Red Burrito, Woodstock GA

About a week and a half ago, I got so aggravated with this girl that I used to date that I have to tell you about it. Now, you might think that “girls that Grant used to date” would not necessarily be on top of the list of people whom I would want to stop and visit with my newborn baby on the way home from the hospital, and normally, you would be right. However, I’ve stayed friendly with Jennifer for years, even if we are not as close as we once were, and she’s known Marie since before Marie and I began dating. Jennifer manages a comic book store in Woodstock, which is not at all bad as far as Diamond catalog stores go. It is downright terrific for anybody interested in buying modern comic books and superhero tchotchkes, although sadly lacking in boxes full of embarrassing dot matrix Star Trek fanzines, untranslated Brazilian James Bond comics, indefineable weird Japanese things and stacks of 1960s British newspaper comics, and there’s not a single 1970s National Lampoon with since-unreprinted Gahan Wilson pages in the joint. That’s why I never visit. Screw Iron Man, I’m into the good stuff.

Well, since I wanted to show off the baby, and since Jennifer’s store was on the way home, and since Jennifer’s more than midway through her own pregnancy, I suggested to Marie that we swing by and see whether she was in. Marie, sleepy but still glowing, agreed that we should, and so we stopped by for a few minutes to say hello and brag about our youngun. Jennifer invited us to come by the next day for Free Comic Book Day, we waved goodbye, pulled back out onto Towne Lake Parkway, and I did a complete double-take because I thought I saw something quite unexpected. After we got the baby back home and settled, I went online and confirmed it. Yes, the Hardee’s people have opened a Red Burrito in Woodstock.

Red Burrito is the fast-food Mexican chain run by CKE, which is the parent corporation of Carl’s Jr. They bought Hardee’s in 1997 and seemed to shut down about a third of them, which was just about the closest thing to a mercy killing I’ve ever seen in the restaurant business. This is actually a point I’ve been meaning to come back to for ages; remind me to tell you about Chicken Express one day. Anyway, noticing the success of their rival Yum! Brands and their dual-branded Taco Bell / KFC / Long John Silver / A&W stores, CKE decided to make similar restaurants with double menus. On the far side of the Rockies, there are Carl’s Jr. stores dual-branded with Green Burrito, and on this side, there are Hardee’s dual-branded with Red Burrito. These have steadfastedly avoided the Atlanta area until about a month ago. The first two Red Burritos have finally opened in Lithia Springs and in Woodstock. There’s another one up the road outside of Rome.

So the next evening, the older children and I went back to the comic store for my son to get a free Sonic the Hedgehog book, and for me to express my aggravation. I could not believe that, knowing how I feel about small-market regional fast food, she would work one parking lot’s distance from this place and not tell me that it had opened. Jennifer, kindly, explained that she remembered well how I feel about regional, small market sodas, but had no idea that I cared about regional fast food chains. I suspect that she was drawing a polite veil of no-longer-caring-in-the-slightest about how, for years, I have gone on about White Castle and Whataburger and Jack in the Box.

Oh, all right, so I wasn’t really aggravated, but I get so few opportunities to aggravate other people by showing up at their place of business and yammering on about fast food chains when they’re exhausted and tired of working a big promotional day with hundreds of extra visitors these days. How could I resist?

So, aggravation duly caused, the children and I went up to finally try a Red Burrito. I first heard of them ages ago when, curious about some point or other, I looked up Hardee’s on Wikipedia and saw the reference. I’ve since seen a billboard for one on I-95 in northern Florida, and we drove past one in Asheville when we were last there, but my curiosity over a fast food taco wasn’t enough to pull me from our schedule in one of America’s best food cities.

And the result was, well, about what you’d expect. The burrito itself – I ordered chicken – was not bad, although the thin, light green sauce that the poor kids behind the counter claimed was guacamole was pretty laughable. The chips, rice and beans were salty and perfectly acceptable for this sort of food. It’s better than Taco Bell, whatever that’s worth. It’s multiple orders of magnitude better than that godawful Taco Bell in Canton.

However, these tacos here are just absolutely pathetic. I’ve never seen something so sad. They just drizzled a few crumbs of ground beef into the bottom of a shell, added six or seven shreds of lettuce and a baby’s handful of cheese and served it up with, literally, two fingers’ width of space remaining between the cheese and the top of the shell. I ordered two tacos and I very much doubt that I got as much filling as I would have in just one from Taco Bell. Now, whomever is in charge of quality control here needs to step in and do something about this. They hired a simply terrific high schooler to take our order, but whomever is in the back actually making the food needs to go build ships in bottles if he’s that obsessed with very small things.

My curiosity has been sated. The food here is pretty good. “Better than Taco Bell” isn’t much of a recommendation, especially when it’s still not even close to being on par with Del Taco. Still, it’s nice to enjoy something new, isn’t it?

The Festival of Nitrates, 2011

When Marie learned she was pregnant, she did some research and found that nitrates are really bad for carrying babies. So she excised hot dogs and sausages and salami from her diet, and suffered silently without some of her favorite foods. She consoled herself with hamburgers when we visited America’s Top Dog, and when we were in Nashville in November of last year, we did not make the requisite stop by Noshville for a big salami to pack for the ride home.

Now that the baby’s with us, I took her out for a little splurging. Over three days, we had hot dogs at what I would argue are the three best hot dog places in the city, and we picked up some salami to make some terrific sandwiches for dinner. We’ve been to all three of these places before and love them all. First up, on Thursday, just as soon as she was discharged and we kissed byes to the baby (who stayed in the hospital for 24 more hours), was a lunchtime trip to Brandi’s World Famous Hot Dogs.

As ever, there was a mob here, and the topic of conversation around the counter was why in the world Guy Fieri had not featured this place on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives yet. Heaven knows it qualifies. Marie had two dogs, one with slaw and one with chili. The chili here is really finely ground beef in a devilishly hot sauce. I prefer to eat them with chili and slaw together. The slaw cools the burn of this firey concoction somewhat.

On Friday, the baby now safely home and he and Marie napping peacefully, my older son and I ran out to get some meat. We drove over to Austell’s Patak-Bohemia, an incredibly popular meat market located in the middle of nowhere, down past some industrial blight. Sort of an all-purpose European-styled butcher shop, guests can order more than a dozen varieties of salami here, along with everything from kielbasa to bacon, and fill their basket with imported treats and sodas like hazelnut Kit Kat bars and fizzy lemonade.

We went home with three bags of salami, enough for several sandwiches. I had enjoyed their house version the last time we came here, but they didn’t have any on this visit, offering the tourist salami instead. I felt faintly disappointed by the name. My son enjoyed the Hungarian salami the most, while I liked the spicy Durango salami. A small stack of that on a bakery bun with mustard, horseradish sauce and a slice of Havarti cheese was quite excellent, and we used not even a third of what we purchased that evening, leaving us plenty of salami for the next week.

On Saturday, we took our baby out for his first visit to a restaurant. Marie suggested that we go to America’s Top Dog first, as she was already familiar with our other destination. We arrived just as they were opening and had a short wait as the grill warmed up.

We each had a half-smoke, and I’m glad to say that my hype of this remarkable little beef and pork sausage didn’t overwhelm the reality. Marie agreed that this was completely amazing. I top mine with brown mustard, Cincinnati chili and a small pile of cheddar cheese. It’s just unmissably good. I also had an original top dog with Texas chili and giardiniera relish and it was also as wonderful as I hoped. The fries were just a little bland this time out; they seem to have been sitting for a few seconds longer than they should have been, but with dogs this great, we weren’t all that interested in the fries anyway. Besides, the onion rings are even better.

For our final stop on the tour, we came back to I-75 and Windy Hill for the wonderfully good Barker’s Red Hots.

Barker’s is another of our favorite places to visit, although we haven’t gone very often lately, in part because they are no longer open for dinner and in part because I’ve been enjoying their beef on weck sandwich even more than their dogs. Oh, and Marie being pregnant. The staff greeted us like old friends and asked where we’d been, and you’ve just got to love service like that. ATD might have the best dog in town with their half-smoke and topping bar, and Brandi’s might win on chili and charm, but really, for overall quality, Barker’s is indeed something special. Asking me which of the three is my favorite will net you a different answer any day of the week.

Marie and I each ordered lightly grilled red hots. They cook over charcoal here and the results are never less than excellent. She had hers with slaw and I had mine with mustard, thick hot sauce, onions and pickles. Since we had the fries at ATD, we went with onion rings here. Marie and I differ on this point; I think we flat out got them backwards. Barker’s fries are so darn delicious it’s sinful, but their onion rings, while excellent, are not quite as good as ATD’s. Marie loves the sweet crisp to Barker’s rings, and prefers them to the fries. Whichever, a meal here is a genuine treat, and we wouldn’t think of eating here without a cup of loganberry punch.

The baby seemed to enjoy the day out and his first real look at this weird world of ours. He didn’t enjoy being changed in the teeny restroom at ATD, and one day down the line, he’ll probably give me an earful for not sharing any chili with him. Kid’s got plenty of time for chili, though, and we’ve got a lot more of it to eat.

Marietta Diner, Marietta GA

So the day after our new baby boy was born, I wasn’t going to rest on my laurels and have any more lousy hospital or chain food like I did on the day he arrived. I still had two other kids to take care of while Marie recuperated in the hospital, and so I came back to Marietta to give them some more attention and some supper.

My daughter chose to go out with friends, so my older son and I went over to Marietta Diner for the first time in ages. I have mentioned this place a couple of times before; this is the flagship location for a group that runs some of Cobb County’s most well-known restaurants. We’ve covered their sister locations Marietta Fish Market and Cherokee Cattle Company in this blog before. While each of the other stores pick one style of cuisine and does an efficient, if sometimes larger-than-sense job of it, the Marietta Diner elects to do everything, and do it pretty well.

One thing that potential guests need to know is that there is always a crowd here. I’ve never had to wait for more than a few minutes, and occasionally, like last Wednesday, not at all, but I’ve never seen the place without plenty of people and an almost full lot. That’s any hour of the day. The Atlanta area is home to quite a few neon-and-chrome diners, but this place is easily the most popular and beloved of them all. Somehow, the army of staffers employed here manage to provide quite excellent hands-on attention to detail, fixing errors instantly and providing really prompt service while being pulled in many directions. The difference in customer service here and at any equally busy place – say, last month’s trip to La Fonda Latina – is like night and day.

I told my son up front that I’d allow him a gigantic treat from the gigantic dessert menu if he would keep his dinner selection on the cheap side. That’s never easy to do here. With a menu the size of a small phone book, and with a list of daily specials longer than many other places’ entire offering, it’s hard to narrow down what you want and find the right price. Reveling in humongous portions, some of the offerings are somewhat pricier than I might like.

We came, incidentally, because for some reason a few hours before, I found myself having the oddest craving for a gigantic deli sandwich, the likes of which are best found at The Square Bagel. That place is not open for supper, but I found a reasonable facsimile of what I wanted at the Marietta Diner. Called a Sloppy John, it’s a huge stack of corned beef, melted cheese and cole slaw served with Russian dressing and fries. Already satisfied by the spanikopita and the bread they bring to each table, and the salad that I enjoyed, I ended up having half this sandwich for breakfast the next morning.

The salad was a good example of the staff proving how on the ball they are. I had asked for the Greek-styled side salad, but they brought me this unbelievable thing that was assuredly priced higher than the $4-odd on the menu. It was served in a bowl the size of a basketball, featured a towering leaf of lettuce positioned like the feather of a garish headdress, and included several grape leaves and anchovies. It looked terrific, but far more than I could eat! I pointed out the error and it was corrected almost instantly.

My son had a burger, served with fries, a side of slaw and a couple of onion rings, and for dessert, he went up to the showcase and wasn’t seen again for several minutes. Slices of cake here are priced around seven dollars each and are just tremendous. He finally decided on Butterfinger flavor and could not finish it. We ended up taking three boxes home for leftovers the next day.

This place isn’t really for people who are looking for something inexpensive, or sensible portion sizes. It’s all about conspicuous consumption here, and the restaurant’s enormous popularity proves they’re doing right by their crowd. It’s genuinely good stuff, and while I’m hardly a regular here, I’ve certainly never had a bad meal.

Mo Ribs Bar-B-Que, Canton GA (CLOSED)

Man, I’m glad I found this place. I don’t know where else I was supposed to eat.

Well, since the last time I actually composed an entry here, we had our baby! He is a precious little boy that weighed six pounds and twelve ounces at birth, and evidently had such a good time at the showers thrown for him and Marie that he decided to come two weeks early, just a couple of days after all our out-of-town guests left. This sort of left me unprepared for going to get anything to eat at the hospital that we used in the Cherokee County town of Canton other than Mo Ribs. A couple of weeks previously, we had driven past this place on our way back from Chatsworth and I said then that I would have to stop by while we were in the hospital.

The quick succession of events meant that I ended up having wretched hospital cafeteria food for breakfast and for lunch, and the baby came at 3 pm. Four hours later, I drove back to Marietta to pick up his older brother and sister to go meet him and, first, get some food. We went by Mo Ribs, but they’re only open for lunch on Tuesdays. My daughter remembered enjoying Jiffy Freeze, which isn’t far, but it turns out they’re not open at all on Tuesdays. So, not knowing where else to try, we settled, I’m sorry to say, on Taco Bell, which my children, being middle schoolers and thus the target audience for that “food,” find agreeable. But this, this was the worst Taco Bell in the state. Even the kids thought it was horrible. This, three awful meals in one day, was no way to celebrate this baby’s birth. Heck, I remember that day in 1997 when my older son was born, I got a package of New Avengers episodes in the mail. Now that’s how you have a good birthday.

So the next morning, I made darn sure I got back over to Mo Ribs for something good to eat. Darned if I was going to settle for a mediocre lunch after the day before.

I was the only person here when I stopped by at eleven on a Wednesday morning, but don’t take that to mean this place shouldn’t be hopping. This is very good chopped pork, with a really awesome smoky flavor. I neglected to ask for my meal dry, and it came already sauced with a thick layer of deep smoky red sitting atop the meat. My palate was certainly starving for something great, particularly in light of all that garbage that I ate the day before, and so I might not be very objective when I say that this really hit the spot.

The fries didn’t strike me as being anything unusual, but the stew, soupy and very heavy with tomatoes, was quite nice. But oh, my. This sweet tea was so darn good. At its core, this is a pretty good meal, but the tea genuinely elevates it, in a way that the tea at the late, lamented Carrithers of Athens did. My!

The location really works against them, I think. I like the building, tucked into a fork in the road, but there doesn’t seem to be much parking, and it’s a pretty fair ways off the interstate. Nevertheless, it’s definitely a good destination for people in the area or students at Reinhardt University, and travelers taking a barbecue tour up I-575 should certainly add this to their list of stops.

Joe’s Mexicana Grill, Austell GA (CLOSED)

A couple of Saturdays back, I had one of those fluid days where everything kept changing based on traffic and other people’s plans. Marie had an excellent baby shower thrown for her by our friend Samantha, and some of our friends from Nashville came to attend. Later, David and I took our Nashville buddies out for a couple of hours shopping for records and for yarn, and while time didn’t afford us the chance to go enjoy a great dinner in Atlanta, we did, at least, stop by King of Pops at their usual location at North Avenue and North Highlands and have some awesome handcrafted snacks. Still no Arnold Palmer flavor for me – I’m optimistic that I’ll try it one of these days – but I can confirm that their orange basil is just about better than you could imagine.

Later in the evening, after our friends made their way back to Tennesee, David and I spent a little while trying to figure out what to eat around his place. We finally settled on Joe’s Mexicana Grill, which is a quite new place – it opened in March – on the East-West Connector in that same strip mall as the wonderful Miyako. A very good chicken place called Famous Yardbirds had briefly lived and died in the space now occupied by a package store. Joe’s itself seems, if memory holds, to be in the space where a Moe’s Southwestern Grill once was. This, in itself, was surprising. Despite the inescapable reality that you cannot spell “mediocre” without M-O-E, I didn’t think those darn places ever closed down.

Joe’s follows the same template as Moe’s and Willy’s and Hollie Guacamole! and the like. It’s assembly-line burritos, tacos and nachos, made with smiles on the other side of a sneeze guard. However, there are a pair of extras here that none of their competitors offer, which warrant commentary, even though I did not sample either. First, there’s the surprising and notable choice of artichoke as a primary ingredient. Somehow or another, I just plain misread this on the menu, said to myself that I’d rather have spicy chicken than what I thought was avocado, and when I left, stuffed from an enormous burrito bowl, I was kicking myself for not trying an artichoke taco. Further investigation is required here.

The other thing they have is a really impressive dessert counter. Their competitors work under the assumption that all anybody ever wants for dessert after a burrito is a chocolate chip cookie. Joe’s suggests that you might like a big slice of cheesecake or something exquisitely decadent. Again, I was too stuffed from a burrito bowl and some chips to even have a taco, much less a slab of chocolate cake this large, but it sure did do my eyes a favor to look at what was on offer.

Joe’s might not be destination dining, and its unfortunate interior design doesn’t really lend itself to quiet evenings out. With very high ceilings and piping and ventilation above, the sound is terrible and loud here. One television was on Nickelodeon and one was on Faux News and we couldn’t make out a word from either. Sounds just turn into howling noise here; TVs should be shut off and lower ceiling tiles installed. But for its neighborhood, it’s a pretty good addition, and the quality of the food is infinitely preferable to Moe’s.

And for those of you who noted with sadness my inability to land an Arnold Palmer-flavored pop earlier in the afternoon, you can breathe a sigh of relief that I mixed myself one to drink with my burrito. It probably wasn’t as good as a frozen popsicle on a nice spring afternoon, but it was still pretty good.

(Update 7/12/12: Unfortunately, Joe’s closed earlier this month. I never did try one of those artichoke tacos…!)

Heirloom Market Bar-B-Que, Smyrna GA

A week ago, I was back in Smyrna while Marie was treated to another baby shower. I was, unfortunately, back in Smyrna a little earlier than I should have been.

Like everybody else in this hobby, I had been reading about Heirloom Market, a teeny place that’s been getting a lot of attention. Last month, for some reason, I found cause to mention that apartment complex right at that terrible intersection of Powers Ferry, Interstate North and Akers Mill right underneath I-285 at the river, which, in the 1970s, was nationally renowned as the center of Hotlanta’s swinger and hedonist community. That complex has cleaned up (literally, one hopes) and now trades as “Walton on the Chattahoochee” and there are probably far fewer gold medallions worn by the current residents. Next door to the complex is a convenience store that has been there forever, and now one-third of that building is home to a really good little barbecue place that everybody’s talking about.

I pulled in right at eleven, which is when I wrongly figured I could get some lunch. Unfortunately for me, this place opens at noon on Saturday, so I left, drove over to say hello to my brother and use the computer for a second before heading back. I returned at 11:40 and a line had already started. There are lots of people curious to try this place!

Longtime readers might have noticed that I’m not one for dwelling on the personalities of celebrity chefs and their trendy creations, and Heirloom Market might or might not fit into that bracket, but I was amused to see biographies of the two owners, Cody Taylor and Jiyeon Lee, on the restaurant’s website. I didn’t read them and I’m not certain where they worked previously – I personally could not care less – but those who do follow chefs from business to business seem to want to know.

Taylor and Lee claim to use locally sourced wood for their pit and locally farmed meats for their kitchen and, like The Oink Joint in Zebulon, they offer some Korean influence on the menu for guests interested in trying something a little more esoteric than the traditional fixings of a barbecue joint. These include one of the three sauces that I tried, a mild orange “KB” sauce that was quite sweet and a little spicy, and some of the rotating daily sides. I enjoyed the kimchi cole slaw enormously, and, were I not allergic to them, I might have ordered the tempura sweet potatoes. The girl sitting next to me had those and they looked good.

The other sauces that I tried were a thin, peppery, Carolina-styled vinegar sauce called “Settler” and a Memphis-styled “Table” sauce that was thick, brown and smoky. Neither was really outstanding; to be honest, the pulled pork actually tasted best when I dipped it in the thin, red residue of the kimchi cole slaw. Honestly, if they’d bottle that stuff for the tables, they’d be on to a winner.

That said, the pork was completely wonderful and didn’t need any sauce at all. They pile a good amount of it on the sandwich, and I will certainly agree with Jon Watson and the rest of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution‘s team in calling this some of the best pulled pork in the region. Served on really good, thick bread and containing a good mix of tender meat and bark, It totally lives up to the hype. April was a great month for trying new barbecue for me. This, Bill’s in Hull and Hambones, down in Hapeville, all really surprised me very pleasantly.

The prices here are very reasonable. You can get a sandwich and a side for $6.50, or upgrade to a plate with a larger portion of pork, beef or chicken for about $3.50 more. Alternately, do what I did and instead of a second side, get yourself some sausage to go along with your sandwich. Seven varieties are available; I had a hot Italian link and it was delicious. The KB sauce went really well with it, too.

If there is a downside to Heirloom Market, it’s in the size. There is no outdoor seating – a shame on a day as lovely as last Saturday – and barely room for twelve guests indoors, crowded around one table and along the windows. The service is prompt and the drink selection is really nice. I probably should have just had a glass of water, but I helped myself to a bottle of Boylan’s birch beer. I hope that Taylor and Lee decide to take their apparent success to a larger space soon, because the next time that I should visit by myself, I would like the opportunity to read whatever I’m in the middle of. Crammed in as all the guests were, there simply was not room!

Hottie Hawg’s Smokin’ BBQ, Atlanta GA (CLOSED)

Hottie Hawg’s is a place that I’ll always associate with my dad, even though he never ate here. On the afternoon after we buried him in January, one of Dad’s good friends told me that he had been enjoying the place and that I should check it out sometime for our blog. He told me it was just off Bolton Road, leading me to wonder aloud what in the heck he was doing in this part of town, but he assured me that the neighborhood has been improving dramatically over the years. Gentrification has been making this area look a lot better since I last drove through six or seven years back, and now it is home to a funky and family-friendly barbecue joint with live music twice a week.

Last Thursday, my mother hosted a baby shower for Marie and, since the original plan was for me to drive my daughter and Marie’s mother down to Smyrna for it – those plans, as all plans might, got a little confused – Mom suggested that I get together with Neal and get something to eat. Actually, she didn’t so much as suggest it as decree it. Anyway, I asked Neal whether a few options in the Smyrna area sounded good, and he picked this place.

On that note, Urbanspoon makes the pretty bold claim that this place is in Smyrna. I would argue that if you’re inside the perimeter, inside the Chattahoochee River even, you’re not in Smyrna, but Atlanta.

Hottie Hawg’s is a very small chain, with one store in each of three states, Colorado, Florida and Georgia. A fourth store is scheduled to open in Texas later this year. They try to strike the attitude of a dive bar, but also attract families with small kids. The servers all wear black tank tops and teeny denim shorts and I can’t claim to have objected to the nice way they would open the door to the patio, both hands laden with trays, with their boots.

I really overate here, and while I’ve no excuse for it, I really wanted to try the soup of the day as well as two sides. This soup was a cup of smoked corn chowder and jalapenos with andouille sausage and it was incredibly good. It was just a little thinner than I was expecting, but I could have enjoyed a much larger bowl with no real complaints. For his appetizer, Neal had the armadillo eggs. These are huge deep-fried and very spicy peppers stuffed with brisket and were also really good.

The chopped pork plate is enormous and comes with a freaking pile of meat, unsauced but with a sprinkle of spice atop it. There are two sauces, neither made inhouse, but shipped via boxes from some corporate headquarters for guests to take home. The thick brown Memphis-styled sauce was pretty good, but I enjoyed the spicy Mustard more. Coupled with the heat of the armadillo egg that I had, I had to mop the sweat from my brow!

Neal had the baked beans, which he said were pretty good, but not as good as those at Marietta’s Williamson Brothers, which he enjoys more than I do, and the tomato-cucumber-onion salad. I had the stew, known here as Cooter’s Stew, which was the only thing that I didn’t enjoy much, and the mac and cheese, which was just terrific. This, made with no scrimping on the good stuff, was really special, and I will definitely have it again the next time the road brings me back to this place.

We left before the music started, but it got pretty busy before then. The handful of families trickled out and a younger crowd moved in, enjoying bottled beers on the patio on a very nice evening. The restaurant reveals itself as more of a neighborhood bar than a destination for barbecue lovers right now, but there is certainly worse in the city getting more attention from writers. I hope that the word gets out soon; Hottie Hawg’s is definitely worth a visit.

Other blog posts about Hottie Hawg’s:
My BBQ Blog (May 6 2011)
Food Near Snellville (Sep. 12 2011)
Eat a Duck (Feb. 15 2012)