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)

The Marietta Square Farmers Market

This is Marie, talking this time about the Marietta Square Farmer’s Market, which we’ve been visiting most Saturday mornings for the last few years, even if parking there is often difficult. Since 2008, it has grown and there is usually a very nice crowd.

The organic eggs sold by vendors there taste so much better than standard commercial products that they are just about the first things I go for every visit. The first couple of years I went there were only a very few vendors who sold eggs, and they often sold out very early. This year it seems every third vendor is selling eggs, so I can actually go a little late, say 9:30 or so, and still be able to get my fix. The first year there was a lovely older gentleman who was a ball to talk to and who also sold turkey eggs as well as chicken eggs; sadly, he didn’t have a card, doesn’t seem to visit the Marietta market any more, and my memory is terribly faulty, so I can’t share his name with you.

My current loyalties are with a business called Little Red Hen Farms. While their eggs taste just as good as those from the other vendors, the deciding factor is a) I have a strange fondness for the green eggs from araucana chickens, and b) these folks sell the eggs in dozen-and-a-half lots, which seems to be just about the right amount. They also have a web site and Facebook page where I can see happy chickens walking around in grass. That means a lot to me. Another dealer I have had good experiences with is Bray Family Farms.

After getting my egg fix I wander around to the veggie dealers. The farmer’s market prices in Marietta don’t discount all that much from grocery store prices; the main benefit is in quality of product. There is a large stand at the entrance of the market that is a resale place, and they generally have all the seasonal stuff first because they get some of their things from Florida early in the season, and then they keep getting things later than the local folks because they ship from the Carolinas. The truly local folks have a more limited selection but generally their things are a little better, especially the ones who sell tomatoes. You can get a very wide variety of those, and although it is well worth paying a little extra for the heirloom types, even the standard commercial varieties taste better when they have been picked the day before. The hydroponic lettuce dealers are pretty good, too, and I can’t say that one is better than the other; that said, Lee and Gordon Greens has given very slightly faster customer service and good advice. The thing I like most about their products is that they sell the whole head of lettuce with roots, so if you wrap the roots in a wet paper towel you can keep your purchase crisp and wonderful in the fridge for a surprisingly long time. There are a few other folks who have the extremely seasonal goods – one vendor sells out of a basketful of lovely things called Dragon Tongue beans during their extremely brief season, for example. Look for whatever obscure heirloom variety makes you happy.

Another of my favorite vendors is Emily G’s Jam of Love. Yes, I know, you may balk at paying $8 for a container of jam. However, if you actually look at the ingredients list for just about any commercially available one you will see that sugar is the first ingredient, rather than the fruit. If you do see fruit as the first ingredient, check whether that’s because they use more than one kind of sweetener – usually that accounts for the placement. A really good, flavorful jam has to be mostly fruit by weight, and that’s what these folks do. They have some interesting varieties as well; their Bold Blue is a really good accompaniment to pork, for instance, and the seasonal Pear Honey is delectable. The nice thing about going to the farmer’s market is that you can actually taste the varieties before you buy, so you don’t wind up choosing at random. Though honestly, you’ll probably be happy with whatever you pick up.

A favorite of the children is the Hometown Honey stand. They sell flavored honey straws along with pollen, regular honey, and beeswax. I have to admit at having picked up a few honey straws for snacking myself. The kids also enjoy Zara May’s Handcrafted Fudge. I try to avoid getting even the samples there because my limited budget winds up being spent on things we can actually turn into dinners.

After the essentials are taken care of, I usually try and pick up some chocolate milk from Johnston Family Farm. I say “try” because it’s a stupendously good product in very limited supply, and you have to be quick or it’s going to be gone gone gone. My husband actually has to cut his portion of chocolate with skim milk because it’s that rich. After that, if there’s any money left, it’s open season on the treats and goodies.

The King of Pops vendor who recently started coming to the market has some appallingly tasty products. Grant was tempted to come join us shopping when we told him that King of Pops was selling Arnold Palmer flavored popsicles, but sadly that wasn’t among the ones they brought the following week. He bought an orange coconut for the boychild, and we shared a raspberry lime. Truly, you have never had a popsicle this good.

Paul’s Pot Pies have been welcome, albeit infrequent, additions to our menu. I recommend the creole shrimp flavor, which is not always carried – ask about it. After checking their web site as a refresher I realize that another flavor that hasn’t been in the free samples is chicken curry–I will need to check them out. Another recent addition to the “only for a splurge” is Atlanta Fresh Artisan Creamery. Their yogurt is great. I wish I could afford more of it.

The farmer’s market in Marietta may not be very large as these things go, but it is a pleasant experience every time. And if you enjoy free samples, you will definitely have a good time grazing the aisles.

Hambones BBQ and Chapman Drugs, Hapeville GA

This past Friday after work, I drove down to Hapeville, an inside-the-perimeter suburb best known for being that place in Atlanta where the airport is, and was very pleasantly surprised to find some genuinely amazing barbecue at Hambones, a restaurant that I hadn’t heard of before last month. Sadly, I don’t remember where I heard about it beyond “Facebook.” Nobody has (yet) stepped forward to let me know it was them, or one of their friends, who mentioned the place, so I don’t know whom I should thank, but man, somebody’s due a handshake.

Hambones has been open for several years on a side street off the main drag (Central Avenue) through town. In a really weird bit of real estate, it is within sight of another barbecue place called Pit Boss. I had considered just doing a sandwich and stew at each place, but it didn’t work out that way, because the amount of food that Hambones serves up is pretty ridiculously huge. I had the “Q and Stew” lunch special, which comes with a big sandwich, a bucket of stew, a shot glass of a second side and a Big Gulp-sized drink for under nine bucks, and so Pit Boss will have to wait for another visit.

On a side note, I have been totally lucking out lately in finding places with amazingly good Brunswick stew. It’s like the food gods are paying me back for that awful, wretched stew that I had at Georgia Pig down in Glynn County last month. In April, I’ve been knocked out by how good the stew has been at Speedi-Pig, Dave Poe’s and now at Hambones. The stew here is thick with chicken, pork, corn, tomatoes and lima beans and I really enjoyed it hugely.

Hambones nominally opens at 11, but in reality, the doors are unlocked a little early, because the lunch crowd this place gets is huge and in a hurry. The setup is a little unusual. They have a carry-out register at the bar, and a small register for dine-in orders. The register set-up, in any other business, would look like the place where you bring your check on the way out, rather than a “order first” window with a big menu board. The lunch line is long, and you pick up a menu on the way to the small register. The design of the place is no-frills, with mismatched chairs, large, dark interiors with a few scattered TVs tuned to ESPN, and a hideous overuse of the awful Comic Sans font on all the menus and labels. It is the polar opposite of a franchise chain, as it should be.

At any rate, when you order the lunch special, you get your choice of chopped pork, chicken or beef. They will serve it sliced or pulled for a fifty-cent fee. I also noticed that they charge fifty cents extra for fries, which is very unusual. Many places, including Dave Poe’s, will charge you an extra half dollar for the stew but call fries a regular side. I later learned that Hambones makes their fries in-house and they are very popular. Perhaps I should have tried those.

The pork is very tender and very smoky and doesn’t need sauce, but there are three on the table and they are all very good. The house sauce is a traditional red tomato-vinegar mix, and the house hot sauce is the same, only amped up with peppers. I liked this one best, but I was also quite taken with the rib sauce, a black mixture which tasted to me like there was less vinegar in it. In all, this was a quite good meal, with a lot of food served up with a lot of character for a very fair price.

I wasn’t quite done with Hapeville, because I heard about a soda fountain in town and so I went to go get some dessert. Central Avenue forms a main street through the small city. We’d driven through it some months back, during the short barbecue tour that the family took in January after the ice storm, to get from the I-75 corridor south of the city over to College Park. Driving through it, I could then feel the icy fingers of my past crawling along my spine. I think that this girl whom I inadvisedly dated for a few months way back when I was in high school lived around here.

There are just a few retail places along Central that are still open, with several restaurants keeping traffic coming through. Chapman Drugs is located next to the Freemason lodge, and there’s plenty of twenty minute street parking; just enough to grab something from the pharmacy and a milkshake or a limeade. I had two-scoop malt with peach and vanilla and it was just wonderful. Every milkshake should be that good.

Chapman Drugs is, inconveniently, not open on Saturdays. (Neither is Hambones, for that matter. I have to curl an eyebrow over barbecue joints where you can’t get a Saturday lunch.) This does raise the issue of when Marie will be able to come down here and enjoy a milkshake with me, but she’ll have a maternity leave in a month or so, and I think she will certainly be due an awesome milkshake. Maybe we can visit Pit Boss as well for lunch first and I can see which of the two barbecue places on Virginia Avenue I prefer.