Cakes & Ale

What could be better than a restaurant that serves up great drinks and in house-made desserts? A restaurant that also offers amazing food! That's exactly what Cakes & Ale in Decatur is. Cashew took me there for dinner for my birthday a few weeks ago, and we had a great experience. We went there without a reservation on a Saturday night, so the only available seats were at the community table. That worked out really well because the people sitting next to us seemed really nice. At the same time, we didn't feel forced to interact with them the whole time.

If you look at the dinner menu, it is a little confusing because there are no headings to separate appetizers from entrees and so on. It turns out that the first few items are cold appetizers. All the items after the space are warm dishes, but the fist few of them are small, appetizer-size plates. Only the last few items, the pricy ones, are true entrees. With that said, Cashew and I shared three of the "appetizers." We had the a carpaccio-like dish, gnocchi with duck ragu, and an octopus dish. The carpaccio came with chopped kale and cranberries. We ended up rolling them inside the beef pieces. The taste was just ok. Surprisingly, it was pretty bland. I just tasted a lot of sweetness; I don't even know where it came from.

In contrast, I loved the potato gnocchi. That was a very filling dish, so we weren't too worried about eating three small things. The gnocchi just melted in your mouth. The ragu had that "warm me up on a winter night" feel to it. I can't remember any flavors standing out, but the texture and the feel of the dish made it a successful choice for me.

I can't complain about the octopus either. It was the first time I've had cooked octopus (not in sushi), so I was simply surprised by the texture. It was a lot smoother than I expected. And it had a wonderful smoky taste that contributed to the melt-in-your-mouth taste. The octopus rested on a piece of garlic bread with harissa sauce on the side. They were as delicious as expected as well. My only disappointment was with the endive. It was a little too bitter for my liking, but I finished all of it anyway.

And because it was my birthday, we couldn't leave without dessert. We got a hazelnut-honey tart that was just divine. Somehow, the hazelnuts were so soft and easy to eat, but they still retained some of the crunch that you expect of a nut. And the honey added a lot in terms of taste with its characteristic sweetness and flavor without making the tart cloyingly sweet. I was very impressed with how they accomplished such an amazing taste because it could have gone horribly wrong in many different ways. Oh, and let me not forget about the parsimmon ice cream! I don't even like parsimmons, but I liked it here :)

Finally, I want to say a word about the drinks. We did not order any at the restaurant because we had other plans for the rest of the night, but there were some very interesting options on the menu. The great thing about Cakes & Ale is that the menu changes all the time, so I'll definitely go back to try some of the other things it offers.

Almost great

In case I haven't mentioned it before, I love Scoutmob. This is a website/phone app that gives you deals at various vendors, including restaurants. I've chosen many of the places where I eat based on whether they have a Scoutmob discount or not... I also learn about new restaurants through the app. This was the case with Top Flr (no misspelling), a nice restaurant on Piedmont Rd., close to Georgia Tech.

Cashew and I made a run to Top Flr on a random week night just because we wanted to try it. It had some interesting items on the menu, but we came to an agreement about what we wanted pretty quickly. For appetizers, we had the Tuna tartar and the Purple and green cabbage salad. Both of those were AMAZING! The tuna tartar was served on top of flat bread, a presentation I hadn't seen before. It had aioli on top. If you remember, I vented once about how I don't like aioli. Well, the overall flavors and textures of the tuna tartar were so good that I didn't mind the aioli. My only slight complaint is that the taste of the tuna itself got lost in all the other ingredients. The salad, however, I have nothing negative to say about! It was sooo light and tasty. The dressing didn't overwhelm the dish, it had the perfect amount of Gorgonzola cheese, and the caramelized nuts and granola weren't too sweet. I could eat that salad every day. By the way, our waitress said the same thing.

After these two dishes, Cashew and I got really excited about the restaurant and even started comparing it to Pura Vida. So, we couldn't wait to try the entrees: duck breast and apple-orange tofu. I wouldn't usually order tofu in a restaurant, but this one was supposed to come with bok choy and eggplant (miso), two ingredients I love, so I was intrigued. We also ordered a side of quinoa with tomatoes and curried onions. Honestly, I was pretty disappointed with all three of these. The duck breast seemed so sad sitting only in some kind of jus. The tofu didn't have any flavor until you dipped it in the eggplant miso. The quinoa seemed underseasoned. The curried onions seemed very out of place in the quinoa dish because they represented a strong flavor in the middle of no flavor. That could have turned out ok if the curry flavor wasn't so overpowering by itself. Needless to say, the comparisons to Pura Vida didn't continue by the end of the night, and Pura Vida is still the best place in Atlanta!