A Friday Night’s Eating, Atlanta GA

The situation was grim. Marie had requested that we spend the second weekend of October relaxing. After several out-of-town trips in September and the madness of the convention over the first weekend of the month, she wanted a Saturday where we didn’t do anything. That meant that if I wanted some new things to talk about, then on Friday night, I needed to please everybody with a couple of small meals and a couple of great desserts.

There was, first, the problem of my daughter. I had decided that I wanted to go back to Everybody’s, the terrific pizza joint by Emory’s main campus, but I was not keen on being so far away from my daughter while she was at a football game in the suburbs. She didn’t want to come eat pizza. “You’ll just put anchovies on it,” she said, not unreasonably. A bribe was necessary.

“What if we get ice cream afterward?” I asked. She declined.

“What if we get Jake’s ice cream, then?” Oh. That changed things. She’d drop the lead singer of My Chemical Romance on his butt for a scoop of Jake’s.

Then Marie piped in. She can’t eat ice cream, as I should remember. The dairy gets in her breast milk and gives the baby stomach aches. We would have to get desserts from two different places, at least once I figured out where you can get any Jake’s these days. She also wasn’t keen on pizza for the same reason. Maybe we could get a hamburger somewhere instead.

Imagine. There are some people in this world who would handle this problem with a single trip to a Picadilly Cafeteria. I hope we never turn into those people. In point of fact, I wouldn’t mind if this baby one day piped up to demand we insert stops for seafood and chicken mull into the menu. While we live in a city as large as Atlanta, there’s not one blessed thing stopping us from having the best of all possible worlds in one evening. Well, apart from the chicken mull. We’d have to drive to Athens for that, but we could come back here for the ice cream and cake.

The children and I picked up Marie at work, allowing her fellow employees to admire the baby for a few minutes – well, and the tween girl as well, I suppose – and giving Marie a chance to feed him. We then made our slow, agonizing way from Dunwoody through Friday “rush” hour traffic to Decatur.

Everybody’s has been serving the community for forty years now and, while fad and fashion have thrown other pizza places in the limelight, I still believe that Everybody’s serves one of the best pies in the region. Vingenzo’s might have knocked it out of my Atlanta top five, but it’s still a great pizza and worth a visit. This was actually the slowest I’ve ever seen it, but we arrived before the Friday dinner rush really got going.

With Marie planning for a burger in a few minutes’ time and the threat of anchovies infuriating my daughter, they simply shared a salad and some amazing breadsticks. My individual pie was, unwittingly, a carnivore’s delight, with anchovies, chicken, and Italian sausage. I promise that I intended to have them with tomatoes and peppers, but something went stupid in my brain once I sat down. I have no legitimate excuse, but good grief, was it ever good.

Afterward, we walked down to the end of this strip mall to Wonderful World. I should note that we took the risk of leaving our car in Everybody’s lot and leaving the premises. I have heard, before and since, that this is never a good idea. We didn’t get towed or booted, but I don’t advise doing this.

Wonderful World has very quietly been grilling up some of the very best hamburgers in the city, without attention or hype, sliding their sliders right under everyone’s radar during the last three years of the city’s hamburger madness. I’m certain I never heard of this place at all before I looked up Everybody’s on Urbanspoon the day before we went down and was amused to see the name of this place listed as “nearby.” The name tickled me, because I frequently get one of two different songs named “Wonderful World” stuck in my head.

Anyway, Wonderful World is a very small side venture by Stephen Chan, who has opened a small chain of cafes called Tin Drum around the city. It has received virtually no attention from my fellow hobbyists, although Evan Mah, from The Toothfish, gave it a good review when it opened two years ago. Two years! This is one of the best hamburgers in the city, for pete’s sake. Folk need to get over here and try one.

They’re quite small and very nicely priced. Most are under $3 and are made from fresh, local beef, never frozen. The fries are also fresh and just incredibly yummy. We’ve had some good burgers lately. In fact, we’ve had a lot of ’em. This knocks just about all of them to the side, easily ranking among the juiciest and tastiest our town can offer. I had the WonderfulBurger, which comes with cheese, lettuce, pickles and a house sauce. It was just perfect.

I really like the interior decor a lot, too. Slotted wood paneling covers the lights behind them, resulting in a very comfortable and laid-back vibe. It only seats a couple of dozen at long, communal tables, but I think that once people get their food here, they’ll be in no rush to leave. It’s a complete delight, but we did have to make our way. I had promised the girlchild some Jake’s.

(Before we leave, however, a follow-up note. One of those songs that I enjoyed replaying in my head was “Wonderful World,” a track from one of David Sylvian’s countless odd projects, Nine Horses. As Tin Drum was also the title of Japan’s last studio album, I amused myself concluding that Chan must also be a Sylvian fan. This was confirmed a couple of weeks later, when I was walking down Broad Street downtown, passed one of the Tin Drum locations, and did a double-take when I saw, through the window, a giant blow-up of the front cover of that Japan LP. Chan makes terrific burgers and he appreciates one of my favorite musicians. I’d have said favorite, period, before he released that awful Manafon. Yeeesh.)

Now, not long ago, there were a few more Jake’s locations than there are now. Most magical was the great one in Decatur, at the end of the strip mall where Wuxtry has long resided. We could kick back and indulge in ice cream there for hours. It would appear that only a single Jake’s location is left, although they supply a few other coffee shops and places with their amazing product.

Inman Perk Coffee is one that Marie and I had visited once before. It’s a splendid little place where locals on laptops are always kicking back. Honestly, it’s next to impossible to make much comment on a coffee shop’s product, as I don’t drink coffee, but I figure, as long as the ice cream is good, it’s worth a visit. A relaxed and comfortable environment like this is just a bonus.

Unfortunately, Marie was deprived of this most excellent ice cream. She departed to change and feed the baby, possibly so her heart would not be broken that we were indulging in front of her. Mine was a cherry and vanilla double-scoop – their reliable “brown sugah vanillah” has been either replaced by or supplanted with a “thrillah vanillah” that I found myself enjoying even more.

Marie’s treat was a few miles up the road at OK Cafe. This venerable meat and three buffet diner has been around since the mid-eighties. Their long line of customers waiting for a table is so legendary that they installed a big digital sign out front informing anybody driving past how long the current expected wait is.

While the OK Cafe prides itself on its classic American diner food, with their chicken and fried trout particular favorites of everybody, we were just there for dessert. Marie got a big slice of chocolate cake. It was not a ridiculous, oversized chunk of a thousand calories, but something sensibly-portioned and tasty. They do fantastic work here, and getting to-go orders is incredibly simple.

This was a fine evening out. We discovered someplace new and fantastic and each of us came home satisfied. I’d call it a success all around. There remained, however, the problem of Marie decreeing the next day to be one of relaxation and late sleeping. That was fine, because I knew that we’d need to have lunch sometime, and I had a plan for that.

(Update, 3/24/12: Sadly, the Wonderful World shuttered this week to make way for another Tin Drum. Right across the street from a Doc Chey’s…? Wow.)

Rise-n-Dine, Atlanta GA

This is Marie, contributing an article about breakfast. My relationship with breakfast has been a little out of the ordinary because I am one of about four people in the world who dislike bacon (on its own merits, that is – not for religious, moral, or health reasons). When I was a teen, I learned how to make pancakes so I could tie up the griddle and get something to eat, then escape before my dad and uncle could fill the kitchen with the smell of frying meat. It was also fun to make smiley face pancakes and such for the littler kids.

My personal favorite breakfast is a bowl of fresh fruit with good yogurt, a bowl of cereal if it is warm, an egg or oatmeal in cold weather, some toast with a top-quality jam, and some hot black tea. A nice creamy Dutch cheese also goes well with the toast. Obviously, it’s easier to have this breakfast at home. Except on workdays, of course, when peanut butter on half a bagel is more typical!

However, every so often I am called to go out for breakfast. In this particular case, it was a friend’s visit. Our friend Chris, from Jacksonville, was back in town on the last leg of a road trip up to New Jersey and back on family business. When someone is visiting from out of town you let them have a good bit of leeway in picking out a place to meet, and he was the one to pick Rise-n-Dine, based primarily on the fact that it was the highest-rated breakfast place near his hotel. I made the trek to Decatur with the kids to meet up with Chris, knowing the wait time would be pretty daunting, so a bottle came along for the baby. It’s fairly popular place and if you either like people-watching or are meeting more for the opportunity for conversation than a quick meal, the wait isn’t bothersome. The wait was a little hard for a 12-year-old to take, but she managed with a little window shopping and the help of her phone. Twosomes will get in faster than larger groups. There don’t seem to be many larger tables.

Once actually inside, we were served quickly and had a cheerful server. He was a little bewildered by the request for a mug of hot water to heat the bottle, but complied promptly, and barely in time – the baby just barely began to fuss before his milk was done. The baby passed out in time for the food to arrive, nice timing on his part, and generous of him considering the fairly high noise level inside. The server had pretty decent hearing. I have been avoiding dairy due to the apparent allergy of a certain little person who shares my meals, and I have been unpleasantly surprised before to get rye toast (with butter on it) instead of dry toast; despite the noise, that server got it right.

Ivy saw grilled cheese on the menu and asked if she could have that. Generally the answer is no, because we feel it is not right to pay 5 bucks for something that costs about 11 cents to make at home. However, in certain circumstances, such as when the restaurant uses multiple kinds of cheese on bread that isn’t unnaturally square, we make exceptions. She also ordered the orange juice. When her drink arrived and I saw how brilliantly orange and dense it was, I had to have some for myself. That, I think, was the best part of the meal, and it was surely better than the hot tea that would have been my alternate choice.

Unfortunately we didn’t order anything terribly photogenic. The table voted the herbed fried potatoes the best item after the orange juice. Next time I will make a point of getting the sweet potato pancakes.

Breakfast isn’t a hard meal to get right, as long as service is reasonably fast. However, Rise-n-Dine manages to take a step past the ordinary. I’d go again.

West Egg Cafe, Atlanta GA

A few Fridays back, I had not decided where I was going for lunch, and then I got peckish early and set out to find some breakfast instead. I actually work with two former employees of West Egg Cafe on Howell Mill, and they speak fondly of their time there. So I looked over the menu and was very interested by some of the things that they assemble there.

West Egg Cafe was once a Jake’s Ice Cream store. I’m not certain for how long, but the franchise owner elected to get out of ice cream and strike out on her own with coffees, breakfasts and sandwiches. They do offer a few desserts in the form of pastries and cupcakes. I took home one of their celebrated Coca-Cola cupcakes to share with Marie and, frankly, was not impressed, but that’s okay. The omelet that I had in the restaurant was so darn good that it didn’t matter.

I’ve never had pimento cheese in an omelet before! I was torn between this and the Georgia Benedict, which is turkey sausage, eggs and gravy over a biscuit. That sounds wonderful, but the omelet was just fine. It came with a delicious biscuit and potatoes grilled in a skillet.

This place can get really busy, so breakfast guests should expect a wait. Fortunately, the deck behind the restaurant appears to be free, so there’s plenty of space to park. The service was downright excellent, with a small army of servers stopping by to check on everybody. I don’t go out for breakfast all that often, but it’s always nice to add to my options with a place as fun as this.

Buckhead Barbecue Company, Smyrna GA

In recent months, I’ve visited some of the barbecue restaurants in and around Atlanta that can trace their lineage back to Sam’s BBQ-1 and the old – well, recent, but old in restaurant terms – alliance between Sam Huff and Dave Poe. Those two once employed several cooks and staff who have gone out and started their own restaurants, with results that, in my book, range from pretty good to what I would have called disappointing but I’ve since downgraded to “downright awful,” thanks to the online sockpuppeting antics of its supporter(s) ticking me off.

However, we have clearly saved the best – for now – for last. Despite the name, which I find pretty silly considering this place isn’t even in Vinings, much less Buckhead, the Buckhead Barbecue Company has surpassed the quite good work found at both Sam’s and Dave’s restaurants. Their chef, Kevin Fullerton, used to work with those fellas. This restaurant is serving up an exceptional product at a terrific price from a little strip mall shop in Smyrna, just a few doors down from the excellent Roy’s Cheesesteaks.

They’ve taken the bold move of opening in the shadow of an unaccountably popular location of Jim ‘n Nick’s, a mediocre chain whose local store has already claimed one barbecue fatality in a store called Atlanta Ribs. I certainly hope that Buckhead Barbecue Company can draw enough attention to their little shop one mile outside the perimeter to thrive. Hopefully, the praise and love that Roy’s has found here will keep bringing the curious into the ‘burbs to try this place out. This place deserves some attention, friends.

We had supper here a few Wednesdays ago, in the company of our good friends Dave and Amy, who live in Virginia and had come to town for Anime Weekend Atlanta and stayed to visit family. We commandeered a table on their patio for more than two hours, catching up and talking about barbecue. Actually, when Amy had requested that we meet somewhere for barbecue and told me that they were staying in Smyrna, my little “what can I blog about” senses started tingling and I knew just where I wanted to try.

All of the meats here are very good, with pulled pork smoked just perfectly and just moist enough to not need any sauce. That said, if you like drowning your meat and you like to try several different things, then Buckhead probably offers more sauces than any place that I know this side of Asheville’s Ed Boudreaux’s: a whopping nine varieties, and every one of them is lip-smacking tasty. If any one was the house sauce at a single-bottle joint, it would be a winner, which makes it a much better experience than Ed’s, where the phrase “jack of all trades, master of none” was never more true.

I was most impressed and intrigued by the different “Eastern NC Vinegar” and “Lexington NC Vinegar” varieties. I had heard that the distinctive sauce around Lexington was a vinegar-tomato blend, but, not really able to go up there and try it for myself, yet, I was left wondering what the difference is between that and the sauce common at so many restaurants around Atlanta and the I-20 corridor, which I would describe as red, and thick with a mild, vinegary kick. If what Buckhead Barbecue Company mixes is accurate, then Lexington sauce is much thinner – online recipes that I’ve since consulted suggest four parts water to one part each vinegar and ketchup, with sugar and lots of pepper – and has a different sort of kick, very much unlike what I have been finding and questioning. There is, it turns out, at least one other example of Lexington sauce in the area; Swallow at the Hollow’s vinegar sauce surprised me by splashing red all over the pink meat. Now I know why.

Apart from these, there is a very good mustard sauce, two examples of a traditional brown sweet sauce – a spicier “Kansas City” and a sweeter “Memphis” – and an Alabama white sauce, and every one of them is just wonderful. My daughter was so taken with the Kansas City sauce that, after she finished her meal, which included a fun little combo dish of Brunswick stew poured over very good mac-n-cheese, she started squeezing herself spoonfuls of sauce. Give her some saltines and she’ll look just like a starving undergraduate.

Dave had trouble deciding between two sandwiches. They offer one rather gloriously ridiculous Elvis tribute sandwich, with crunchy peanut butter, bananas and bacon, fried, and he was tempted, but he went with the Big Pig, which is a sliced pork loin beast topped with pulled pork, bacon, melted cheese and horseradish sauce. Dave was one of my groomsmen and I love the guy, so I seriously hope he had steamed vegetables for lunch the next day. On the other hand, with the bread puddings he and Amy took along with them, I’m not so sure eating healthy was on the agenda. Well, they were on vacation.

Goodbye to El Pollo Loco

I will always associate El Pollo Loco with death.

That’s hardly fair, of course, but that’s how these things happen. One of my earliest memories is the death of an uncle named Ruford, who married my father’s oldest sister before Dad was born. This is, in part, why I am convinced that there must have been some old family contract that made it illegal for anybody to marry into my family unless they had a name as silly as any of ours. My grandfather had a sensible name like Joseph, gave all five of his kids oddball names, and the oldest of them married somebody with a name like Ruford.

Anyway, Ruford died when I was five or so, and somebody, probably his daughter, my cousin Sandie, told all of us small ones who were at the hospital that somebody had brought some Mississippi mud cake for us and it was back at the house. Ever since then, Mississippi mud cake has been off my menu. Seeing its name in print reminds me of the first time that I ever encountered death, and my kindergarten-aged self shudders inside.

I was really pleased to hear that El Pollo Loco was entering the Atlanta market in 2007, because, of course, I am interested in smaller chains. One of the first of what would be perhaps nine – down from a planned and announced fifty – opened on Holcomb Bridge Road in Roswell. I would drive right past it on my way home from work. Now, at that job, on the last business day of each month, everybody had to stay late until everybody else had finished and the books were balanced, possibly because my boss was Bill Lumbergh. So on the last business day of the month, my mother would pick up the children from school for me, since heaven knew when I would leave, and I would get supper somewhere in Roswell and enjoy a good book.

So, I settled on trying out the new El Pollo Loco that November, left sometime after the sun went down and somebody’s financing was finally approved and a contract written, got in the car and my phone rang. It was the children’s mother, calling to say that her mother was in the hospital. This was a Friday; I asked whether she wanted me to bring the children to Knoxville the next day to see her, and she said, firmly, not to, to give it a week. She then took a sharp turn for the worse and died on Wednesday morning.

Not that I had any kind of love left for anybody in that family, but, for my children, I should have told her that I was coming anyway, and just gone home and packed. Instead, I spent Friday night wowing the avocado sauce on El Pollo Loco’s salsa bar. I ate at three of the city’s El Pollo Loco locations quite a few times in 2008 and 2009, before I cut fast food from the diet, and always enjoyed the meals here. But with every one of them, I heard that voice in the back of my head saying “You should have taken your kids to see their grandmother one last time.”

Which is a pretty unfair thing to do to myself; hell, earlier in 2007, I deliberately curtailed a plan to drive straight from Toronto home to Atlanta in one go, just to give these rotten kids a few hours with her. You’d think that’d give me a little pass on the guilt, but guilt’s a stupid, senseless thing, and that’s why El Pollo Loco never meant “the crazy chicken” to me. It meant death.

Tomorrow’s News Today, a good site about Atlanta retail that locals should certainly be reading, wrapped up the restaurant’s four-and-a-half-year run in the region with an obituary and recap and noted that three of the nine stores indeed formally changed their name to The Crazy Chicken, an act which surely must have been borne of desperation.

While they were with us, though, El Pollo Loco served up some pretty good meals for what it was. I always thought of it as a cross between a Mrs. Winners and a Del Taco. Sure, you could find better if you wanted to pay a little more, but when it was convenient for us to stop by the Smyrna, Marietta or Roswell stores for a cheap, reliable meal and load up on chicken burritos and chips and salsa, this was a little better than the average.

I’d been telling myself for months to stop back by the Smyrna store, because the sluggish halt to the franchise group’s expansion plans sounded like it would make a good story. I put it off too long; even after the Marietta “Crazy Chicken” had shuttered and become an IHOP, I just kept saying that I’d get around to Smyrna eventually, and never did. We’ll just have to see them on the west coast, if we ever make it out that way.

In the meantime, I continue to wait impatiently for that long-promised Del Taco to finally open in Snellville. The obituary linked above suggests that this location might finally open in February 2012. I’m starting to get impatient.

Jack’s New Yorker Deli, Vinings GA

Here is a restaurant that is just plain mixed up in my memory. I had this place completely backwards. I could have sworn that, as long as I could remember, there was a deli called “The New Yorker” in Vinings. Seriously, like, from the late 1970s, I remember a place in one of those white buildings across from the fountain on Paces Ferry. I am so accustomed to the memory that I did not think twice about whether or not it was ever there, or still there, or gone. It was just part of Vinings, like the New York Pizza Exchange and the Vinings Inn and the church where Howard McDowell used to preach, which has been a La Paz upstairs and a Mellow Mushroom downstairs for at least fifteen years, but it’s still the church where, as an elementary schooler, I would regularly be sent to Vacation Bible School in the summer and await visits from the old Atlanta Braves Bleacher Creature.

So a few weeks ago, we were thinking about having some supper with Neal, and were looking around for a place in Vinings that was open Sunday and where we had not been in a while. I thumped the table with excitement about stopping by this place for the first time in ages. So we made a beeline for Vinings and Neal wondered where on earth we were going; the New Yorker is on the other side of Vinings, on Atlanta Road near Log Cabin. Sure enough, the buildings that I swore housed this place were occupied by a Starbucks and by a Jimmy John’s.

I thought for a couple of days that one of the girls at the restaurant cleared up the confusion. She told me that the present space was actually the second store; the original was indeed in “proper” Vinings on Paces Ferry, but it had moved near the square in Marietta. Another couple of locations have since popped up in the area. That seemed to clear everything up until I visited the restaurant’s web site and read that the business opened in 2002, far too late for it to be part of my childhood memories. So what the heck was that sandwich shop in Vinings that I’m thinking of, I wonder?

I feel pretty strongly about where Vinings actually is. Despite what some real estate agents and some clusters of apartment homes in Mableton would have you believe, Vinings is a very small place, and it is entirely inside the perimeter. Its boundaries are a pair of Kroger grocery stores. There is one on 41 and Paces Mill Road, and there is one on the south end of the neighborhood between Log Cabin and Atlanta Road. Its eastern border is the Chattahoochee River, and the western border is actually not I-285, but Cumberland Parkway. That’s not complicated. If you live OTP, then you’re in Smyrna and a wannabe.

They claim here, in actual-Vinings, to not be an imitation New York deli, but to provide a neat southern twist on things. I don’t know how accurate any of this is, but it is certainly really tasty! Neal had a fried bologna sandwich and really liked it, but I’m sure my sandwich was better. It’s called a Ryan’s Wise Guy and comes with with prosciutto, cappicola, pepperoni, lettuce, tomato, black olives, banana peppers, fresh mozzarella and balsamic vinaigrette. Just a terrific, big little sandwich at a reasonable price.

Anyway, Jack’s New Yorker Deli is open until 9 on Sundays, which is probably a little later than it needs to stay open. We wrapped up our meals by 8 and spent time gossiping and catching up and the place was hardly hopping. It is a terrific spot to go and gab. It’s a little hidden from the road, and easy to drive right past, but certainly worth a visit.

(Edit…) In December, I stopped by the Marietta Square store for an Ellis Island sandwich and fries. It was delicious. I like the “Deli Dust,” a little mix of salt, pepper, garlic and onion powder, sprinkled over the fries.

Eating Good Food Badly During Anime Weekend Atlanta

One thing is inescapably true: it’s incredibly difficult to eat well during any kind of convention. I must have hit a new low during Anime Weekend Atlanta at the beginning of the month. Oh, I had some pretty good meals, to be sure, but I didn’t temper them with, you know, vegetables or exercise or anything esoteric like that. It was like Fried Food Fest or something. Anyway, here’s a report on what I did to my arteries during the con, and why I spent the next few days eating a little more sensibly.

Friday’s lunch was a trip to Big Chow Grill, a regular Anime Weekend destination, in the company of my baby and two other very small guests. I met up with my friends Laura, Elizabeth and Jessica, none of whom I ever see enough of, and Jessica’s two small children, one aged two and the other just three weeks. It was observed that, if it takes a village to raise a child, it takes four people to have lunch and take care of three younguns. Things got so chaotic with loud little ones that I phoned my daughter for backup and had her wheel my baby into the mall to calm him down for a little bit. Big Chow was as good as ever – I had one medium-sized bowl of spicy stir-fried chicken over rice and a second medium-sized bowl of spicier stir-fried chicken over egg noodles – and our service was exemplary.

Marie was able to get to the show a little after six, and while my daughter continued being wild and twelve, Marie and I took the baby out for supper. We made it over to Smyrna’s US Cafe, a favorite of some of our family that I’ve been putting off revisiting for far too long.

We’ve never eaten at US Cafe as much as I would like, because, unaccountably, my daughter does not like the place. Neither does my brother, and whenever we would be visiting my mom and dad, he would always veto going there, even though it was so close by. It’s a very family-friendly sports bar, full of screaming kids, pool tables and big games on the TVs. For some, I’m sure it must be hell on earth, but the burgers and wings are very good and, of all things, the salsa they serve with the chips is just heavenly.

I’ve always liked this place a good deal, and my dad was friendly with the owners. He liked coming here a lot, and really liked the milkshakes. I had been putting off a visit, knowing I’d get sad thinking about my father, particularly with him not around to talk about football this season. But I was in the mood for a burger, and I don’t know whether there’s one better in the Smyrna area, so I bit my lip and we had a good meal.

Saturday morning, I probably should have had a small bowl of melons and blueberries for breakfast, but, as recounted in the previous chapter, we went to Mountain Biscuits and I had one with country ham and one with lots of syrup. Then for lunch, I met up with Matt at another sports bar, the Galleria’s Jocks and Jills, to watch the Georgia game.

There used to be several more Jocks and Jills locations in town, but according to their website, there’s just the one left, in the Cobb Galleria, where, presumably, the ground rent is a little manageable. There’s also one in Macon and another in Charlotte. It’s a sprawling sports bar with several rooms, including a space upstairs that is occupied during game time by Atlanta’s Rutgers Club. I tend not to pay much attention to what goes on in conferences other than the SEC (and now I have one and maybe two more teams to follow, so thanks a million, Slive), but while we were there, it looked like Rutgers was having a rough time of it at the hands of Syracuse.

When I watch a game out, I typically have an appetizer over the course of the first half, and then order an entree towards the end of halftime, and then tip quite generously for hogging a table for so long. This time I had some nachos – in a rare concession to health this weekend, I asked them to go very, very light on the cheese – and, later, some hamburger sliders with homemade chips. The food was acceptable and the service fantastic, but I wouldn’t go here unless I wanted to watch a game.

I only got a little bit of con time on Saturday before going to my mother’s house, which is closer than my own to the con, to change. I went to go see Bryan Ferry with David and a couple of his friends from “back in the day,” Tom and Patt, with whom he was haunting clubs thirty years before. Bry was playing the same venue, Chastain Park, where I first saw him in 1988. Heck of a good show, if perhaps not his best, and enlivened by guitarist Chris Spedding ripping the absolute hell out of Neil Young’s “Like a Hurricane.”

Afterwards, David said that he was in the mood for greasy burgers. I found myself not really feeling like arguing. So we ended up at a Steak ‘n Shake, where I ate the new Fritos Chili Cheeseburger, which is the absolute last thing anybody on the planet needs to eat at midnight. It’s two patties, a slice of pepperjack, shredded cheese, chili and jalapeno peppers. Evidently, I didn’t really feel like avoiding a heart attack, either, eating such a thing at midnight. There were several other late-evening revelers from the convention, all costumed up, all similarly damaging their arteries. It sure was good, though.

I ate better on Sunday. Promise.

Update, 4/5/12: Some months later, months which, I swear, I ate better, I stopped by US Cafe’s other Cobb County location. This smaller “express” outlet is a lot less noisy, but the burgers and shakes are just as good.