Pie Shop (CLOSED) and Smashburger, Atlanta GA

A few Fridays back, I took Marie and the children out for supper. Naturally, I’d heard talk about Denver’s Smashburger chain and their decision to invade our turf. I feel pretty confident in the quality of Atlanta’s home-grown burger joints; Smashburger must be pretty confident in their ability to show us up at our own game.

Other burger joints have tried; their store in the Lindbergh neighborhood has actually gone into the space that Fatburger vacated. So, is Smashburger good enough to play with the big boys?

The answer is emphatically yes. This is a much better meal than what Fatburger offered. It’s considerably better than Grindhouse, and it’s better than Cheeseburger Bobby’s, which is really good, but most of Atlanta’s never-cross-the-perimeter crowd still don’t know about. It’s a lot better than Five Guys. Your mileage may vary, but I enjoyed the heck out of this.

On our first visit, I had the Atlanta Burger. One of this chain’s really fun quirks is to tailor one menu item to go with each city where they open. So our town’s signature burger comes with pimento cheese, peach barbecue sauce, grilled jalapenos and cole slaw. It was terrific; I enjoyed it with a side of fried pickles and was ready for a second. Actually, I think that they’re missing one cute trick here. You know how everybody who writes about food on the internet talks with a wink about In-N-Out Burger and their “secret” menu? Smashburger should definitely have ingredients and recipes for all these signature burgers in the system, so that, even not on the menu, a guest in Atlanta can ask for a Denver burger, or whatever. Sadly, on a follow-up visit, where I had the “Ultimate Cheese” – excellent, but really more defined by the pile of fried onions than the cheese – the manager said that you’d have to order the signatures “manually,” using the “create your own” ingredients, and hope the local store has what you need.

On that first visit, Marie had a classic burger and really liked it, and did a “create your own” the next time out. On the first visit, she had the fries tossed in a little herb mixture of olive oil and rosemary, and sweet potato fries the next time. We agree that these are better burgers than most places in the city, and certainly in the top ten.

Now, while many of this city’s bloggers have been covering the burgers quite well (Amy on Food, as always, has some terrific photos in her short report), I don’t see where anybody has mentioned the salads. My daughter, who loves good burgers, decided to get a salad this evening, and none of us were prepared for its size. While the basic burger, available in three sizes, is quite sensibly proportioned, the salad comes in a bucket only slightly smaller than your head. Don’t order one of these unless you’d like to share. In all, it is really good food and quite nicely priced. The three of us ate well for under $20.

Electing to continue visiting places that are all the rage this summer, after we finished, we passed on a Smashburger milkshake – made from Häagen-Dazs ice cream – and drove over to Pie Shop in Buckhead to see what they had to offer. I think that I broke Marie. Sometimes, food makes her so happy that strange things happen. We went back to my mother’s house to pick up her car and she fell asleep on the couch, dreaming of blueberries.

Now, one thing that I really didn’t like about Pie Shop was having to pay to park, but that’s the suburbanite in me talking. I’ve got old-fashioned ideas about parking in strip malls. This place is located around the back of an old strip center, above and behind a nail place, on Roswell Road, between the Shane’s Rib Shack and the Roxy, and parking costs five bucks*. If you were going to just hop in to buy a pie to go – they run between $30 and $40, or $4.60 a slice – you could probably get away with it, but if you’re going to stay for your dessert and a glass of milk, you’d probably better cough up the money.

Okay, the other thing that I really didn’t like was that I read The Food Abides’ glowing review of the place earlier that afternoon and was roaring ready to try their ganache pie. They didn’t have any. I had to make do with chocolate cream, which is just about my favorite kind of pie anyway, other than shoofly. It was amazing. I had a scoop of whipped cream along with it. You’ve never had whipped cream so good. I washed it down with a glass of milk. It took quite a long time to finish. If I hadn’t paid my five bucks, they could’ve towed my car twice over. It was just so rich and wonderful that I had to eat it very slowly.

The pie that ended up knocking Marie out was the blueberry. After some debate, my daughter went for the key lime, which was fresh out of the oven. It’s fun to watch her at work. My daughter does not often praise business owners or thank them for meals, unless she’s so bowled over that a fuss must be made. She ended up telling one of the girls that work there that she loved the food, and, in answer to their sign, as a pie lover, she should work there and asked would they hire her. Never mind that she’s twelve.

There isn’t really enough room at Pie Shop to linger. Most of the interior is given over to the baking area, with cooking tables and ovens, with just two tables for guests to sit. I thought the place was completely charming and the food was just remarkable, but we might do better to pick up some slices to take back to my mother’s place next time. For one, we won’t have to pay to park (but see below), and for another, we can more safely enjoy a food coma with a sofa upon which to collapse.

*Update: An unfortunate mistake here; Pie Shop’s owner, Mims, wrote to let us know that the parking is enforced only during the later evening, when the clubs are open! Nothing is stopping you. Go!

Update: In early December, Smashburger moved into our neighborhood with a store on Barrett Parkway in front of Town Center. It’s very nice to have such a quality meal available so close to us, especially with the yummy pimento cheeseburger as an option.

Australian Bakery Cafe, Marietta GA

So Melissa, my former boss who urban-evacuated herself to the side of some mountain up near Ball Ground, and I were walking around the Marietta Square with the baby, figuring that one of the many restaurants there would tempt us. I had mentioned that there was an alleged Australian bakery there, and no sooner did her eyebrows raise did I realize that I had no idea what the heck that meant, either. Was this a place we could go to try one of those vegemite sandwiches that Men at Work sang about, or just a place that sells cookies shaped like koala bears?

It turns out it’s really more of the former, but while I didn’t see any koalas in the display case, you can get cookies shaped like the continent of Australia. Well, of course.

This isn’t entirely a silly affectation. The bakery is run by Mark Allen and Neville Steel, two childhood friends from the town of Boort, who met again in the late seventies studying at William Angliss Food College in Melbourne. Various explorations in the food business followed, with Allen moving to the US in 1991. Here (apparently on the west coast), he introduced Americans to the Australian meat pie, a sensibly-portioned single serving of various meats and fillings baked in a wonderful crust. Allen and Steel reunited in Marietta in 2001 to bring these meat pies to the east coast, and provide a stopping point for homesick ex-pats. It’s their contention that many Australians and New Zealanders swing by on visits through Georgia for a taste of home, and to pick up some Australian groceries, including, of course, jars of vegemite.

Melissa and I stopped by on a Thursday and there was a pretty good lunch crowd. The shop is decorated with as much over-the-top Australian memorabilia as is possible, including flags of each of that country’s states hanging from the ceiling. The staff is incredibly friendly and nice, and did an appropriate job admiring my baby.

I had the lamb curry pie with a side salad and thought it was just splendid. It really wasn’t at all spicy, which my tongue was craving, but it was seasoned just right and satisfied me all the same. The crust was just super flaky and it tasted so fresh. It left me very curious what their dessert pies are like. I washed this down with a terrific Bundeberg brand sarsaparilla, which Melissa grabbed by mistake when reaching for the ginger beer. It was lighter than I expected, but I bet it goes great over ice cream.

I probably should have taken some home. A glance over the grocery shelves turns up all sorts of unusual goodies, from sodas to the yeast spreads to fun-looking candies with silly names (Tim Tams?). I may have to stop in again sometime and do a little shopping.

Armstrong’s Barbecue, Summerville GA

I first visited Armstrong’s in early November, 2001. The Reverend Howard Finster had died shortly before, and so I took my children to pay our respects at his Paradise Gardens in Summerville, a town in northwest Georgia. While there, I remember blowing a tire, necessitating a trip to a nearby shop, and also having a really inexpensive meal at Armstrong’s. According to notes that I made at the time for my old Geocities page, theirs was among the cheapest barbecue plates of any restaurant in Georgia. A princely $3.99, then, would get you sliced pork with two sides. Today, that plate costs only $6.25, which is still among the lowest prices I can imagine for this much food. Continue reading “Armstrong’s Barbecue, Summerville GA” →

LeRoy’s Fried Chicken, Atlanta GA (CLOSED)

In a recent chapter, I noted how my interest in out-of-the-way and unheralded restaurants occasionally leads me pretty far away from the trendiest of local places. But it’s good to keep an eye on what’s going on in town and check out what people are buzzing about. I don’t get to the hawt new restaurants all that often, particularly the tableclothed ones, and I’m sometimes disappointed that location means as much as it does to some regional reviewers. Would LeRoy’s Fried Chicken be getting all this attention if it was on the Square in Marietta? Almost assuredly not.

Anyway, sometimes I go eat somewhere because it’s where all the cool kids are going.

They’re also complaining a lot. Since opening in June, Chef Julia LeRoy has evidently been having consistency issues. Either that, or a fickle public is complaining overmuch about prices, long waits, and a lack of parking, and this and that. So I knew going in that this might not be a successful visit, but I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. I’m glad to say that it worked out just fine.

I had a mid-length shift at work letting me out after 12:30, and so I had a couple of backup plans in case LeRoy’s was too crowded. Fortunately, there was still one space in front to park. (Unfortunately, it’s a complete nightmare getting back out onto Howell Mill, especially when a big truck is five hundred feet ahead, blocking the lane while unloading!) It’s all outdoor seating here, with only seven tables. Yes, there is a wait after you place your order, as the chicken, locally raised from Springer Mountain Farms and cooked in lard, is fried to order. They were finishing up a few other guests’ orders as I waited for perhaps eight or maybe nine minutes for my food.

It looks like they have heard guest complaints about the fairly high prices here and have offered a few “combo meal” options. I had two pieces of dark meat, fresh-cut fries, a biscuit and a bottle of properly sugared Coke from Mexico for just under ten bucks. Prior to assembling a few specials for their guests, the cost would have been nearer to twelve. I’m not quite sure what the complainers are comparing these prices against to find room to argue. It seems to me that most really good lunches in the area are going to run around this price.

I think that there’s simply a stigma against high-priced fried chicken, as public perception of fried chicken is something consumed in mass quantities from mediocre chains at a low price. “Feed your family” pricing at places like KFC have just dominated peoples’ concept of what good chicken should cost, I guess. I found this to be a very fair price for excellent food. Admittedly, I really don’t order fried chicken very often, but this was among the best that I can recall having lately. The meat was very tender, and while it was greasy, it was not disgusting. However they are prepping this chicken, they have absolutely nailed the mix of really moist and juicy meat with a crispy, crunchy crust. It was, flatly, as far removed from the food available at a Church’s as a really good burger is from a Wendy’s. The fries were also very good and nicely salty. The biscuit was buttery and crumbly. They thoughtfully included an extra little pat of butter. The bread doesn’t need it, frankly.

Incidentally, I’ve been wondering about the inclusion of Mexican Coke on the menu. It’s among several interesting bottled drinks like Cheerwine. I’ve been seeing this more frequently, buzz restaurants getting praise and attention for taking the extra step of ordering Coca-Cola with sugar instead of cane syrup. Sublime Doughnuts has been getting that in lately as well. I wonder whether this is having any impact, anywhere? Is some distributor reporting to his superior about how more of these trendsetting places are refusing to take the local corn syrup stuff and getting sugared Coke in from somebody else?

Anyway, I’m glad that I waited until it was just cool enough to make this place worth a visit. If they were stumbling when they opened in June, they’ve certainly got it together now. It’s a delicious and fine treat that I enjoyed a great deal. Sometimes, the crowd knows what it is talking about, and sometimes a good restaurant like this can address public grumbling with excellent results.

(Update 10/26/11: Sadly, this experiment didn’t last, and LeRoy’s shuttered yesterday.)

O.B.’s BBQ, McDonough GA

I have been driving past O.B.’s for many years, not knowing that it is the last remaining store in a failed expansion into the suburbs of Atlanta. Similar in a way to The Mad Italian and Old Hickory House, the large store in McDonough is the only thing remaining from an attempt at growing that just didn’t take. There used to be three more locations, including one further south down I-75 at that Tanger Outlet Mall in Locust Grove, and one in south Cobb County, near Mableton. This store was sold to a new owner in 2010, who renamed it J-Bones. Well, there’s something else to investigate further.

I first spotted O.B.’s in 2004. If you’re a longtime reader, and actually remember recurring jokes that have not recurred in many, many entries, you may recall that I regard 2004 as a mistake-filled year. One of the few things that I did that year that was not at all a mistake was popping down to visit a friend in Macon a few times, and I noticed the restaurant then. So this is slightly better than seven years now, and I finally stopped in. I plead “other barbecue restaurants” in my defense; the same exit (218) that a driver would take to get to O.B.’s would get you over to Southern Pit in the other direction, for example. Plus, you know, there were usually restaurants in Macon awaiting me.

At any rate, confirming that O.B.’s is one of the criminally few barbecue restaurants in middle Georgia that’s open on Sunday, it has been on the backlist for whenever travel plans forced us onto the road then. Our most recent visit to Saint Simons saw us coming home then, and so we stopped by for an early supper.

Travelers can’t help but notice O.B.’s, because they made the good choice, many years ago, to build on a frontage road parallel to I-75 and erect a huge, interstate-friendly tall sign. Many years ago, O.B.’s was called Outback’s, but apparently some legal grumbling came from the direction of that big chain restaurant, the one sponsors what I’d like to still call the Hall of Fame Bowl. (Similarly, the December 31st game in Atlanta is still called the Peach Bowl around my TV.) A bit of cheeky nose-thumbing comes from a slogan beneath the restaurant’s name: “Real Pit Out-n-Back.”

Inside, it’s really not possible to eat without getting the vibe that this restaurant’s glory days are behind it. It’s nowhere as bleak and decrepit as Dunwoody’s Old Hickory House, mercifully, but it was only a fifth and maybe a quarter full on a Sunday evening. There were several young servers around, being a little bored and idle. The bright, shiny, corporate-designed menus really drive home the point that this place used to have fellow stores. I’m not sure what this place did wrong, because the food is really quite good. Many places around Atlanta have made a bid for expansion, and I think the pork here was certainly good enough to warrant the effort. Perhaps the other stores were just mismanaged or something, because this isn’t at all bad.

I just had a pork sandwich on Texas toast. This comes with lettuce, tomato and onion, and of course, these aren’t necessary for a barbecue sandwich, but I figure I needed some vegetables. Honestly, this was the least of the three barbecue meals that we had that weekend, following Southern Soul and Smokin Pig, but that’s not a fair comparison, because those other two places were downright amazing.

The meat here was smoky and juicy and stood out as better than many other places that I have tried. The beans were good, and the Brunswick stew was quite excellent. I can’t honestly rave about it quite as much as 3rd Degree Berns, one of my absolute favorite barbecue writers, did, but it’s nevertheless very good stew. The three table sauces are all variations of the same somewhat thick brown tomato-vinegar-pepper mixture, in mild, sweet and hot versions.

Was it worth a seven year wait? Probably not, and some grouchy online reviews suggest that this pretty good meal was even better years ago. Did O.B.’s take their eye off the ball when they expanded, or have things improved again now that they have consolidated from four locations to one? I’m not certain, but I’m glad this is available for travelers to find so easily. Honestly, if you’ve only time for a quick stop just off the exit ramp without a lot of detour and hunting, then I can’t think of a better place right by the highway between Atlanta and Macon. I hope that they weather their downsizing well enough to last a lot longer.

Smokin Pig, Richmond Hill GA

(With apologies to my many visitors from Google, this is one of the occasional entries here on the blog where it takes me a very long time to get to talking about the restaurant titled above. This isn’t a conventional restaurant review blog, after all, but rather stories about the fun that we have eating. Sometimes, the research that finds these places to eat sparks its own story.)

The only thing that I dislike about our trips to Saint Simons Island is that we occasionally have to return on a Sunday. Our experience has been that just about any place worth visiting in middle or south Georgia is closed on Sunday, and it sure is a shame to drive past an interesting-sounding restaurant and not have the chance to visit. Continue reading “Smokin Pig, Richmond Hill GA” →

CJ’s Italian Restaurant, St. Simons Island GA (take two)

Not content with confusing me with the long and involved story of Terry Gironda and all the restaurants that she’s owned on Saint Simons Island and in Brunswick and all the names that keep changing, Marie’s father took the initiative to confuse me further. He suggested that I tell you good readers that he “bored” me further, but I figure that if I were to print that, no matter how many disclaimers I used, the same sort of humorless bozos who thought that I was being negative about Atlanta’s Antico Pizza would be up in arms about how tactless it was to accuse my father-in-law of boring me. Especially in light of me spending two of the previous three chapters teasing Marie about where we’ve eaten on the island anyway, it just strikes me as a little wrongheaded. Continue reading “CJ’s Italian Restaurant, St. Simons Island GA (take two)” →