Why would you wait in line at Highland Bakery or Murphy’s when you could hop on over to BWB?  Their menu is creative + delicious, the brunch isn’t crazy busy (yet), the service is great, and you really can’t beat the atmosphere.  I heart.  I heart.

This is what I ate most recently at BWB brunch with Gorms + Rosh…

Bread Pudding French Toast to share.  TO. DIE. FOR. 

Goat Cheese and Chorizo Crepes with sweet and sour fig jam.

Plancha Omlette with herbed goat cheese and mushrooms.

Fried Egg Sandwich with bacon, manchego, sliced tomato, garlic aioli, and served with grits.  (Didn’t photograph too well, but it was really tasty.  Manchego was excellent on it.)

Here are a few other BWB brunch menu items that made my mouth water: 

- Short Rib Hash with crispy potatoes, bell peppers, and two eggs.
- Gulf Shrimp and Grits with stone ground grits and chorizo gravy.
- Scottish Smoked Salmon with kumato tomatoes, whipped cheese, and pumpernickel toast.

Don’t those sound divine??

Check out more of Barcelona’s brunch menu here: BRUNCH TIMEEEE!

And, I’ll you there next week!! 

xx, L

Barcelona Wine Bar
240 N. Highland Avenue
Atlanta, GA  30307
404.589.1010
http://www.barcelonawinebar.com/atlanta.htm

Behold the two most impressive Food-Stuffed-Inside-Food contenders I’ve EVER witnessed anyone eat.  (Bold statement, I know.)

1 – The Nook’s Award Winning Shrimp & Grits Stuffed Burger: certified angus beef stuffed with sauteed shrimp and gouda cheese, topped with an andouille sausage-studded grit cake + a smoked tomato beurre blanc sauce.

Holy hamburger!!  I’m pretty sure that’s not fat free.

2 – The Nook’s Award Winning Southern Comfort Burger: certified angus beef patty stuffed with a ball of homemade fried bacon mac + cheese and topped with cheddar cheese and The Nook’s secret peach and Southern Comfort barbecue sauce.

Wait for it….  Wait for it….

BAMMMMMM!!  

You haven’t LIVED until you’ve seen these monsters in person.  Take my word for it.

Move over Totchos…

xx, L

The Nook
1144 Piedmont Ave. NE
Atlanta, GA  30309
404.745.9222
www.thenookatlanta.com

I am so excited about this! I wonder if they’ll let me set up a food plan? 

xx, L

The Q+DD on Junior Achievement:
Junior Achievement is the only organization focused on economic, education, and workforce development.  We believe that inspiring and preparing Georgia’s young people to succeed in a global economy will result in a skilled workforce that will allow Georgia’s business community to flourish and grow.  We strive to impact tomorrow’s business and community leaders by bridging the gap between the business and education communities, encouraging Georgia’s youth to set long term career goals and showing them the value of education.  Our turn-key curriculum aligns to the Georgia Performance Standards, enhancing what students are learning in the classroom with real world examples and hands-on application of knowledge. 

Junior Achievement of Georgia partners with corporations, organizations, schools, and individuals concerned about the success of our students and our state.  Our volunteer-led programs teach K-12 students about business and entrepreneurship, personal financial literacy, and workforce readiness.  Volunteers share their personal and business experience to bring JA curriculum to life, helping students understand the real-world application of what they are learning in school.  This added relevancy inspires and prepares young people to succeed in a global economy.

Pretty amazing, right? 

Well, Junior Achievement has teamed up with Fogo de Chao to bring financial literacy education to even more metro Atlanta students.

Mmmmmmmm…Fogo….

Here’s the deal: You and as many guests as you like can dine at Fogo de Chao on Thursday, April 26, 2012 for a discounted meal to raise money for Junior Achievement.  All you need to do is call JA of Georgia to make a reservation anytime between 5:30 and 8:30 p.m.  Your meal will include a whopping 15 cuts of meat, all you can eat salad bar, soft drinks, dessert, and a cocktail.  The price of the meal is normally $75 per person, but by making a reservation through JA your meal will be ONLY $50 per person!  JA will receive 100% of the proceeds from the evening.

Seating is limited to 150 people + seats are filling up quickly, so make your reservation ASAP, y’all.  Reservations can only be made through the Junior Achievement office by calling 404-257-1932 x 210 or e-mailing cmajors@georgia.ja.org. 

Major beef-age + serious do-gooding.  Sounds excellent to me!  BRING ON THE BEEF! 

xx, L

Fogo de Chao
3101 Piedmont Road NE
Atlanta, GA  30305
404.266.9988
http://www.fogodechao.com/

I’ve definitely seen the truck before, and Dennis Dean is our favorite Atlanta caterer, so I’ve wanted to try Ibiza Bites for a while now, but I haven’t had the opportunity to do so until last Wednesday night when the truck was parked on 12th Street + Piedmont.  (Which we were told is going to become a weekly dinnertime thing for them…)

The very Q+DD on Ibiza Bites Food Truck:
Recently named by Jezebel Magazine as one of the top food trucks to watch in 2012, Ibiza Bites offers a brand new style of cuisine called “SoLa.”  It’s a bit South American, Latin American, and deep South – with a whole lot of deliciousness!  Cute.

I met Kev at the truck for dinner + we ordered up a few of his favorite items.  The truck was bumping Rihanna – so I knew I liked them immediately.  While they prepped our order, I found a high boy table waiting for us complete with a lovely floral arrangement.  Eating food out of a truck has never been so classy before! 

Our meal was sooooo decadently delicious!  We shared a pulled pork entree over cheese grits with a side of coconut/ plantain rice…

…crab cakes, fried green tomato, lemon thyme aioli over arugula w/ orange segments, pecans + fresh shaved manchego + sherry vinaigrette…

…and finally, sweet potato fries covered with melted marshmallow for dessert!

It was fantastic food truck fare, and ever since Wednesday night I’ve been stalking Ibiza Bites on Twitter to see where they’re headed next!  Follow the truck HERE! 

Next time, I’m all about trying their lobster mac ’n cheese!  Yummmmmmm…

xx, L

Ibiza Bites
Various Locations Around Atlanta
404.857.9308
www.ibizabites.com

Asellina is my ideal neighborhood restaurant.  A small, contemporary space with solid food and drinks, and a friendly wait staff.  Admittedly, it already had a big check mark in my mind before I even stepped foot inside.  Our delicious Friday night triple date, and later Caren West PR’s Grand Opening Fete, are what officially sealed the deal for me!

For our date night, we started off with Stuffed Cerignola Olives with roasted veal, parmigiano + semolina crust.  I don’t eat olives, but everyone else at the table devoured them.  They said things to me like, “Lindsay, these olives will make you love olives…”  Ultimately, I didn’t try them, but I’m building up the courage.  They were a huge, huge hit at our table.

We wanted to try as much as possible, so we went a teeny bit overboard with the rest of our appetizers – in fact, they almost fell off of the table at one point, so I tried to quickly capture them with a full table shot.  Everything was very good, and I recommend trying each of these items.  You could easily visit Asellina for drinks + apps ONLY and leave happy + full.  From front to back we had: Veal Meatballs with fresh tomato, mozzarella + basil/ Calamari Fritti with spicy tomato sauce + fresh majoram/ Ahi Tuna Tartare with robiola cheese, black truffle + spring onions/ and Burrata with tomato assaggi, fresh basil + olive oil.  We feasted.

But, we still had our eyes on the prize.  The pizzas + primis we ordered to share sounded totally divine – and they were.  One of the MVPs at our table was the Wild Mushroom Pizze with stracchio cheese + spring onion.  It’s pretty photogenic, too…

I really enjoyed the Four Cheese Pizze with sausage + artichokes. 

Even though we loved the pizzas, I would advise you not to skip over the pastas!  They were spectacular!  We shared the Pistachio Garganelli with hand-made sausage + wild mushrooms…

…and this dish.  This dish was AMAZING.  But, Asellina does not have an Atlanta menu on their website yet, so I am not 100% sure what it was.  I’m just sayin’ – we had a few drinks.  If you see this on someone’s table, ask them, or show this picture to your friendly server.  It was incredible.

The biggest surprise of the night was dessert.  Do not pass up dessert!  I don’t care how much you ate prior to it, EVERYONE knows that we have extra space in our stomachs for dessert.  It’s science, y’all…

The Citrus Panna Cotta was top notch.

People wept over the Tiramisu.  In fact, I heard “this is the best tiramisu I’ve had outside of Italy” from multiple folks at our table.

The Cannolis were also very tasty.

That’s about all I’ve got.  Final thoughts regarding Cucina Asellina are that it’s a great space, really excellent food, the drinks are a bit pricey for Atlanta ($12 cocktails), but overall I very much enjoy this place – and I especially like sitting on their outdoor patio facing Peachtree Street.  Midtown has become quite a fun area for people (+ movie star) watching these days!

Wishing you all many excellent meals at Cucina Asellina.  Bon appetit!

xx, L

Cucina Asellina
1075 Peachtree Street
Atlanta, GA  30309
404.793.0141
www.asellina.com

I’m kidding.  It only took us about 20 minutes and it was WELL worth the drive. 

Table & Main is located right on Canton Street near Historic Downtown Roswell and if you haven’t been up there, you must!  It is DARLING. 

We rolled up to the restaurant, which is located in a renovated early 1900’s home…so charming and cozy… and immediately saddled up to the Bourbon Bar where we were greeted with:

c.h.e.e.s.e. s.t.r.a.w.s. (!!!)

Now, if you ask me, cheese straws in place of pretzels as pub grub is an excellent start for a fancy southern restaurant. 

We sipped our wine and enjoyed our cheese straws and had a great chat with Table & Main partner Ryan Pernice and his lovely mother and aunt – turns out, RP is a Georgia native who went yankee on us for a little while studying restaurant management at Cornell and then working in Danny Meyer’s NYC restaurant empire before he made his way back home to Roswell.

Total T&M VIP.

Table & Main has an aDORable main dining room in the “living room” of the house, so to speak… but it’s also got a pretty spectacular patio.  We waltzed outside, breezed past the garden and the cornhole and found our seats where we consumed the following:

Hogs ‘n Quilts: They will change your life. BBQ pork shoulder, chive crepes, GA vinegar sauce, Napa cabbage slaw.  As Meredith would say… “YUESS.” 

Fried Okra:  this was NO joke.  As you know, I am from Alabama so I take my fried okra pretty seriously and this buttermilk breaded and fried version blew my socks off. 

Scallops:  I had the seared diver-caught scallops with sweet corn succotash and truffled jus.  They told me it was one of their more popular items and it did not disappoint.  Side note: I feel like when I talk to boys about scallops in a restaurant, a common complaint is that the portions are too small – not the case here.  Table & Main definitely served up a heaping helping of mollusks!:

It was hard not to have dinner-envy when Meredith was served the most enormo burger…ever…complete with big ol’ steak fries… my favorite. 

Ok here’s the Q+DD on the burg at T&M: it’s a charbroiled 8oz house-ground Wagyu burger with cheddar, aioli, and bacon-onion jam and it’s officially going in the LK Top 3 Burgers in Atlanta.  (sure, that’s a real thing.  Starting now.)

Now, I love a fancy burger with weird and interesting flavor profiles - but this burger tasted like HOME… and you gotta love that. 

The food was absolutely fantastic (yay chef Lahey!), but better yet: the whole experience was warm and welcoming and lovely.  These are great people with a great restaurant.

(Oh and PS – ladies, if you don’t run up there to meet Ryan Pernice immediately…that would be a huge mistake.  Huge.  #wordtothewise.  #justsaying) 

Glad to know ya, Table & Main!  I’ll be back VERY soon.

xx, L

Table & Main
1028 Canton Street
Roswell, GA 30075
(678) 869-5178

baci interior

We sat down and cracked open a bottle of red, which we brought with us since Baci didn’t have its liquor license yet. CODE RED(wine) is what LK called it!  And, we looked over the menu as we grilled the server about her favorite items and house specialties.

We started off our meal with Baci’s Caprese Salad: tomatoes, mozzarella, basil + creamy balsamic vinegar.  It was beautifully plated, and it absolutely hit the spot.

We quickly moved onto our entrees.  We shared the Seared Scallops: scallops + house risotto (pesto risotto the evening we dined)…

…and the Chilean Sea Bass: hong-kong style sea bass with white rice.  Both entrees were delicious, but in my opinion the sea bass was totally the way to go.

As a side, we couldn’t help ourselves when we spotted the Lobster Mac n’ Cheese on the menu.  It was incredibly decadent - a very welcomed splurge!

Check us out with our divine spread…

We weren’t actually hungry for dessert, but as soon as the server told us that the Gelato of the Week was salted caramel, the deal was SEALED!  Two scoops please – we’re not sharing!  It blew my mind.  I looooove salted caramel, but it has to be prepared JUST right or you can’t quite taste the saltiness or it’s terribly overpowering.  This gelato was fan-freaking-tastic!

We very much enjoyed our evening at Baci, and we recommend you try it before a movie at Cinebistro or for a quiet dinner date.  We know that you will love it as much as we do!  LK + I give Baci two thumbs up AND two big hugs.  Such an adorable spot! 

xx, L

Baci
705 Town Blvd. Ste. 510
Atlanta, GA  30319
404.771.7557
www.baciatlanta.com

HD1 is situated next to Pura Vida and San Fran Coffee in between Ponce de Leon and North Ave. on North Highland.  I think it’s a brilliant location pulling from the Poncey-Highlands hipsters, the Virginia Highlands college kids, the Fernbank area families, and the Little Five and Candler Park folks.  Kev and I visited HD1 on Sunday afternoon around 1:30 p.m. and it was P.A.C.K.E.D.  Admittedly, I was shocked by how popular it seemed to be.

Location, Location, Location – right?  Right.

A glimpse at HD1′s elaborate hot dog menu…

We found two cozy seats set aside from the otherwise communal seating, and were greeted by a pleasantly laid-back waitress who took our drink orders and informed us about her favorite HD1 dogs.  We perused the menu for a bit, and I frequently looked up to see Kev’s eyes get wider and wider.  Everything we were reading sounded more and more decadent and delicious than the former!  Eventually, we settled on a few things.

We started with the HD Waffle Fries with maple-oy sauce.

They were different. 

I found the maple-oy sauce to be pretty overpowering, and wished that we would have just ordered the plain waffle fries and soaked them in good ol’ fashioned ketchup.  Now we know…

Next, we moved on to THESE.  Beef ‘n pork wieners served on toasted sweet Ghana rolls.

From left to right – The Whiz: cheese sauce + shoestring frites (my fav.)/ Eastbound and Down: Carolina pulled pork, sweet mustard slaw + mop sauce (Kev’s fav.)/ Plain Jane: HD mustard, ketchup, sweet relish + onion.

Kev and I both agreed that the hot dogs were delicious and definitely creative, but the sweet Ghana rolls were really what made the major difference for us!  Y-U-M!

check out those buns!

Other hot dogs that we thought sounded great:

- Chow-down: chow-chow + brown mustard.

- Freemont St.: garlic cream cheese + red onion-tomato salad.

- Kenturkey: turkey sausage, tomato-pimento marmalade, mornay, bacon + parmesan.

See the full HD1 menu HERE!

Although we’d stuffed ourselves with hot dogs, we HAD to try the Caramel Popcorn Vanilla Soft Serve at the end of our meal. 

It was out-of-this-world good! 

We had such a fun time at HD1.  The food was an interesting change up to an otherwise potentially boring Sunday lunch.  While I might not want to eat hot dogs every weekend (Kev disagrees with me on that point), I would absolutely bring out-of-towners and first-timers to HD1 to show it off.  And, next time I’m definitely trying the Kenturkey.

So, about that wedding diet…  

xx, L

HD1
664 Highland Avenue NE
Atlanta, GA  30306
404.815.1127
www.hd1restaurant.com

Here’s the Q+DD:  Restos and food trucks from the Cheap Eats issue, the BBQ issue, the Best New Restaurants issue, and the December Best of Atlanta issue were invited to create samples of their signature dishes for 2,000 hungry (and well dressed…) Atlantans!

Georgia’s own wineries, breweries, and distilleries also participate.  The combination of the aforementioned components falls squarely inside my definition of A Good Time. 

(pssst: please see the below as evidence.  Mini H&F Burgers and drinks with the Captain?  Oh yuesss.)

Here’s the very BEST part: historically, Atlanta magazine and the Best of Atlanta Party have raised more than $2 million for Camp Twin Lakes!

I’ll be at the Camp Dance booth dishing up lovely s’mores with the help of some of my buddies and a fantastic Chocolate Fountain from Atlanta Chocolate Fountains/The Cappuccino Connection from 7:00-8:00ish… and then sampling some tasty vittles for the rest of the evening.  Join me!

Atlanta Magazine’s Best of Atlanta Party

7:00 at the Cobb Galleria

Regular tickets are all-inclusive and cost $65.

Buy tickets HERE! 

Hope to see you there!

xx, L