West Cobb Diner, Marietta GA

This is Marie, contributing a chapter on the West Cobb Diner. This was a place chosen by my mother-in-law, who wanted to have an opportunity to show off her newest grandchild to her friends, so of course that makes this a place that is friendly to large groups straggling in at odd times. Much better than the places that like to keep a big group in waiting area purgatory until Mr./Ms. Always-late arrives!

The West Cobb Diner was actually on our list of places to check out before this invitation, but when we tried to go, the wait time was much too long and we had to go to plan B that day. We learned then that this restaurant is really difficult to find. It is hidden in a very nice strip mall and completely invisible from the road. I was very pleased to get the invitation, not least because I certainly don’t mind showing off the kid even though there was a competing and newer baby at the same lunch! There will always be younger babies than mine, but he is still new enough it’s hard to wrap my mind around the idea that someone might want to look at some other child.

Anyway, we made it there after about half the table had been served, but with a few diners still to come. It was a friendly crowd and the only disadvantage I could tell was that the table and noise level made it a bit difficult to carry on a conversation with anyone not actually next to or across from you. The server did a great job keeping track of all of us and keeping our glasses full. She wasn’t going to let the guaranteed large-table tip limit her.

The food has a Southern-style slant, with fried green tomatoes in the starters, pimento cheese on the burgers, bacon in the beans and white gravy for the biscuits – but you can also get a steak if you want it, or thai noodle salad, or any of a number of other things not strictly Southern but which don’t appear to clash at all. One of the benefits of going with a huge crowd is seeing what everyone else gets and making a note for the future of anything interesting on their plates. My next order is probably going to be the meat loaf or the pork chops.

I got the vegetable plate, sadly passing on the non-vegetarian beans and peas, and wasn’t able to finish it all. The food is very good, well-made and stayed hot while I wandered around the table to bring the baby to various fans calling for his presence. Since I tend to eat too fast because I don’t like food that has gone cold, that’s saying something. The food is simply well-made. For a place with a fairly large menu, that is pretty good. Make sure to check out the menu board to see what is available for vegetables. As a transplanted Yankee, it does always strike me as odd that things like mac-n-cheese are counted as vegetables, but all the sides I got and those ordered by others looked great.

And of course a review by me wouldn’t be complete without a comment on the desserts. The diner has a glass case with a selection of cakes, pudding and pies that is comprehensive without being overwhelming. The servings are generous, especially the chocolate layer cake.

Starkville, Mississippi – part one

Not long after moving to Starkville, Mississippi, my brother-in-law Karl joined the local chapter of a fraternal organization. On our first evening there, we got to meet some of his friends from that group when we went to their usual Thursday evening post-meeting dinner retreat, the Central Station Grill. This is one of the city’s nicer, in the “clean and upscale” department, restaurants, the sort of place that most undergraduates at Mississippi State probably “take” their parents for a nice dinner in the hopes that Dad’ll get the tab. The food here was pretty good, but my children had better not try that scam with me. Wherever they go to college, and I hope that they will go far away and cultivate memories unencumbered by my own, they should know to “take” me to someplace with a lot more soul than this. Continue reading “Starkville, Mississippi – part one” →

The Red Arrow Diner, Manchester NH

(Honeymoon flashback: In July 2009, Marie and I took a road trip up to Montreal and back, enjoying some really terrific meals over our ten-day expedition. I’ve selected some of those great restaurants, and, once per month, we’ll tell you about them.)

We spent our fourth evening of the trip at a Super 8 in White Plains Junction, Vermont. The goal, as we left that state, had been to get as close as we could to Manchester, the largest city in the northernmost three New England states, and have breakfast at the Red Arrow Diner. It took this long on the trip to turn up some of the restaurants featured in the first bookshelf collection of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. I read about this place and knew that I wanted to visit.

The Red Arrow Diner originally opened in 1922 but it has changed hands quite a few times over the years. Currently owned by Carol Sheehan, the joint has a huge following of traveling foodies and late night guests, all of whom are looking for some awesome greasy spoon atmosphere and some really interesting items on the menu. Marie had pie for breakfast and I had a plate of what they call American chop suey, a big, heavy dish of pasta in a tomato sauce that probably wasn’t screaming out for me to eat it at 8 in the morning.

Somehow, I got the insane idea that, because it was breakfast time, I really needed to have a glass of orange juice with that. You know what would have been better? Any beverage. Anything.

Another specialty at Red Arrow are the Dinah Fingers, which are homemade Twinkies. If you’ve tried to eat a Twinkie in the last decade, you might have noticed that they don’t taste like Twinkies anymore, but some noxious concoction of chemical sludge. Dinah Fingers taste like you remember Twinkies tasting when you were a kid. We took a couple for the road, and they were really yummy.

We also got to overhear the most amazing conversation next to us, when the two locals with whom we were talking about Georgia greeted an old friend they’d not seen since he went to prison for killing a guy. So the three of them talked about life in “the joint” – they genuinely called it that – and the buck an hour he’d been earning in the prison library. Eventually I had to interrupt them to say that this was surely the finest conversation I’d ever overheard strangers having.

Thoroughly stuffed and pleased, we went outside to take some more pictures, and the Red Arrow’s owner, Ms. Sheehan, who was backing out on her way to some meeting, stopped to say hello and take one of us. That’s one thing we picked up from this trip: the restaurants featured on Guy Fieri’s show and tie-in book have had a tremendous, carry-on boom in business, and they certainly repay that with some fantastic hospitality.

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.

Willie Rae’s, Marietta GA (CLOSED)

Here’s another long overdue visit to a very popular destination in Marietta, this one right on the square. I added Willie Rae’s, which is about to celebrate its eleventh anniversary, to my to-do list many months ago after seeing a good writeup of it somewhere. This is a place that tries, with some success, to mix up a menu of southwestern, southern, and Creole-styled dishes in an upscale environment surrounded by lovely, folksy artwork on the walls.

They don’t always pull it off. One black hole on the menu is the inclusion of Lay’s potato chips as a side to some of their dishes. Try as I might, I just don’t see the point of lavishing attention on a burger in the kitchen and then serving it with plain Lay’s. But when they get it right, the results are magnificent.

Location is everything in the world of restaurants, deciding what is hip and cool. If Willie Rae’s was inside the perimeter, people would have been raving about it for ages. Sitting quietly on the Marietta Square, it’s easily ignored by the ITP crowd. Interestingly, walking around the square, you can see quite a few very good restaurants, none of which attract much commentary or blogging. Hollie Guacamole! and Tommy’s Sandwich Shop are both pretty good, as are Johnnie McCracken’s and the Marietta Pizza Company. There are four or more very nice, upscale restaurants, at least three places to get desserts, including a cupcake place – one of the latest trends – and Traveling Fare, which sells wonderful pot pies at the weekly farmer’s market, but despite ample free parking, nobody wants to venture up here except office workers and people with court business.

Well, if you do feel like braving the mean streets of Cobb County, you’re certain to get a pretty good meal at Willie Rae’s. I arrived early and looked around in a cute toy store two doors down while waiting for them to open. Within twenty minutes, there was a pretty good crowd in the place, proving that just because us weirdos with blogs aren’t yammering about it, business is still pretty good.

I was a little disappointed that I would have to pay a bit more than I wanted for some chips and salsa – apparently you can only get some by paying six bucks for a really big appetizer with cheese dip and an avocado sauce as well – so I had a small cup of very good jambalaya instead. It was served piping hot in a coffee mug on a little saucer and they didn’t scrimp on any of the meats. This was really tasty, although I don’t know that I’d like a full-sized serving of it with so many other interesting things on the menu.

I had the chicken burrito, served with a very good Caesar salad. The burrito was absolutely packed with really tasty chicken and just a few peppers. I was so pleased to pay a good price for a meal here and really get my money’s worth in very good, seasoned meat, not a big pile of rice or other fillers. The burrito was covered in a wonderful cheese sauce. I think I might have asked for a very small cup of salsa for the chicken, but it was just fine without it. It’s really a good feeling when a place meets your expectations so fully, you know?

I’d love to see some of my peers with larger audiences come up to the square and give these places a try. If Willie Rae’s was on Howell Mill, or in Asheville, people would be raving about the food and the atmosphere. The food certainly warrants it, and you’re guaranteed to get a kick out of all the fun artwork. Well, people are raving, just not people with blogs.

Mister Up’s, Middlebury VT

(Honeymoon flashback: In July 2009, Marie and I took a road trip up to Montreal and back, enjoying some really terrific meals over our ten-day expedition. I’ve selected some of those great restaurants, and, once per month, we’ll tell you about them.)

This is Marie, contributing a honeymoon flashback about a trip we took to Middlebury in Vermont. When we were planning the itinerary for this trip, it became fairly clear that a visit to Vermont and my old alma mater would be easy to work into the plan. Vermont, after all, could fit into Georgia several times over, and although in my memory of carless college days the state was inconveniently large, to my Georgia-trained eye now everything there is convenient to everywhere else.

The drive down from Montreal was a treat. The countryside in that area is beautiful. In an upcoming flashback, my husband will provide commentary on that topic, because he tells the Tale of The Spooky Hotel better than I do. We even got to stop at a little roadside fruit stand in southern Quebec (I do love those, sometimes to the apparent bafflement of my guy) and pick up some of the proprietor’s homemade jam and fruit syrup.

As we got closer to Middlebury I realized what a treasure box of memories the place is to me. Even the drive through the countryside made me happy, bringing up memories of the field I looked for on every trip where the farmer had buffalo, and the pick-your-own place where a friend of mine and I went together and I got my first chance to fill a bucket with blueberries.

Along the way from Burlington to Middlebury, we passed a little store that I’d always looked at while being driven in someone else’s car or the van pool to or from the airport, Dakin Farms. Man, I had been missing out all along, and so had the people whose cars I was using. When we left Middlebury and returned north, we stopped and had a great time shopping. Dakin Farms has some fabulous stuff, and whoever was driving me all those years ago would have done well to stop and get a jug of their syrup, or a bottle of their small label soft drinks, or a can of their baked beans which are unlike any others I’ve had. Seriously, they may be locally famous for their ham and smoked meats, but if you are any kind of BBQ fan you will want to try out those maple flavored beans. I could eat a can by themselves as a meal.

As we came into the town of Middlebury itself, I was planning on having us eat at the little sandwich place where I had spent the bulk of my college-constrained pittance of outside-the-meal-plan lunch dollars. It was sadly no longer around, although we had a fun time wandering around looking for it in case it had moved. The shopping area where it had lived was still quirky and had many local businesses, but nothing that had remained of the ones I remembered. The only place that would do for a second was Mr. Ups, of which more in a bit.

The second and third places where I spent my money (on food, that is – I did of course bring Grant to the used book stores which are delightful but there is no room for them here) were the Otter Creek Bakery and the Middlebury Market (which back then wasn’t also a cafe). The Market was just a place to pick up snacks and ice cream and black plums ripened in the sun in front of the store. To a Georgia-trained eye that seemed decadent; you could not possibly expect to keep fruit long enough to sell it if you did that down in these parts.

The bakery was a place to revel in the delights of all things sugary and yeasty. I loved that place as a college student –as I recall, they provided the bread for the sandwich place I loved– and should have bought up half the store when we stopped by. Regrettably I restrained myself to a few cookies and some moments lingering to admire the loaves stacked up on the shelves behind the counter and the cheeses they had added since my last visits. They, too, had added a cafe to their repertoire, though since the space was still very small it was a touch crowded. However, we had already decided on Mr. Ups for lunch, so I tore myself away. The raspberry jam cookies purchased on that visit would come in very handy the next day, when I would regret not having bought twice as many. Oh, I miss that place! If cheap teleportation is ever invented they will have me back as a loyal customer instantly. But on to our lunch.

It took me a moment and some directions from a local to find the restaurant, because although it was a highly memorable place it wasn’t one I actually had gone to very often. My budget was more of the $2.50 sandwich level than the (then) $7 or $10 meal variety. Still, it was the place to go for special occasions, and where I brought my folks when they came up for my graduation. Also, they had baked goods themselves, some wonderful zucchini bread available on the salad bar being a particular favorite of mine. Honestly, although I remember the food as being tasty, the memories of sitting on the deck with my guy and watching the river flow past are stronger for me from this visit – I think I was having memories for lunch instead of the sandwich that was actually on my plate.

It was deeply satisfactory to be able to provide Grant with an opportunity to have some gazpacho, since he’d had a number of disappointments in the cold tomato soup area for quite a few times that year. I can’t exactly claim credit for that since I’d no recollection at the time of any such item being on the menu, but seeing his eyes light up on noticing that was worth stopping all on its own, and luckily it was even quite good.

Blossom Deli, Charleston WV (CLOSED)

Well, here’s an interesting turn-up for our blog. This is the first time that I’ve written anything about a restaurant which has apparently changed dramatically since we actually visited it. In fact, when I decided back in October to do these honeymoon flashback chapters, I realized that I would unfortunately be writing a little obituary for Blossom Deli in Charleston, but that only lasted a couple of weeks before word got out that the place would be reopening under new ownership. In December, Blossom reopened to a lot of goodwill, best wishes and crossed fingers.

This is a restaurant with a very curious and fun history. Apparently, the original Blossom Dairy was started in the 1920s by one Samuel Sloman. He eventually branched out to old-fashioned lunch counters, and there were somewhere between six and ten of them in the region. It’s one of these stores, opened in 1938, that is still with us, although no longer in family hands and after several periods of closure and neglect. It’s in downtown Charleston on Quarrier Street, and the original version apparently stuck around for at least fifteen years – Mr. Sloman passed away in 1953 – but eventually shuttered and lay dormant for years. I’ve found conflicting reports as to exactly when the original Blossom Dairy closed, and for how long this period of closure lasted, so take what you hear with a grain of salt. I’ve even heard tell that at some point in the eighties, the building was an all-ages punk club.

I’ll tell you what’s really neat to think about. You know the Nero Wolfe adventure Too Many Cooks? Well, possibly not. Anyway, the action takes place at a fictionalized version of the exclusive West Virginia retreat Kanawha Spa. If we can imagine that Archie Goodwin would have been asked by the state’s attorney’s office to return to Charleston to give evidence in the capital murder case that would have followed the events of that story, then it stands to reason that Archie would have gone somewhere for a corned beef sandwich and two glasses of milk. I didn’t actually enjoy that particular novel, finding it dated and Wolfe’s views on race patronizing, but I liked it a lot more when I realized that, having never been to Manhattan, the Blossom Dairy is the first place I’ve visited that Archie Goodwin might have also been. And it looks much the same as it would have back then.

At any rate, after however long a period of closure, the Blossom reopened, now called Blossom Deli but retaining the original signage. Changing the sign would have been a crime against cuisine, fashion, design and history, anyway. Just look at that awesome art deco block lettering and all that red and the entryway’s beautiful curves. If that doesn’t make you want to put on a wartime-era suit and hat to go in for a milkshake, you probably need to put down the cell phone and quit texting teenagers, kid.

Under the more modern management, Blossom Deli turned into a restaurant so impressive that I described it as being what Marietta Diner wants to be when it grows up. It had evolved into what’s a said-to-be-awesome sandwich shop in the daytime, and then at night, they turn the lights down and pull out the tablecloths and have a very upscale supper menu in place. At all times, they serve fabulous desserts. Marie had a chocolate mousse that was so rich and amazing that even she couldn’t finish it, but she retired it with a big smile on her face. We stopped in about a half hour after finishing supper several blocks away at Bluegrass Kitchen. I don’t suppose there’s any tactful way to tell somebody that you’re going to pass on their dessert and go get a sweet treat someplace else, but when the goal is to visit several places in a community, that’s what you need to do.

Blossom is about a block-and-a-half from a really super independent bookstore called Taylor Books, which has been hanging on and serving its community during this tough recession and the general battering that indie sellers have taken over the last few years. We left town very impressed, and while our hearts would later be stolen by Asheville, we certainly saw downtown Charleston as a place where we could be very happy. When you add in the delightful conversation that we had at Bluegrass Kitchen, it looked like a really fantastic community, and that’s why I got genuinely upset, doing a little research into the restaurants that we visited, to find the team at Fork You writing, in September, about Blossom Deli’s impending demise.

Since then, I’ve been following the story as new links have emerged. Here are three news stories about Blossom – apparently, for legal reasons, no longer “Dairy” nor “Deli” – and its latest incarnation, which opened on December 2nd. (One, Two, and Three.) The new ownership team of Jay Cipoletti, Mark Hartling and James Nester, with chef Matthew Grover, have inherited a lot of goodwill and a lot of hope. They are presently open only for lunch, their upscale supper plans on hold until they find their feet a little better. We may be seven hours away and unlikely to return anytime soon, but I certainly wish them the best, and a long and successful career in that awesome building.