Tag: georgia

Cafe Agora, Atlanta GA

Quite a few people have mentioned Cafe Agora in Buckhead to me over the years, most recently a commenter called Chef Helen, who recommended their awesome baba ghanoush. When I told the fellow working the register that I’d heard theirs was the best baba ghanoush in the city, he lowered his brow as though I’d belittled him. “Everything here is the best in the city,” he insisted. Big words for such a small restaurant! Continue reading “Cafe Agora, Atlanta GA” →

Dean’s Barbeque, Jonesboro GA

So the other week, I was talking to Jimmy Dean, younger brother of the retired Roger Dean — yes, that’s right, same names as the sausage guy and the Yes album cover guy — about his late father’s barbecue sauce recipe, and I had to raise an eyebrow in appreciation when he said that his father got the recipe from the actress Vivien Leigh. This is Clayton County, after all. Just the day before, a fire at a nearby public storage facility made the news by wiping out priceless and unique Gone With the Wind memorabilia that had been archived there. Google even sent me down a road called Tara Boulevard to get here. Continue reading “Dean’s Barbeque, Jonesboro GA” →

Henry’s Louisiana Grill, Acworth GA

I’m a sucker for attention and personalized service from owners of good restaurants. Chef Henry Chandler either saw me walking along Acworth’s main street, looking in windows and snapping photos of the beautiful old buildings and figured me for some loudmouth with a web page, or he treats everybody who comes into his place as a valuable guest, because I hadn’t been in his restaurant for fifteen seconds before he took me by the hand, welcomed me with a roar and thanked me for coming. Continue reading “Henry’s Louisiana Grill, Acworth GA” →

Beetles BBQ, Woodstock GA (CLOSED)

A local blogger who goes by the handle Maple Lane dropped me a line, noting that Beetles BBQ in Woodstock had not made its way onto our pages. This wasn’t entirely an oversight; I visited once, many years ago, when Bill Beadle still owned it, and didn’t have a really great experience, but, in fairness, that was more to do with a personal disagreement at the time than with the food. I’ve mentioned here before that it’s never, ever, ever a good idea to try a new place when you’re not happy about something or with somebody. It overpowers your memory of the food. So, hearing that Beadle had sold his business to a fellow named Satterfield, who’s lowered the prices, and remembering that it’s only fair to give places another try, I agreed that I should get back over here. Continue reading “Beetles BBQ, Woodstock GA (CLOSED)” →

How Goldberg’s Derailed My Potato Salad Willpower

Goldberg’s flies under a lot of people’s radars, but they really are a special little place. The business is celebrating its fortieth anniversary this year, with half of that time under the ownership of Wayne Saxe and Howard Aaron, who purchased it from the Goldberg family in 1992 and began growing it to six locations in Atlanta. I think that their Toco Hills store is the most recent. It is not, to my surprise, related to a larger chain called Momma Goldberg’s, which is based in Auburn and has sixteen stores in Alabama and west Georgia. No, this place is a little older and hasn’t left its home city yet. Continue reading “How Goldberg’s Derailed My Potato Salad Willpower” →

The Hickory Hut and Rodney’s Bar-B-Que, Dallas GA

A few weeks ago, I started wondering again about Hudson’s Hickory House in Douglasville, and their buckets of thin, red, barbecue “juice” sauce that have found considerable popularity at about a half-dozen restaurants in the region. I wondered whether more barbecue joints in the western suburbs follow this path, and I also noticed that Paulding County is shockingly underrepresented among the area’s bloggers. So, a couple of Saturday evenings ago, Marie and the children and I went out to Dallas to try a place, and stumbled past another on the way home. We found some pretty good food, albeit nothing really extraordinary and nothing that follows the Hudson’s template, and, as far as our health goes, pushed ourselves just a little too far, leading to some unhappy and grouchy folk who just wanted to go home. Continue reading “The Hickory Hut and Rodney’s Bar-B-Que, Dallas GA” →