The Neighborhood Eatery

The Brookhaven Village area of Atlanta (on Dresden Dr. close to the Brookhaven MARTA station) is slowly developing its character and is becoming another destination to go out and meet up with friends in town. While it has a long way to go until it becomes as established as favorite neighborhoods like Virginia Highlands, Inman Park, East Atlanta, etc., the presence of cute boutique shops, and the addition of more restaurants is a good beginning. The newest place to open was Kaleidoscope, which is an interesting mixture between a restaurant serving American food and a bar. The food is definitely better than the usual bar fare, but not fancy enough for a typical restaurant.

I went to Kaleidoscope with Pumpkin and my parents on a nice summer night, so we were able to sit on the big patio on the side. Pumpkin and I wanted to get drinks, but it was hard to choose anything from their limited drinks menu. Their beer selection was particularly small and surprisingly expensive. I ended up choosing a $10 Belgian beer that didn't seem any more special than a Stella Artois. The appetizer menu offered better selection, though. We finally chose the hot wings with blue cheese. The wings were tasty, well cooked and moist, and with the right amount of heat. The cheese was starting to melt on top of the wings, and gave them a layer of additional flavor.

We also liked the options for entrees that Kaleidoscope offered. I had heard that the burger was really good, but none of us got it. Instead, both of my parents got salmon with tomato and cucumber salad. The salmon portion was huge! It was twice the size of the usual salmon filets that restaurants serve. It also paired great with the fresh salad that it came with, which reminded me of Greek salad, but executed well.

Pumpkin's choice was flank steak with fries and chimichurri. The only reason she got the dish was because she didn't realize how much garlic the chimichurri had, and that the fries would have garlic too. She doesn't like garlic, so she didn't like the dish. I, on the other hand, thought it was great. The steak was a little overcooked, but it had kept some of its moisture. I wish it came with a little runnier sauce to make eating it a little better. The fries were nice and crispy, though.

Finally, I got the seared tuna with Asian slaw. The tuna was good, but what I really liked was the slaw. I was impressed with the peanut sauce because it tasted just like peanut sauce in Asian restaurants. The sauce drizzled around the plate was a great addition to the plain steamed rice. Out of all the dishes we had that night, my dish was the only one that had a good mixture of starch, greens and protein that all worked together great :)