Marie and I are occasionally asked how on earth we eat out as often as we do, and the truth is that we honestly don’t, not as much as we may appear. She cooks most evenings – and she cooks amazingly well – and our lunches are frequently either leftovers or deli sandwiches. I believe that what we do differently from many people is that we plan in advance and don’t waste meals on convenience or fast food, and when we do go out, we don’t often revisit a place, even if we enjoyed it. Certainly, there are exceptions – we can be found, many Tuesdays, having our family supper at Cheeseburger Bobby’s – and admittedly, we indulge on road trips, but for our staying-in-Atlanta meals, it’s reasonably simple to come up with four chapters a week and not burst the budget, especially since we often eat at two new places on Saturdays. Continue reading “Bell Street Burritos in the Irwin Street Market (CLOSED)”
Jerk Kitchen, Marietta GA (CLOSED)
We’ve hinted before that Urbanspoon has a flaw or two in it – just hop back two chapters – but that shouldn’t release restaurant owners from the responsibility of taking advantage of the darn thing. Take Jerk Kitchen for example. This is a pretty darn good Jamaican restaurant that’s just down the road from us, and it’s been there for almost a year without us knowing anything about it. The owners, a husband and wife from Kingston, working with a chef from Montego, chose what looks like a murderously tough space on the far end of a strip mall, sort of in the elbow between a Wal-Mart and one of those Chinese super buffet places. We never even look in the direction of either of those businesses, and had no idea this place was here. We only found it one Friday evening when, unsure what to eat, we started paging through the “recently added” restaurant list in Urbanspoon and found it listed, about ten months late. Continue reading “Jerk Kitchen, Marietta GA (CLOSED)”
NaanStop, Atlanta GA
The last time that I went out to try some local Indian food, I found myself choking back the tears at the nearly too-hot-for-words Planet Bombay. So, a couple of weeks later, when the sidewalk took me to NaanStop at its first brick-and-mortar store in Atlanta, I decided to sample a wider range of flavors other than “painful.” The restaurant has joined many others on the shaded lane of Broad Street, next door to Rosa’s Pizza, serving up quick “street food”-inspired Indian meals for GSU students and bankers in the area. I had read a little buzz about NaanStop opening, and walked the six-tenths of a mile from my job to get there as they opened a couple of Fridays back. Continue reading “NaanStop, Atlanta GA”
You arrived like a day, and passed like a cloud.
So, in early September, the most remarkable thing happened in Atlanta. It looked like this (he said, in a surprisingly good imitation of radio’s Casey Kasem): Continue reading “You arrived like a day, and passed like a cloud.”
Shorty’s Pizza, Atlanta GA
I celebrated the start of the college football season by listening to most of the first quarter of the Dawgs game, and most of the fourth. I had some business in Atlanta that afternoon, but had time enough available to grab a small pizza somewhere around Briarcliff or Clairmont. I settled on Shorty’s, which is hidden in an invisible strip mall behind the Longhorn Steakhouse that’s across the street from Toco Hills. I’ve been on this stretch of North Druid Hills better than a hundred times, easy, and I had no idea there was a strip mall there. Continue reading “Shorty’s Pizza, Atlanta GA”
Raging Burrito & Taco, Decatur GA
The last Friday in August, I went to have lunch at Raging Burrito in Decatur, and had such a comically awful experience both getting there and coming back that the venerable little joint stood out even brighter as a genuine oasis in a couple of hours of slapstick misery. I wrote it all out in an earlier draft, but it read more like whining than congenial exasperation, so you’ll just have to trust me: everything that could go wrong, short of trips to the hospital, police station or auto repair shop, did, in two hours and fifteen minutes of urban angst so meticulously timed that I started looking for the hidden cameras. Before it was over, I was sorely tempted to return, pay for some more minutes on the meter, and close the outside world away to have another burrito. Continue reading “Raging Burrito & Taco, Decatur GA”
Spiced Right Rib House, Roswell GA
Here’s yet another long overdue chapter about a good place in the Atlanta area. Spiced Right is a restaurant that I’ve enjoyed a good deal more since their ownership changed in the early 2000s. In many previous chapters, I’ve mentioned how I used to have an old, ugly, Geocities page about Georgia barbecue restaurants. A reader had encouraged me to visit Spiced Right at what was at the time their only location, in Lilburn. So I trucked on down from Athens and did not enjoy the meal very much. It was my first experience with a barbecue buffet, and, while I can no longer remember details, I did not enjoy the taste of any of the meat. I was, on the other hand, really taken with their gigantic collection of sauces – a collection perhaps rivaled today by Buckhead Barbecue Company in Smyrna – but decided against making a return visit. Continue reading “Spiced Right Rib House, Roswell GA”
Marie, Let's Eat! 