La Italia!

I apologize if "La Italia" is not grammatically correct... I'm just trying to use something catchy to show that I'll be talking about Italian food today, haha. Atlanta is not New York when it comes to Italian cooking, but there are a few notable places. One of them is La Tavola, where Cashew and I had dinner recently.

Because it was our first time here, we wanted to try as many things as possible, but that's not too easy with filling pasta dishes :( Instead of filling ourselves to the point of being sick, we were smart and decided to just come back some other time. So, the items we settled on for this visit were the Black Linguine, Ricotta Gnocchi, and Zuppa di Pesce. First, the seafood soup was was what was expected of it: lots of seafood and a flavorful broth. Some of the sea creatures that were represented were clams, scallops, shrimp, calamari, and what looked like cod or haddock. One pleasant touch was the calamari tentacles and whole bodies!

The gnocchi were also delicious. I personally couldn't taste the ricotta in them, but it did give them a slightly cheesy texture. The surprise of this dish was the real poached egg on top. Granted I'm not an expert in Italian food, I can't say I've seen anyone combine pasta with eggs before.

Overall, both the soup and the gnocchi were solid, flavorful dishes, but they pale in comparison to the black linguine! The combination of squid ink pasta, calamari and Thai basil pesto made this one of those memorable dishes that stick with you. (Other such dishes for me were the chorizo chips at Pura Vida and the French toast at La Boulange.) While we were eating it, we kept exulting about how good it was. After we finished it, we felt sad. I've tried to think of something to explain what made the dish so good, but I don't think there's a single factor. Instead, it was probably the masterful combination of Italian flavors from the pasta with Thai-inspired flavors in the pesto.

I am a big fan of small portions in restaurants, but this was clearly one case where I regretted not having more food. I guess my only option is to make this planned second visit to La Tavola as soon as possible.

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!

Food Is not Everything

Sometimes we go to restaurants just for the food, to satisfy hunger. Other times we want to indulge in an experience. The latter case usually involves a sophisticated place and a high price tag, or an ethnic restaurant. However, even if we go to a fast food place or a drive through, we expect a sertain level of service and get annoyed when we don't receive it.

I recently went to Sonny's Place, a small Middle Eastern/Mediterranean restaurant close to where I live that also has a Scoutmob discount. Maybe the fact that it was completely empty at 6:30 pm should have been a red flag, but I decided to stay anyway. The bad experience started at the very beginning when the owner greeted me with "Do you need a menu?" in a husky voice. Of course I need a menu! He then handed it to me, but didn't specify whether I order at the counter or sit down at a table. So I ended up standing halfway between both, trying to figure out what I wanted. The special is supposedly the St. Peter's fish, but I decided to go with something more basic - the appetizer sampler platter. Then I was finally ordered to sit down. The platter came with falafel, hummus, tabuleh, babaganoush, and two salads. All items but the falafel medallions weren't bad, but they weren't memorable or distinguishable in any way either. The only positive thing about them was that I could eat them with warm pitas. The falafel, though, was inedible. It was obviously very old and re-heated. Instead of only the outside being crispy, the whole piece was a solid rock.

Well, despite the falafel, I wouldn't have minded the place too much if it wasn't for the attitude of the owner. He never smiled, and he seemed like he didn't think it was necessary to show his customers any respect. He did come to ask me how the food tasted twice, but wasn't happy of my answer of "It's good!" I don't know what he expected me to say, maybe he wanted me to tell him it was amazing, outstanding, the best things I've ever had. But for me, even saying that it was good was a stretch, haha.

A few minutes after I sat down, another party came to the restaurant. It was obvious it was their first time in there as well. They were seated before being given the menus, but they were taking a while to order. The owner kept going to them and badgering them to make up their mind. At the end, he seemed pretty disappointed that they didn't get what he suggested and that they didn't order alcohol. Again, he just seemed unhappy and intimidating, which is very offputting when you're willing to pay for a meal out.

I was really glad I had the Scoutmob deal. It did make things a little better because the whole experience was so bad, I should have been paid rather than me paying for the food. I think this is the first time I can honestly say that I'm never going there again.

Recipe: Veggie Risotto

I decided to change things a little. Instead of only writing about things I eat out, I will start posting some of the things I make at home as well. I do cook a lot. I come up with my own recipes a lot, and they turn out delicious about half the time :P This was the case just now, so I decided to share what I made for dinner.

I had some left over things in my fridge that I didn't know what to do with: chicken stock, celery, carrots, tomatoes... I suppose I could have looked up a recipe that uses all of those things, but I decided to just add them to a risotto. Making a professional chef-quality risotto is a tricky thing, and I don't claim to be a risotto specialist. But I do love the way mine turn out. Plus, the number of variations are limitless. The key is to start with good arborio rice or other risotto-grade rice; simple write or brown rice doesn't work here...So here's my recipe for risotto with veggies, along with a few suggestions for variations:

Ingredients:
1 large carrot, chopped
2-3 stalks celery, chopped
1/2 of a medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon canola (or vegetable) oil
2 plum tomatoes, or any other tomato, including sun-dried, diced
1 tablespoon capers, rinsed and drained
1 cup arborio rice
2.5 cups stock (chicken or vegetable) or water, warmed a little on the stove or in the microwave
Salt and pepper to taste
Oregano, parsley, basil or any other combination of dried herbs
1 wedge of Laughing Cow cheese (I used Chipotle and Queso)

Directions:
1. Heat the oil in a pot. Add the onion and cook until it's softened. Add the garlic and stir. Add the carrots and celery and cook 2-3 minutes, until their color intensifies. You can use any vegetable you have. After all, the purpose of this risotto is to use up old things in the fridge.

2. Add the rice and stir frequently until the rice grains turn mostly opaque. Then, start adding the liquid of choice, 1/2 cup at a time. Simmer the risotto, stirring occasionally, until all the liquid is absorbed. Then add the next 1/3 cup. The general rule of thumb is 3 cups liquid per 1 cup rice. I added only 2.5 cups risotto because the tomatoes have some liquid in them. If the rice is not all the way cooked after adding all of the liquid, add some more.

3. After the addition of the first or second portion of liquid, add the tomatoes and the capers. Season with salt, pepper and herbs. Don't add too much salt because the capers are very salty even after rinsing them. You can taste the broth to see if it's seasoned enough.

4. When the rice is soft and cooked, turn off the heat before all of the liquid has evaporated. Stir in the cheese. Real risotto is made with 1/2 cup parmesan or other hard Italian cheese, but I didn't have any :-/ I assume any melting cheese will work well. Stir the risotto until the cheese has melted. Let stand a few minutes and then serve!

Note, you can substitute the FIRST 1/2 cup liquid for white wine. It does make the risotto taste better, but I didn't have white wine :( DO NOT add red wine. It will turn the risotto an ugly purple color. Yes, I know that from experience... Thankfully, the taste is not compromised.

I hope someone will try this and like it :)

Cuban Nights

After not ever having Cuban food ever in my life, I started eating it quite a lot in the last half year or so. Unfortunately, I haven't talked about it here. So let me quickly mention a few places that I have been to in Atlanta.

The first one is a tiny, quintessentially mom-and-pop place called Las Palmeras. It is hidden on 5th St, behind the Biltmore, going away from Georgia Tech. The building is a converted old house, and it looks like the owners still live in it. Everything on the menu is authentic. I had the pork with fried plantain chips. I can be a little picky about pork (my mom's in the best!), but the one at Las Palmeras was moist and delicious. The fried plantains were french fries-style, not caramelized as I expected. The caramelized plantains are actually called maduros. But I liked them in chips form as well. They have just the right texture for frying.

Another place I've been to is La Fonda. They have several locations around town, but I went to the one on Ponce de Leon. The Huevos Rancheros is amazing. One of the best scrambles I've had. I also had one of their breakfast wraps, which was also good.

Finally, the place I've been to the most is Havana at the intersection of Clairmont Rd and Buford Hwy. Their specialty is the Cuban sandwich, which I've had multiple times. If you order it as part of a plate, you get only half the sandwich, but it comes with rice and black beans on the side. Believe me, even half a sandwich is a lot of food (see picture!) and definitely filling enough. The bread is probably my favorite part of the sandwich. It's toasted, with a very nice crisp exterior that is sturdy enough to hold up all of the meat. However, my absolute favorite thing at Havana are their yuca fries :) Yuca (aka, cassava) is a starchy root similar to potatoes, but with slightly different texture. The fries are very very crispy on the outside, just the way I like them, and soft inside. What makes me like them so much is the "stringiness" of the fries. I can't really explain it, but I can almost see individual fibers, whatever plant structure they might be, that makes eating them very enjoyable. Oh, and fun fact: tapioca is basically dried yuca :P

A couple of other things I've had at Havana are the roast beef sandwich and the maduros. The roast beef was good, but not as good as the Cuban. The maduros are really delicious, but I like the yuca fries so much, that I always order them... The menu has a pretty extensive sandwich list and sides. I guess I'll have to pass on my favorites next time I go there and maybe try something different...

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.

Zuma, n-th take

I love living next to the Toco Hill location of Zuma. I've been there many more times than my posts indicate. Almost everything I've had there is great. The only thing I haven't liked so far is the Volcano Roll, mostly because of the copious amounts of sauce.

The last time Cashew and I went there though we decided to change things a little bit and get the bento box combos. We both had the spareribs. I also got teriyaki shrimp, unagi roll, and seaweed salad. Cashew's box contained fried seabass, tuna avocado roll, and kimchee. The short ribs were amazing. Even better, there were several large pieces, not just a couple of sad looking bones. The ribs themselves were actually enough for an entree by themselves. I also enjoyed my shrimp which seemed to have some spices on it in addition to the teriyaki glaze. Both sushi rolls were good too. I actually liked Cashew's tuna roll better than mine. The boxes also included sticky rice, but both Cashew and I were too stuffed with all the other goodies to eat too much of it. Overall, it was yet another satisfying meal at Zuma that made me feel really grateful for living close to it.