With a Name like Empire State...

Earlier this week I went to a place called Empire State South. Interesting name, I know... I'm still not sure why it's called that; there wasn't any hint of the Empire State Building anywhere inside the restaurant.

Anyway, despite the confusing name, the restaurant is supposed to be one of the best in Atlanta. Well, I do agree with that :) I usually don't order pork chops when I go out to eat, but I decided to try them this time (Riverview pork loin). Best pork I've ever had! Seriously! It's so hard to keep pork moist, but this pork was perfect. It didn't even taste like pork to me. Maybe that's why I liked it... The pork came with a side of kale. I think this was my first exposure to kale, and I liked it. I wonder how much of the good taste I can attribute to the restaurant, though ;)

The friend that I went with ordered the night's special, veal. It must have been roasted the whole day because it was really, really tender. Once you tried it, it had a very nice buttery taste and just melted in your mouth. Yummy!

We also got the cheese platter as an appetizer. The cheeses were good, but nothing special. I even liked the goat cheese... The other two cheeses were made with cow milk. The platter came with raisin sourdough bread. I wish the bread didn't have anything sweet in it. It would've let us taste the cheeses much better.

As much as I loved the food, I was really disappointed with the service. Our waiter took a very long time before he came to get our order. When the food runner brought us the cheeses, he couldn't even tell us which cheese was which. The only way were able to figure them out was by looking at their little side items on the menu (goat cheese with olive salad, etc.). At the end, we had to wait a long time to get our check too. Despite everything, the quality of the food made up for the shortcomings with the service, and I don't mind going there to try more things.

P.S. I don't have any pictures of the food, sorry!