see it. He and I actually had other lunch plans a couple of Thursdays back, but we were over at the Book Nook on North Druid Hills and I suggested we stop by and try this place instead. The goal here is classic American comfort food, done extremely well. They’re doing all the expected things like getting their meat from local farmers (Coleman and Creekstone) and cutting their fries fresh. Nevertheless, I mused, as we were waiting for our orders, that I probably should have ordered the day’s special, which was cod with two sides. Priced at $9.50, it’s a better value than a cheeseburger with just one side. That was before I had a bite of the cheeseburger, which was even better than I thought it could be. Marie needs to try one of these; I’m not sure that they aren’t even better than Farm Burger.

David had the grown-up grilled cheese, served with bacon, tomatoes and onions, and said that it was quite good. He also had a cup of chili which was better than any chili that I’ve sampled in ages. I really liked the touch of adding fresh jalapenos for maximum punch. I declined to ask them to add jalapenos to my burger, incorrectly thinking that they’d just be the far less tasty canned ones. David figured that he’d rather pass on the peppers once he saw them on his chili and asked whether I wanted them. Despite my burger being a gigantic, sloppy mess already, I found room.

The one sour note was the extremely high prices for bottled sodas and, in turn, ice cream drinks. After already spending $10 for a burger and fries, $2.50’s just feels far too much to pay for a bottle of Red Rock or Cheerwine, although, sadly, a few days later, I ran into another new restaurant that charges even more for a glass bottle of a small-market soda. I did think about getting a float when I finished and had a bit of a sweet tooth, but I couldn’t justify the cost. For five bucks, I could make many Cheerwine floats at home.

Fortunately, David had a mind to spend some money at Wuxtry, and there was a coffee shop right next door. I found my dessert – an iced cookies and cream frappe, served with an Oreo – and was perfectly pleased to enjoy something that I can’t make at home, for about a dollar less. ChocoLaté Coffee reminds me in the best possible way of Jittery Joe’s in Athens, with lots of comfortable couches and a wonderful, relaxed vibe with friendly servers having a great time at work. Certainly a fine day’s outing, I think.

Pino Gelato and Sugar Cakes, Marietta GA

This is Marie, contributing an article about a fun little trip to the Marietta square with the kids. With desserts, of course. I was actually in the mood for cakes and tea, but unfortunately the place I would have gone, which, hopefully, I will get to write about later, was not available since they are closed on Sunday.

I mention that tea shop because it is very likely we would not have gone for gelato if I hadn’t wanted to check out the other place. I could have sworn the restaurant was open, but it turns out that was just the antique store connected to the place. Pino Gelato shares the building as well. It is really an all-purpose sort of place – get cakes and tea, do a little shopping, and then close with ice cream. In our case, however, we just got the gelato. We were the only customers, since it was a slightly chilly day, but the server was helpful and pleasant. There are a dozen or so locations for this small chain, many tucked into other businesses or places like airports, but there are some stand-alone locations.

After starting out our day with dessert, we went to get lunch at Sugar Cakes. On the way we found that the Farmer’s Market that usually populates the Marietta Square on Saturdays was also present, though in somewhat more compact size, on Sunday; I mention this because I got some tea after all! There was a vendor with samples of his products, and I wound up buying a really tasty chamomile-rooibos-mint blend.

Sugar Cakes was incredibly crowded, with diners spilling out into the tables on the sidewalk and a line out the door. Despite the demand, the staff somehow managed not to to seem harried or impatient. However, due to the noise and the lack of outside tables I did decide that we should take our food home rather than subject the baby to such massive overstimulation.

As a result, I have no photos of what we ate, such as the really flavorful and decadent tomato soup, so have a look at these delectable baked goods instead. I definitely plan to eat some of them when I am back on dairy and can have something with that much butter in the dough! A slice of the quiche that some of the other diners appeared to be enjoying tremendously wouldn’t be a bad idea either.