I must admit that within a couple of minutes of entering Kool Korner Sandwiches, I was completely baffled. I had read up on the place, which is in a Publix strip mall in the Vestavia Hills suburb of Birmingham, and followed the reviews and looked over their web site, all of which promised the best and most authentic Cuban sandwiches in the southeast from this brand-spanking new restaurant. Well, I was game. What I did not expect was the sight of all the awards on the wall labeling Kool Korner the home of the best sandwiches in Atlanta for several years. Continue reading “Kool Korner Sandwiches, Birmingham AL”
Tag: sandwiches
Barkers Red Hots, Marietta GA (CLOSED)
We learned a valuable lesson when we made our first visit to Barkers Red Hots about eighteen months ago: when a restaurant gets a glowing review and is featured in the pages of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, wait a couple of weeks to swing by. That first trip to the venerable hot dog stand on Windy Hill saw us in a line an hour deep full of drooling weekenders savoring the smell of charcoal-cooked hot dogs. It wasn’t a wait I’d want to make regularly, but we were rewarded with some excellent dogs.
Everything on Barkers’ menu is fairly terrific, and they feature quite a few sausage options along with their original red hots and jumbo all-beef dogs, all “grilled to perfection” over charcoal. Marie and I each prefer ours grilled pretty lightly, but if you’re among the large crowd who enjoys a nicely charred skin, they’ll gladly accommodate you here. They really are among the best in the metro area; until I discovered Brandi’s, they were my favorite, hands-down. Usually, I like their signature red hot, served with onions, pickles and their not-lethal spicy sauce. My son and Marie prefer their Italian sausages; our daughter likes a simple dog covered with melted cheese and some fries.
It’s all the little extras that elevate Barkers into a place that everybody should visit. For starters, they serve what are arguably the best onion rings and the best French fries in the area. I particularly love the fries, which are precisely as vinegary and salty as I would wish them to be. They also offer an unexpected treat in a loganberry punch, which I’m pretty sure that nobody else in town sells. Add in the genuinely spectacular service of the staff, who are just about the best in the city, especially the fellow who’s often on the register and remembered my daughter’s name after just one visit, and you’ve got a restaurant worth many visits.
For many years, Barkers was a must-visit cart in downtown Atlanta’s Woodruff Park, but the owner, Glenn Robins, sold the business in 1995 rather than continue dealing with the city’s labyrinthine rules and regulations for street vendors. Those owners had to change the name once they found a new meat supplier, and Robins returned to the business in 2007, taking back his old name and painting a storefront on Windy Hill in bright blues and greens. The location is just about a stone’s throw from what I thought you’d still call Smyrna, but it’s apparently in the Marietta 30062 ZIP code. It’s very convenient to enter from the interstate exit, but an absolute bear to get back.
Unfortunately, shrinking summer hours have meant we weren’t able to get over there for a while. Our Saturdays were mostly booked and they’ve decided to close for dinner for the time being. This actually proved to be a real annoyance when Tom Maicon over at Atlanta Cuisine (recently relabeled Food & Beer Atlanta) raved about Barker’s beef on weck and I wanted to get over and try one, post haste.
This had been one of those sandwiches that had always gone in one eye and out the other. Apparently a regional specialty from Buffalo, a good beef on weck should serve up some sliced roast beef or flank steak on a thick and chewy “Hummerweck” bun that is topped with sea salt and caraway seeds, and given a dense enough smear of horseradish on the bun’s heel to almost soak straight through it. I’m sure this is a pretty tasty enough treat in any competent grill cook’s hands, but over the charcoal at Barkers, it’s a can’t miss.
We stopped there this past Saturday afternoon and while Marie and the girlchild enjoyed their usual hot dogs, I had the first of what I hope will be many beefs on weck. It’s a little pricy for a sandwich without a side when there are much less expensive dogs and sausages available, but I’m really keen to try one again with a smear of their signature red sauce. I bet that’s really good. And so getting one with rings and a loganberry punch will run me eleven bucks or so. I’ve been good; I can splurge every once in a while, right?
Big City Bread Cafe, Athens GA
Now that I’ve got close to a hundred chapters of this story under my belt, I am making a more conscious effort to balance eating at old favorites with trying new places. Big City Bread Cafe is far from new – they seem to have opened their first storefront around the time my daughter was born – but they’re new to me. I try to get to Athens once a month, unless circumstances call me more frequently, and maybe I can continue having a small meal at someplace that I do not know well, before going to play and then grabbing a small meal at an old favorite before coming back to town. Or does that sound too much like I’m setting a schedule? That way lies complacency, doesn’t it? Continue reading “Big City Bread Cafe, Athens GA”
Nixon’s Deli, Knoxville TN
I’ve written here before about loving the idea of regional specialties, and recipes that you just can’t find all over the country. I’m starting to see that some of these, you have to look a little to find. For example, there’s Knoxville, a terrific city that I have visited better than a dozen times. Continue reading “Nixon’s Deli, Knoxville TN”
The Grill, Athens GA
This is Marie, talking about The Grill in Athens, GA. Technically this visit involved desserts because I had a shake for dinner, you see.
This place has been around long enough that some of their “decor” is actually just old stuff they never took out, like the juke box attachments for the booths along the walls. The place has a lot of character. Of course it has the kitschy old style signs for beverages that no longer exist or were sold for a nickel. However, they also have a divider down the middle of the room that has glass display cases full of strange antique toys, comics and collectibles. There’s no way to take a picture of the stuff that would turn out, and I wouldn’t want to spoil the amusement factor of seeing the old toys and silly things in those displays. I wouldn’t recommend using their rest room either if you can avoid it, unless you are into the really old-fashioned kind, or you collect really bizarre bathroom graffiti. Continue reading “The Grill, Athens GA”
The Soda Fountain at Woolworth Walk, Asheville NC
Years ago, there was a chain of five-and-dime stores called Woolworth’s. Younger readers may not remember them, but they sold disposable, usless tat for low prices, and, in the days before fast food chains, were also a destination for shoppers who’d take a lunch break at what we now call an “old-fashioned” soda counter. They’d serve up quickie sandwiches and ice cream treats and maybe some of them would offer chili or roast beef or Salisbury steak. Hot meals were generally left to the larger, full-service diners of the 1940s and 1950s, with lunch counters their smaller brothers, but apparently some of them branched out a little. Continue reading “The Soda Fountain at Woolworth Walk, Asheville NC”
Curry chicken salad and grilled gouda sandwiches
This is Marie, whose usual contribution to the site is to get something different from my husband so he can have menu envy, or to write about something I cooked. This is the latter option.
Tonight’s dinner was curry apple chicken salad and grilled cheese sandwiches, and it was in no way as plebian as that sounds. The girlchild had her heart set on grilled cheese and soup, so she ate a slightly different dinner (and somewhat inferior in my mind, but she seemed quite satisfied and did have a little chicken salad on the side).
The chicken salad came from a recipe passed on by my aunt. We had our first encounter with the stuff on our honeymoon trip when we were going to spend the evening at her place in Philadelphia on our way to somewhere else. Since she didn’t know when we’d be showing up or how hungry we’d be when we arrived, she felt that it was the ideal thing to have in reserve. She was correct. It’s made with green apples, onions, diced peppers, and of course chicken. The original recipe calls for cooking the chicken by boiling it with a number of vegetables (making a really tasty broth in the process) but we didn’t need quite as much as that would make, so I just cooked a couple of chicken breasts with curry powder (a lovely blend by my favorite spice company, Penzey’s, called Singapore Spice) and let that cool overnight before slicing it and mixing in the diced apples, onions, and sweet red peppers, along with some of the white pepper I bought on our honeymoon. Left to my own devices I would add raisins to the recipe as well, but my family is unaccountably hostile to dried grapes. The salad is quite flexible. Others might add nuts or celery.
The grilled cheese sandwiches were made with some lovely gourmet Gouda that I mail-ordered from a dreadfully expensive but oh-so-good place called Zingerman’s. I think about the only thing that would get me to buy more from them is winning the lottery, because that’s about all I can think of that would let me afford their prices on a regular basis, but boy is their stuff good. I originally tried this particular cheese because I was doing an internet survey of cheeses for my father. He likes Dutch farmer’s cheese made from unpasteurized milk, and I was going on a quest to get him a whole or half wheel of something or other for Christmas. It was quite a delicious quest as it involved trying out a number of cheeses that he might possibly like, but had to be researched first. I knew on the initial order that it was NOT going to be affordable in the quantity desired, but tried anyway, and promptly became addicted. And no, as of yet he still hasn’t had any of this particular variety (at least from me). One of these days, when my willpower is high enough, he’ll get a box in the mail with a pound or two.
Anyway, each time I get an order I discover yet another way in which it is perfect and wonderful, and tonight’s meal was another addition to the list. Melted into toasted bread, in all the tasty variations, is my favorite choice. In this case, I found that alternating bites of the spicy curry and sweet/tart green apple with the crisp sandwich brought out the richness of the warm cheese, and the creamy Gouda made the curry pop. It was an entirely satisfactory meal but what’s particularly good is that some of the cheese is still left for later nibbling.
Marie, Let's Eat! 