I spent the last week in the Bay Area, eating in spots from downtown San Francisco to San Jose’s Japantown (yes, San Jose has one too). I saw an incredible supermarket in Cupertino, an enormous flea market in San Jose, and I have pictures of much of this. So over this week (perhaps next) there will be a lot of articles about Bay Area eating and shopping.

In the meantime. we arrived late enough to need a 24 hour eatery, and one of the best diners near Snellville is the Metro Cafe in Stone Mountain.  We had two specials, a grilled lamb shank and grilled tilapia there, and we also had hot wings.

The hot wings fared best in our hands, large, dry and spicy.

The tilapia serving was enormous, and accompanied by a decent set of steamed vegetables, mashed potatoes, and a ton of rice. The tilapia was good, but lacking in spices. Tossing some black pepper on the tilapia cured a lot of the lack of taste.

My daughter ordered the lamb shank, which she originally thought was good and then later decided was just ordinary. I had a taste. Yes, not much flavor from a chunk of meat that should have been flavorful almost by default. It was very tender though.