Radiant Cafe

The trend of using seasonal, local ingredients is sweeping over Atlanta! Well, this has been the case for a couple of years now. Using seasonal ingredients is not only good for the environment, but also makes food taste better the ingredients are used at the prime of their ripeness. And while most new places now offer often-changing, seasonal menus, one place has been doing this for a while. Hidden on the east side of Decatur is a place called Radial Cafe. It used to be a great brunch/lunch spot, but recently they started offering dinner as well.

I had heard wonderful things about Radial Cafe, but didn't get to try it until a few days ago. It was my friend Vivmuk's last weekend in Atlanta, so we met up there with him and Cashew for a goodbye brunch. We went all out and ordered a ton of food! I was craving some eggs, so I got the salmon scramble. Cashew and Vivmuk both went for the biscuits with gravy and poached eggs. Cashew chose bacon on the side, and Vivmuk chose sausage. We all shared a peanut butter toast, one of the specials that day, and the cheesy grits. Oh, they also brought out some complementary cranberry-lemon crumb cake and cranberry-pecan mini muffins. I loved the tartness of the crumb cake, but wasn't a huge fan of the muffins.

My favorite thing at Radial was definitely the peanut butter toast. The toast itself was challah bread that was so so soft and stringy. When you tried to cut it, you could see the different layers separate very nicely. But the thing that made this toast incredible was the peanut butter sauce on top. It must have had a pretty generous amount of butter in it because it was very smooth and deep in flavor :) It reminded me a little of the caramel sauce that comes with the sweet potato pancakes at Highland Bakery, but without the pecans...

I had never been a fan of biscuits and gravy, but I LOVED them at Radial. I love each component separately, but whenever I had them together before, the biscuits got soggy and unpleasant to eat. But somehow, the biscuits at Radial had a strong, but not tough, crust that prevented the moisture from the gravy from getting into the biscuit. So each bite consisted of buttery bread and really really delicious gravy. Seriously, that was some of the most flavorful gravy I have ever tasted!

Actually, the main dish I liked the least was my scramble. I wish I had traded it for some of those delicious biscuits :P There was nothing wrong with the scramble, really... It just wasn't as flavorful as the other things at the table. The only flavor that stood out was the salmon, so the dish was overly fishy. Even the presence of sun-dried tomatoes, something I love, couldn't redeem the dish.

Finally, I liked the grits even less. I might even say that I disliked them. There is something about grits, but I was never a huge fan. The only place where I kind of liked them was at Murphy's in the shrimp and grits dish. I think it's how plain they taste anywhere else. Even adding cheese couldn't help. Yes, I did taste the cheese, but it was like eating cheese with a really weird texture. Plus, the grits cooled down and congealed very quickly, making them even less pleasant to eat.

Well, there were definitely some hits and misses at Radial, but the misses were because of my personal preferences and not the quality of the cooking. I will be happy to go back, maybe try the dinner menu next time. Or go for breakfast/brunch again and enjoy some more of their awesome food and coffee :) Btw, I don't think the coffee at any other place had been memorable enough to be mentioned, but the coffee at Radial is amazing!