Since I spent the majority of Sunday planning this week’s menu (well, playing with a new program and planning meals), we needed to go grocery shopping and pick up all the items on my spiffy auto-generated list.   It was a surprisingly successful adventure.  Usually there are at least a few items that we cannot procure, but this time we did find everything on our list.  The trip was not without it’s trials.  In order to complete our mission we had to confront and defend ourselves against the Dill Troll, guardian of all that is fresh and natural.  We were shown to be worthy.

Originally, the plan was to complete our shopping and return home to cook dinner.  The well-thought out menu called for Eggplant and Smoked-gouda Open-faced Grilled Sandwiches with a side of Creamy Okra Casserole.  This dinner would use both the aging eggplant and okra in the fridge.  By the time, we had finished our shopping, the Royal Peasant sign nextdoor to Earth Fare was shining so brightly that it could not be ignored.  Giving in to our destiny, we stopped in for a few pints, Bangers & Mash, and Bubble & Squeak.  Curse you, who doth install a public house amongst  the places of errands.

Tuesdays, have the self-imposed added pressure of trying out a restaurant that we have never before visited. I know that sounds stringent, but we try to maintain. At some point last week we decided to try Ike & Jane, a bakery & cafe. I had a Ham and Gruyere on sourdough and Darren had the combo of Roast Beef on Black Pepper Baguette with a cup of chili. Our assement? Very good and the atmosphere of normaltown is always pleasant. I would very much like to go back for breakfast/brunch and to try their pastries & breads.

So, of course when I went to make the Okra Casserole this evening, the okra was too far gone and had to be discarded wasted.  Really a bummer, considering I still want to try the recipe and will have to buy more, risking a repeated occurrence.  Tonight’s dinner was Creamy Spinach-mushroom Skillet Enchiladas, Jerusalem Artichoke and Lima Bean Saute‘ and leftover Pot Beans.  The enchiladas were simple, quick and easy to make, so I will take that into considerations as I give them a rating of “just ok”.  They also had the added benefits of using up the rest of the salsa verde I made on Sunday. I have never cooked with jerusalem artichokes before so I was not quite sure what to expect. The dish was itself pretty good, but did not pair with the enchiladas at all. I suspected as much, but was trying to save all the veggies I could. I will definitely purchase them again soon and try some other recipes.

We want our Eastside La Fiesta Back!!!!!

No way we are eating Mexicali, so we head across town to try out the Timothy Road La Fiesta, I mean Dos Palmas. Its very strange, its like they took La Fiesta, renamed it, moved a few walls, painted, bought new waitstaff and opened for business. The menu seems to be identical. The food is tasty, somewhat authentic and not overtly cheesified. If you were a fan of La Fiesta, you will slip right in.

Did I say we want our Eastside La Fiesta back? Its been since December, repair the fire damage already, pretty please.

Dos Palmas
3525 Atlanta Highway

Hmmm, this is a tough one. In general we would rather eat at/support a local place with history and community involvement. We would also like a clean table and some sort of waitron.

We walked in and the place had a few tables with people, an empty table by the door, and several empty booths with the detritus from the last meal. Like most people, we don’t want to sit five feet from the front door, so we settle into a booth and scoot the tip out to the front and skim the napkins, paper plates, and styro cups to the back. We sit, we wait, we wonder. Finally I get up to eyeball the pizza buffet (all you can eat). After thoroughly memorizing the offerings, I decided to stand in line a the register to enquire if we need to place the order there or if there is a service staff. After a few minutes of queueing, I notice a person who might be a waitress walking by our table. She doesn’t stop, so I stop her and ask for instructions. She indicates that, 1) yes she is a waitress and 2) yes, she will take our order. She comes back, no menus (I saw them while queueing, so they do exist) and takes our drink order. She leaves, the tips go with her, the trash remains. When she returns with our Cokes, we start handing her the trash. Maybe she was having a bad day, maybe I was hungry, mabye-schmaybe.

We order the buffet. The pizza is not bad, its of the thickthin crust variety and the sauce is minimal and ok tasting. I guess it tasted better than Papa Johns or Pizza Hut, but marginally so.

It was pretty cheap, $14 for 2 including sodas. Still not sure what to recommend though. Support your locals I guess. Damming though faint praise?

Mama Sid’s Pizza
2240 Barnett Shoals Rd

Do they have Turkish Coffee? I have been jonesing for a cup ever since we moved away from the Fat Omars.

The Sultan is in kind of a weird location and we have often thought about stopping, but we are never on that side of town during lunch. Last week, I decided that it was to be our next port of call.

We arrived around 1pm and had the place to ourselves. The Host/Owner/Waiter/Cook/AOTA? Came to get our drink order, (no inkahol) and we looked over the menu. It was fairly Americanized with gyros and kabobs (chicken kabobs, not Shish Taouk mind you); but there were a few decent staples as well. I was very happy to see Turkish Coffee on the list!

We ordered:

Punkerdoo: Shawarma Wrap with Lay’s Potoato Chips (WHAT?)
Husband: Kibbeh Plate

We had a plate of Baba-Ganouj for an appetizer.

The Baba-Ganouj was really good, we had not had any fresh for a great while. The tzatkiki on Punkerdoo’s Shawarma was very tasty as was the wrap itself. My Kibbeh was perfectly fried and crisp. We really enjoyed the food. It has been quite a while since we have had some decent Middle Eastern Food.

When we were done we ordered two Turkish Coffees………….zing! Sadly, no cezve was harmed in the making of our coffee. The coffee returned immediately, I am not really sure how it was microwaved so quickly. Is instant Turkish Coffee allowed, I am not sure, but I don’t think so.

Coffee disappointments aside, the food and service were excellent. Please go visit them and have some food.

The Sultan
3812 Atlanta Highway

Amazingly, Taste of India has been open for 15 years. They must have painted the front or something because we had no idea it existed. We thought it was a fairly new open. Who knew?

We went for lunch fairly early, for us, around 1PM. They were quite busy. We were seated right away and decided to go for the lunch buffet. While not a fan of buffet, we reasoned that our unfamiliarity with Indian food made this shotgun approach feasible.

They have a decent by the glass wine list. By decent, I mean the wines are well chosen value wines.

The buffet had a good lentil dahl, tandoori chicken and several dishes with escaping names. While we were bit puzzled by the inclusion of beef meatballs, the food was quite good. While eating, I asked to look at their dinner menu and was amazed by the amount of dishes. There were copious lamb dishes…….mmmmmm……..lambie….. and 4 or 5 goat dishes. The hostess told me that they were getting new menus the next day, so I cannot vouch for the current level of goat.

They also have a “to go” buffet where you pay by the pound, it seemed a very popular choice.

We will certainly go back for dinner and I imagine lunch as well.

Taste Of India
131-B East Broad Street

Very often a burrito is a good thing, sometimes even great. We needed some frozen dough disks to make some empanadas (I KNOW that empanadas are the new global warming! Stop telling me that.) We were headed to Normaltown to stop by the Mexican Grocery, so we parked at Agua Linda to have lunch. We went inside and were seated. Our very pleasant waiton brought us chips and salsa to amuse ourselves while reading the menu. My eyes get weird when I am extra hungry and to be frank, I need an eye exam, but there is something really wrong with the type on their menus. Its like there is a registration issue or something, the words blur just enough to be annoying to read. That aside, we looked over the lunch specials and ordered. I had Enchiladas Verde and Punkerdoo had a pick 2 combo with a chalupa and hard shell taco along with two DosEquis Ambers. The food came to us quickly and was OK. Nothing exciting, nothing horrible, decent. The price was OK, $21 for 2 lunches and beers, but we won’t make any extra effort to return. IOW, we wouldn’t not recommend it ~

Agua Linda Taqueria
1376 Prince Avenue

We were going downtown to try Shokitini, but they only serve lunch on Fridays, so we pointed the Black Mistress (NewCarOfPunkerdooToReplaceOldCarOFPunkerdooSmashedByOakTree) towards Lumpkin to try Cali-n-Tito’s place. Its in the old K’Bob building across from the SDT house. The building has been given a curb appeal makeover so that it resembles a shack of sorts. There is even a clothesline decoration (I assume) by the back door. The menu is pretty simple, but filled with many things we want to go back and try. We seemed to be thinking alike when we both ordered the Cuban sandwich with chorizo and egg. Punkerdoo had Fried Plantains as her side and I went with Yuca Frita. The Cubans were HUGE, I’m still full six hours later. We were also provided two sauce choices of which I brilliantly forgot to inquire their use. Not sure if they went on the cassava chips or the Cuban? Anyway one tasted a bit like spiced 1000 Island dressing and the other was more herbal oil.

The meal kicked ass. We want to go back tomorrow for empanadas……edit, while viewing the hipster olympics, I just learned that empanadas are the new global warming.

The place is BYOB, but there is no corkage fee durning the lunch hours. Also, they only take $ and checks, so plan accordingly.

1427 South Lumpkin Street

Thai food, what do I know about it? Not much except its spicy. Spicy is OK by me; Punkerdoo not so much. We reason that not all Thai food can be hot. We already know we know bupkis about the cuisine, lets go eat some.

We noticed Siri Thai a year or so ago when we were headed for breakfast at Big City Bread Cafe. Its in a brick strip building that would be more home to an accounting firm. We filed and forgot about it until the day we were driving all over Hell’s Half Acre looking for a spot to park to eat at The Grit. We came in at another level and in the back and I thought to myself, Self, that’s the Thai restaurant that used to be on the top level, we should go eat there sometime..

Later while eating at The Grit, I asked Punkerdoo where we should head for the next New Restaurant, How about a Thai place? She said. Stoopid me did not even think of the place I just saw, helicopters were not deployed, luckily she thought of it.

So where to start? We parked in the lot for Wendy’s customers only (FTS, I hate parking lots) and went in. A small room with a bar, a few tables and a spiral staircase greeted us. On the bar was a very apologetic sign telling us to come downstairs as the upstairs was closed. OK. We were seated and menued ( I seem to be verbizing things lately). We ordered Singhas and poured over the menu. I decided to order Pad Khing hot (3 spice choices, Medium, Hot and Volcano) and Punkerdoo ordered Pad Ma-Maung mild (not a choice BTW). It was lunch so we had our choice of 3 sides: Salad, Spring Roll (what they said, not what was on the menu) and Soup of the day. We were told that the soup was coconut, I really dislike coconut, but we went for it anyway. Apparently, real coconut has little to do with the processed coconut which goes on cookies and shrimp. The soup was stellar, silky and citrus. Very good. I went through my first beer pretty quickly, so I ordered a Chang, a Thai beer recommended by a waiter, who for unknown reasons reminded me of the bass player for Hüsker Dü, Greg Norton. It was great as well.

Please go eat at this place, the food is terrific.

367 Prince Avenue

Yep, I know… How long have we lived here and have never eaten at The Grit? Sorry, we are slackers for that side of town I guess.

The Grit seemingly resides in a land of no parking zones and forbidding signs stating If you are a GRIT customer and park here you will be towed. Probably drawn and quartered also when you go to pay cash for your car. Damn, all I wanted was some Vegan Chili and a macrobiotic watercress sandwich. I digress.

As is de rigeur, we arrive very late in the lunch hour or in what watch terms, about 2watch. We go in are greeted and seated warmly. There are way too many things on the menu I want to try, I see Punkerdoo is having the same difficulty. The waiter is coming back, stall stall!, avoid…..Ah HA! Drinks! I order a Terrapin, “2 please”. Oddly, we are served 2 Terrapin Golden Ales, not the usual Rye. I suppose I should have specified what Terrapin I wanted, but Golden Ale is so boring, its like T-ball or something.

Oh well, I hunker down and order lunch. Hot Noodle Bowl of the day, hmmm, garlic, ginger, chilis…good stuff. Punkerdoo has the Falafel Plate, according to her, the frying was perfect, just a bit doughy on the inside.

Great food, great price, why was it so long in coming? We will be back soon!

199 Prince Avenue

In case you have not figured it out, its a new (to us, we are boring and go to the same places all the time) restaurant and it happens for lunch on a tuesday.

We went to the Last Resort Grill. We sat in the “outside” area which, this time of year, means a patio encased in wrought iron and plastic screening. It was hot, and the heater/bug zappers on the ceiling kept coming on for a few seconds and then shutting off.

First thing, let me say they have a really different and good wine list. Its not terribly expensive and the glasses they bring actually have more than 4oz of wine in them. For this alone, we will go back.

Punkerdoo had the Ravioli of the Day with the Sauce of the Day
Husband had the Risotto

The ravioli was very good and very rich. The risotto was undercooked to the point of being cavity painful. We assume since people keep eating there and all seem to have teeth, that this was an anomaly. I have worked in too many restaurants to send it back, so I crunch on through.

The service was good; polite…..

We will go back

184 West Clayton Street