Hudson’s Hickory House, Douglasville GA

A few Fridays ago, I found myself heading west out I-20 after a short morning at work, bound for Lithia Springs to try a barbecue place. I had all the time in the world, and I needed to stop at a Publix to use an ATM. I remembered that there was one in Douglasville, so I went along a little further, just enjoying some music and a very pleasant morning’s drive. It wasn’t until I was on the exit ramp that I remembered that I’d been meaning to stop by Hudson’s Hickory House and that it was supposed to be around here somewhere. I recalled reading on a blog called Courthouse Bites that it was somehow near the Douglas County Courthouse, and I was certain that I could find that. It turns out that the restaurant really isn’t anywhere near the courthouse, but it is next door to the sheriff’s department.

This might perhaps be the last entry in which I wonder aloud about the origins of a particular regional style of barbecue, detailed in these earlier chapters: Wallace in Austell, Briar Patch in Hiram, Johnny’s in Powder Springs and the deliberate homage at Davis in Jasper, although I have learned that there might be another in the area that has a similar style. Apparently, the proprietors of a place that might be called Hog Wild somewhere south of Douglasville* got permission from Buford Hudson to use his style of hickory-smoked pork and thin, red-to-black vinegar sauce. It was my server’s contention that Hudson is the man who came up with this recipe forty years ago. I wish that he had been available to speak with me; I think that I would have enjoyed a chat with him.

Well, my server did not know about Briar Patch, but she did confirm that both Wallace and Johnny’s are welcome to use Hudson’s recipe, and, in return, Hudson’s uses Wallace’s recipe for stew. As with the others that use this style, the meat is, unless you ask ahead of time, served completely drowned in the thin, red-black vinegar-based sauce, and there’s a bottle of truly hot mustard-pepper sauce if you order the meat dry and would like to try both. Interestingly, the mustard sauce at these five places is not quite like the mustard sauces of South Carolina, or in the Auburn-Eufaula-Columbus triangle. Those are thinner and yellower and less potent. This sauce is more of an orange-yellow and it’s quite firey. After a few bites of the dry, quite moist pork with this tough customer, I conceded and just drowned the meat with the red-black vinegar sauce, as its creator intended.

Georgia often gets a very short shrift from barbecue writers, as we allegedly have no traditions of our own to compete with the better-known styles of Texas, Kansas City, Memphis, Owensboro or the Carolinas. I would humbly suggest that, while its influence is small and its home region mostly confined to Atlanta’s western suburbs, this is something that we can genuinely hold up as a Georgia original. I certainly haven’t found it anywhere else. It may not be to everybody’s taste, but it is unique, and it is ours.

*I found reference to a place in Carrollton with that name, and I suppose that it might be the one that my server mentioned.

Outback Steakhouse, Atlanta GA

Marie and I were invited to join some other local media to sample Outback Steakhouse’s new menu items, including a line of steaks and chops grilled over wood that complement their successful “Seasoned and Seared” blend. It was nice to visit with our friends from Atlanta Foodies and meet some other area bloggers, including Exclusive Eats, Insatiable and Talking With Tami, who posts more frequently than most adults breathe. Poor Marie, sadly, had to contend with worse than usual traffic coming from Dunwoody, and missed the first couple of courses. Some good steak and desserts cheered her up a bit.

Our regular readers know that we rarely patron national chains of any type, preferring to learn the stories of small restaurants. I was reminded, however, that beyond the quality of the food, which, at Outback, is reasonably solid, there are still stories to tell. I was really fascinated to learn that the whole roll-out process of the “Wood-Fire Grilled” menu – just imagine a little TM there, as we are dealing with the corporate world in today’s entry – has taken two years of testing, training and installing the new grills in close to a thousand stores across the continent. At the same time, Outback has embarked on a massive redesign of all of their stores, apparently the first face lift that many of these places have seen in twenty years. In a hobby where locals scrutinize, for example, the four months between the start-up and the crash landing of LeRoy’s Fried Chicken, being taken through the two years it takes to roll out a new product line is actually quite intriguing.

We met with Dave Ellis, who came up from Tampa for the event and who has been with the company since its beginnings. He told us a little potted history of the chain and shared a few fun anecdotes. I enjoyed hearing about the development of the popular Bloomin’ Onion appetizer, which required the help of a professor at Texas A&M to get a specific, spherical one-pound Spanish onion to grow under set conditions which could be duplicated at farms throughout the western states. Even with big, multi-national chains, there are funny stories to be told.

So they fed us. They fed us extremely well. They gave us small samples of both the classic “Seasoned & Seared” and the new “Wood-Fire Grilled” sirloins so that we could compare the taste. The original is made with a blend of seventeen spices, while the new has only six, and is cooked over oak wood. They were each quite good, although I did prefer the original, with its fuller flavor. The newer sirloin is just fine, but there’s a fire in the classic’s belly that the oak wood version, with its lighter spice, doesn’t match.

That said, the light spice and wood grilling does go extremely well on some of the other menu items. One of the highlights was the pork chop, which was unbelievably tasty. It’s served with a little cup of midly spicy orange marmalade and I could certainly see myself having that again down the road. We also sampled their California chicken salad, baby back ribs, an incredibly curious mahi-mahi dish topped with artichoke heats, sun-dried tomatoes and a lemon sauce, along with prime rib and the menu’s highest point, a really good ribeye that uses a slightly different spice blend that mixes a little better with this cut.

I made an exception in our rule against professional publicity photographs, in part because my own photo of the mahi-mahi was horrible, and in part because this pic does a great job conveying just how downright peculiar this dish is. Works, though.

They finished us off with a pile of desserts, including a very rich and moist carrot cake, a cheesecake with raspberry sauce, and a really unusual chocolate waffle, served with a thick, house-made chocolate sauce and a big scoop of Blue Bell vanilla ice cream. I’m sure our long-term readers will appreciate that, now that I have identified the problem, I’ve broken my bad habit of using the word “decadent” to describe whatever fool dessert gets put in front of me, although the waffle came pretty close to warranting it. Outback’s setup allows them to change out their dessert waffle specialties according to the season. Should I return when strawberry waffles are on the menu, I will have to try those.

Having said that, of course, Marie and I rarely ever visit national chains. Outback did a splendid job putting a human face on a corporate world, and showing off some very good food. I appreciated the chance to get to know them better. I’m not about to start calling the Hall of Fame Bowl anything other than the Hall of Fame Bowl no matter who sponsors it, but if you’re on the road and desiring a good ribeye, Outback, in a very pleasant surprise, has shown itself to be a good option.

Outback invited us to enjoy an additional meal on them, so a few days later, we stopped by the store nearest us, on Barrett Parkway, in the company of our daughter to try them out. I ordered that celebrated Bloomin’ Onion appetizer without thinking to ask whether either of the ladies wanted to share it. Never do this; that is far too much onion for one person to attempt on their own. Other than being forced, disagreeably, to waste about half of a perfectly good onion, we enjoyed ourselves. Marie and I split their largest ribeye, with the “Wood-Fire Grilled” seasoning and prep, with a small order of shrimp, and it was quite delicious, while the girlchild just had some soup and sides. Marie expressed a desire to come back once she is eating dairy again, so that she can enjoy one of those waffle desserts with ice cream. Reckon we’ll do that. Probably not on a weekend night, though; this place gets ridiculously busy!

Country’s Barbecue and more, Columbus, GA

Cheryl had mentioned to us when Marie and I were in Columbus in September that she would be busy on the last weekend of October, and to try not to schedule a trip down that weekend. Indeed, we had originally planned to make our visit to Providence Canyon on the 22nd, but circumstances conspired against us and we ended up buying a car that day and coming down on the 29th, when, it turned out none of our other friends in the area were free, either. Fortunately, I’ve made just about enough trips to Columbus over the years not to get completely bewildered like I used to. That’s just as well, because the directions that I had printed for this road trip only went as far as the two Alabama stops in the previous chapter. Continue reading “Country’s Barbecue and more, Columbus, GA” →

4 Way BBQ, Lumpkin GA

It was August of last year that I fired off an email to Marie regarding Providence Canyon State Park. “How the heck have we never heard of this place?” I asked. It looked amazing; a gigantic accident of bad farming techniques in the 19th Century that left several 150-foot chasms eroded into the earth. I resolved that we would visit as soon as it got cooler. Of course, as soon as it got cooler, we learned that we were having a baby, and perhaps strenuous four-mile hikes like that would best be left for another year.

So, fourteen months after I discovered the place, we finally made our way on a breezy day in late October. That meant that I had fourteen months to wonder what the food would be like at 4 Way BBQ, because there did not appear to be anything else to eat in the small town of Lumpkin. Locals wanting to dine out pretty much have to drive to Richland, about ten miles east. The town is the site of one of those odd little roadway trivialities that I find cute. Many years after Lumpkin was established, highway planners dropped US-27 and GA-27 just on the town’s outskirts, making one of the few places I’ve ever seen where a US highway and a state highway of the same number intersect. I bet you’re going to rush out and tell all your friends this fascinating fact, right?

US-27 really is a road full of nothing. Once you leave Fort Benning and start making your way towards south Georgia, there is virtually no development at all. There are no towns or communities or even gas stations at all, and, consequently, very few choices for finding anything to eat.

Located at Lumpkin’s only four-way stop, 4 Way is an old home that has been partially converted into a restaurant, with tables on the front porch and some interior seating partitioned away from the living space. It has only been open for seven years, but the signage on US-27 looks much older and weather-beaten, bleached out by the merciless middle Georgia sun.

I was very disappointed that you can’t get the hickory-smoked pork dry here. We have not often found meat simmered in sauce since we started this blog. Troy’s, 173 miles north up US-27 in Rome, does it this way, as does a place that Matt and I visited in nearby Parrott many years before. It’s tasty, I suppose, but still a little unsatisfying. I would greatly prefer to sample the meat on its own, without the sweet, light brown sauce. The result is something more like cafeteria-served barbecue, and with smokers right on the front porch drawing in guests with such a delicious scent, I can’t imagine why it’s necessary, beyond family tradition, to serve it this way. For what it’s worth, Marie ordered the chicken sandwich. This was a hickory-smoked boneless filet, and was served dry, and was quite good. I think that, should the road bring us back this way again, I would prefer to try the ribs.

Happily, the sides here are completely terrific, and while the pork is only notable from the perspective of doing it a little differently than most, all of the accompaniments are quite flavorful. A plate here comes with beans, baked in a thick, oniony sauce, excellent cole slaw, and a few peppers and knockout dill pickles. They boast that everything here except for the hot dogs and sausages are homemade and fresh. I found myself regretting that Brunswick stew is not on the menu, as I can imagine it being quite good here; as we left, we saw it listed as a special outside. We missed out!

Having said all that, we might have had the best unknown-to-me barbecue in the state and it still might have paled in comparison with Providence Canyon. It really met my expectations, and we had a fantastic time. We only went into two of the nine canyons, as I missed any online notices that the canyon floors are incredibly muddy and wet, and we were only dressed for the mildest of exploration. What we saw was completely amazing, and it was a fine day’s exercise.

I feel strongly, of course, about getting a little exercise on these sorts of trips, and with the meals ahead of us on this outing, we would certainly need some exercise. If you live within two hundred miles of this place, I would really recommend you come visit. It ranks with Tallulah Gorge as one of my favorite outdoor sites in Georgia, and while the barbecue probably was not really worth a fourteen-month wait, the canyon definitely was.

One Eared Stag and Rosa’s Pizza, Atlanta GA

It took me a lot longer to get over to One Eared Stag than I would have liked. I was all set to head that way after an early shift a few Fridays back, when Marie texted me to say that she’d been in a minor fender bender. That started a chain of missed opportunities and changed plans that finally resolved towards the end of October when David and I made our way down to Edgewood Avenue to try them out.

The street looks like a sleepy little place during the daytime, but the silence is punctuated by the sound of MARTA trains and church bells. Since just about everybody’s talking about it – The Quick + Dirty Dirty named it her new favorite Atlanta restaurant, for example – I was expecting a much larger crowd than we found, but we had the place mostly to ourselves on a Thursday just before noon. It was nice enough to eat on the patio, and this really is a pleasant hideaway. The interior is designed in that bland, austere style common to many modern urban restaurants (and, apparently, little changed from when this space housed chef Robert Phalen’s previous venture, Shaun’s), but the patio, surrounded by the old brick of the buildings around it, is a lovely little oasis.

Despite the slow pace, our server is perhaps one of the busiest men in the city. He told us that he works three part-time jobs. I was reminded of a classic, Cam Kennedy-illustrated episode of Judge Dredd where somebody tried that in the 90% unemployment world of Mega-City One and went to jail for it. He cautioned David and I against ordering too many sides for our meals, as they were all pretty substantial. I thought I was splurging, as I couldn’t decide between the chickpea fries, great big thick monsters recommended by Atlanta Restaurant Blog, and the onion rings, which are completely delicious and among the best in the city. David added a pile of pork skins to the repast, served on a butcher’s block with a large pinch of sea salt and a little dipping jar of vinegar.

David’s crab roll sandwich was a sight to see. It comes on bread baked by Alon’s, split vertically so that it stands up, stuffed with the crab. Neal later said that it looked ridiculous. “Sandwiches should lie down and take their punishment,” he joked. My sandwich, an indulgent BLT with a fried egg, was indeed lying down waiting for me to slide the egg off onto a plate rather than risk the mess of melting yolk. The bacon was thick-cut and chewy, and the lettuce and tomato fresh and delicious. I briefly had menu envy over David’s cucumber and radish salad until I dug into my side of incredibly fresh greens with a light drizzle of a dressing. I’d like to think that made up a little for all the fried stuff in front of me.

We passed on dessert, as David had a mind to walk around Broad Street, and I figured that I might find something there to try. Broad Street is a curious and old little strip of mainly lunch-only restaurants, catering to downtown businessmen, GSU students and, lately, Occupy Wall Streeters. I almost went for a gelato, but I was taken by the line coming out of Rosa’s Pizza, and decided that a slice would be my dessert.

Interestingly, there are two different Rosa’s in the region. If I understand correctly, the one downtown, with a second location near me in Cobb County’s Lassiter district, is not affiliated with the Rosa’s in Johns Creek.

Anyway, this place offers New York-style by-the-slice pies. The pies are actually made ahead of time with sauce and cheese, and toppings added as guests file slowly past the oven, logjamming at the register, where a hilarious woman takes payment for orders. The staff is lovably sassy and fun. The fellow assembling toppings fruitlessly negotiated with the girl ahead of me to bring him back a beer from a neighborhood bottle shop, and she gave me some playful stink about ordering anchovies, turning her head as she held the offending box at arm’s length and yelping a Pythonesque “Wurrrrgh!”

I left the restaurant laughing. The pizza was not really anything special – my heart sank a little when I saw the premade pies awaiting reheating in the oven – but the lively and fun atmosphere had me eating it in a good mood.

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.

Panorama Orchards, Ellijay GA

This is Marie, contributing an article about apples from the Panorama Orchards. Grant and I ran across this family farm operation last year when we picked them essentially at random from the multiple apple vendors along the route to Ellijay to eat barbecue. We were only vaguely aware at the time that we were going up on the day of the apple festival there. It was only through sheer good luck that we arrived before the crush of traffic.

Ordinarily I would be all about the apple festival. Who wouldn’t want to try over a dozen varieties of apple, along with pies and breads and cider and all the other fun festival treats? There is also an antique car show and more crafts vendors than any right-thinking person could stand. Sadly, the highway that people have to use to get there would need to be about three lanes wider to keep the traffic moving. As we drove home from our early shopping and lunch, the crush of crawling cars in the oncoming lanes made us vow never to go to the apple festival unless somehow cars were not involved. Which is kind of sad, because quite a few people seem to think it’s worth the abysmal traffic to get there. Mind you, nearly all of them come from Atlanta, which has traffic that only Californians, New Yorkers, and D.C. residents can diss.

But I was talking about Panorama Orchards, just one business among the many in the area, which has captured our loyalty with the really excellent product they offer. Although there is a possibility that we might go to Walker’s Fried Pies & Barbecue for a little variety.

There really isn’t a way to get a good photo of the place, and so the terrible pictures that I took were discarded. There are too many people parking and walking around the front doors. Hey, they need to get apples too. Inside the place you pass through the baked goods and dried fruit and preserves first, then pass the testing table. That has a really generous selection of stuff on it, including some really impressive apple cider that I yearned to chug by the gallon, and some apple salsa that captured Grant’s heart. I got some of each to bring back. There is also ice cream, old-fashioned candy, and more preserves.

But of course the main feature is the apples. There are people in the back who clearly spend their whole day restocking. They usually have about 6 varieties to choose from at a time, depending on what is ready for picking, and there are endless samples all over the place. There really is no way to leave the place without having put at least one thing into your cart that wasn’t planned for, unless you walk through with your hands in your pockets and your mouth clamped shut. And who could enjoy life that way?

I bought two half-pecks each of Granny Smith and Mutsu, and a full peck of Fuji because that’s what the family likes. I have had an apple nearly every day since our trip. Yum.