Food Near Snellville

There is a feeding frenzy going on in Lawrenceville, all around this South Florida chain that’s moved in at the corner of 316 and 120. Pollo Tropical has opened, and the wait to get into this modest chain is something like half an hour, cars are lined up out of the lot to get to the food. The crush for $5.99 chicken plates is tremendous. It’s been open since August 16th and taking the local area by storm.

The crush is amazing.

If you examine Urban Spoon for typical Pollo Tropical chain locations, they are rated anywhere from the low 70s to high 80s, quite a spread. Central Florida’s Good Eats (an Urban Spoon prime reviewer) has an article here on the Sanford location, which might give you a feel for one blogger’s perspective on the restaurant.

I haven’t eaten there. For work and home reasons I can’t really wait this out. When the crush becomes bearable, I’ll try, but heads up for those of you who are “into” the fusion of Florida and Caribbean cuisine this chain represents.

Pollo Tropical
825 Duluth Highway
Lawrenceville, GA 30043
(866) 769-7696

PS – Kudos to Lawrenceville Patch, which has a nice intro article on Pollo Tropical. This chain is also referenced in the Wikipedia.

If you haven’t had Big Tex’s corned beef hash, you’re missing out. Yes, this is one time I have to unleash my foodie superego, that urge to tell others what to do, where to go, and how to eat. I  don’t do this often. Perhaps the last time was for Haru Ichiban’s paper hot pot yosenabe, but this is another time.  Yes, just go. Try it. And tell your friends what  you think.

Specials

The corned beef hash is a smoked meat heaven.

Yes, I know, Foodie Buddha said he didn’t like it. To be fair, the rational side of me thinks this is merely a product of FB coming early to restaurants before their teething period is complete. Just go. Make  up your own mind.

Brisket tacos and a good jalapeno cole slaw

The other things they serve range from decent to pretty good. They know they have a winner in  terms of their brisket,  that’s why it’s featured in  three different tacos.  Their sides are good. I liked both their slaw and their turnip greens. This virtue is a holdover from their parent, Fox Brother’s Barbecue (see here and here).

There are a bunch of burgers here, something of a hat tip to Houston’s Goode Company Hamburgers and Taqueria, which was doing the same  back in the 1980s (though back then the word “hamburgers” wasn’t in the name.  GCT was the the first place I ever had pico de gallo on a burger, and at the time, was the best burger in the city, bar none). There are, of course, enchiladas, yellow cheese, and yellow queso. The beer selection is quite good.

Does this place compare, say, to a cornerstone Tejano icon, such as the original Ninfa’s on Navigation in Houston, back in its heyday? No, not really, but it’s not supposed to. The appropriate comparison is to Guy Wong and his endlessly inventive foods in Miso Izakaya. It’s not a copy, it’s a jazz riff off the original idea of Tejano. Expect some hits, expect some misses, expect them to grow into their menu and to slowly adapt the form to what  the Fox Brothers do well. It may not be a home run now, but the corned beef hash is a solid hit of a dish, and I expect more from  this place as it evolves.

Big Tex Cantina
308 W. Ponce de Leon Avenue
Decatur, GA 30030
(404) 377-3939

Goode Company Hamburgers and Taqueria
4902 Kirby Dr
Houston, TX 77098
(713) 520-9153

Sausage month is over at Summit’s Tavern, but the memories and a photo remain:

Outside, from a distance, Sun and Moon Cafe looks a lot like a coffee shop, and inside, with the rich use of thatched wood, comes off a bit like a tiki bar or the inside of a piece of rattan furniture. The clientele are mixed: a lot of very young men and women, and some older folks. The best comparison, ironically, is Iron Age, and while I’d be happy taking my San Francisco in-laws to Iron Age, I’d not take my father there. My father would be comfortable in Sun and Moon Cafe.

This is, for those of us not fluent in Korean, largely a Korean BBQ joint, all you can eat. They serve pork belly and beef brisket, pork thick sliced. They have a nice assortment of banchan, come out with plenty of a lettuce salad early on, and about half way through the meal, will drop a pot of boiling soup into your lap. You can get rice (Korean brown rice, a mix of rice and a bean) if you ask for it.

Service is very good in the beginning, lax towards the end. They expect you to use the “waiter” button, provided on each table if you need service later. They will cut  up and stir your meats, and the meal comes with plenty of garlic and kimchi on the iron plate.

If  you drink alcohol, the all you can eat is $9.99, $14.99 otherwise. Consequently, it gets louder the deeper into the night it gets. By the time we left, it was getting loud for us, but perhaps we weren’t as hungry then.

Sun and Moon Cafe
3555 Gwinnett Place Dr
Duluth, GA 30096
(678)-417-6755

Both Sean and Gene have excellent reviews of Sun and Moon Cafe, highly recommended.

The first time I really enjoyed duck was the Wor Sue duck at Canton Cooks, and when it’s good, it’s a dish with three signature virtues. It has a crispy outer skin, a liquidy layer of fat just under the skin, and then tender flavorful meat. Guess what? Those same virtues were featured big time when we recently had the smoked duck at Peter Chang’s.

Awesome!

Crisp skin, tender and very juicy meat, and the layer of fat that leads to a triple texture whammy as you imbibe. Yes, the dry fried eggplant was great, the Shan City chicken was good, but this dish was the best at the table, by far.

Peter Chang’s
6450 Powers Ferry Road
Atlanta, GA 30339
(678) 766-8765

There is a new blogger in town, talking about barbecue in Georgia, and one of his first posts takes on Swallow At the Hollow. He’s generally polite about the experience, but notes that they don’t smoke their ribs. That’s an experience I’ve noted and so has Cynical Cook. I’m hoping he isn’t in for the amount of nonsense I’ve suffered in various parts for being impertinent enough to make such a statement. The online issues are noticeable.

To be plain, there are some restaurants that gather zealous online fans. Cans Taqueria is one. And the more I think about it, Swallow at the Hollow is another. It’s as if any direct statement of the form “Swallow just doesn’t produce competition style ribs” — which IMO, they don’t — is immediately challenged, largely by huge doses of online testosterone, and occasionally, by the totally mystifying media post.

There is a pretty colorful quote by Trevanian that correlates the size of a Frenchman’s “ego” and the way he drives his car. The same can be said for certain fan’s reactions to their favorite restaurants.

Somewhat less cynically, there are (simplified) two camps of barbecue eaters. There are those who want their ribs richly smoked and others that want them fall off the bone tender. Turns out, you can make very tender ribs with some smoke, if my recent experience at Fox Brothers is any indication, but the other camp is represented by SATH, Fat Matts (if others are correct), Smokey Bones, Golden Corral, and just about anyone who can effectively broil meat. Well smoked ribs are much harder to find, and the others, sad to say, can be found most anywhere.

Lucky’s is on the left as you’re heading north up Alpharetta Street, relatively easy to see and with plenty of parking. It is named after the owner’s dog, and it has been noted in other reviews that dogs can eat here if they sit outside on the patio.

But the biggest reason to head here is a well priced burger made to order. That’s what we had when we dropped by, and that’s exactly what this place can deliver. Want a medium rare burger? You’ll get one here.

Inside, the dog theme continues with photos of Lucky pretty much everywhere. The look inside is functional, not beautiful, but clearly clean and neat. Staff are friendly and efficient.

Lucky’s Burger and Brew
1144 Alpharetta Street
Roswell, GA 30075
(770) 518-5695

The three are a portabella, a fish and a gyro taco. All good, but the portabella? Surprisingly good.

Our original review of this restaurant is here.

Teela Taqueria
227 Sandy Springs Place
Atlanta, GA 30328
(404) 459-0477

Miso Izakaya was one of two high profile izakaya that opened in 2009, and of the two, had the longer gestation period into a critically regarded restaurant. It had been on my radar for some time, but my weekends had been dominated by Friday night maintenance issues, and I hadn’t been in condition to crawl the city on Saturdays until recently.  Finally, timing and circumstances allowed my family to get there, and I’m very glad the three of us went. It was a terrific place to take my family.

It’s about a mile further from Snellville than is Fox Brothers Barbecue, and the route, via Google Maps, is that nasty, difficult, winding through small roads Google Maps has anyone from Snellville do to get to Fox Brothers. About a mile further down DeKalb Avenue, you turn right at Krog, and then left on Edgewood. Miso ends up on your left.

Miso is smaller than I expected it to be, and has a smaller menu than I expected as well. Staff? Asian, but seemingly pretty multicultural. We arrived between 6 and 7 and I was dreading a 30 to 45 minute wait. Nothing of the sort happened. We were seated immediately. A crowd was developing as we left.

Miso's onigiri are terrific. After the first, we ordered a second.

Pickles (oshinko).

corn kariage was a pleasant surprise.

The menu fits on two side of a place mat, and is pretty versatile. Starters, salads, entrees, seafood dishes, tofu and vegetable dishes are some of the categories offered. We started with a wakame salad, edamame, onigiri, oshinko, and corn kariage, the closest thing we could find to traditional tempura.

wakame salad

Later we ordered an assortment of sushi.

Sushi. California roll and some nigiri.

Entrees included quail (excellent!), skirt steak, and tonkatsu. We later ordered a salmon skin salad, and fried oysters to end the meal.

Quail here are a fine dish.

Skirt steak

Tonkatsu. Smaller serving but very high quality.

Our waiter was excellent, the best staffer we’ve had in a while.

Impressions? Though the menu here is relatively small, it’s very creative, and Guy Wong’s interpretation of common dishes often yields unexpected surprises, things like salmon skin in the onigiri, green tea salt as a dipping spice, or the tiny circles of Thai pepper in the quail, perfectly sized to not overwhelm. There are small touches throughout the menu, and it has the feel of someone who tinkers and experiments with food. Dish names can be multicultural puns (i.e. green tomato katsu), and there is a playfulness that pervades the whole dining experience. To drag up a word that’s often overused in food blogging, Miso Izakaya is a lot of fun, and the joy of the unexpected small detail is going to be the engine that drives people to come here again and again.

Miso Izakaya
619 Edgewood Ave Southeast
Atlanta, GA 30312
(678) 701-0128

Atlanta

The origin of all omega-3s is the photosynthetic center of plants, the chloroplast.

Chloroplast

Omega-3 fatty acids are synthesized as components of the cell membranes of chloroplasts, and no matter whether your chloroplasts come from here

Microalgae. Diatoms in this image.

Lemon grass, an example of a land based leafy plant.

adequate omega-3 fatty acids are easy to come by if you take a little care with your sources.

Steamed spinach. Popeye had the right idea.

Omega-6 fatty acids come from grains and nuts, such as these

Wheat

and are concentrated in huge quantities in grain oils, such as corn oil, cottonseed oil, and canola oil.

Corn oil

Now, when one of these

Cow!

eats large quantities of grass, they act as biological concentrators of those fatty acids. The butter from grass fed animals, in particular, is a great source of omega-3 fatty acids. If, however, your meat sources eat large quantities of this

Corn

well, corn is a grain and those animals are going to be stuffed with omega-6 fatty acids. Animals, whether swimming or 4 legged, maintain high concentrations of the oils they eat.

In the absence of grass-fed land animals, sardines and herring are perhaps the cheapest, most available source of high quality omega-3 fatty acids, and cans of them can be purchased for perhaps 90 cents at the local supermarket.

A school of sardines.

Mackerel also works, as does trout or wild salmon.

Since omega-3 deficiencies in small children have been linked to learning issues, commercial manufacturers have moved into the gap.  These new products, however, have small servings of DHA at rather high prices ( 30 to 50 cents a pill), and tend to be given in pills along with a small scattering of vitamins (in pill form, a dose of vitamins costs about 5 cents each). Another common sleight of hand trick is to add a small amount of flax to a largely grain based cereal. Omega 6 from the cereal grains are going to overwhelm the small advantage gained by a tiny bit of flax seed.

Barleans, a respectable brand of flax seed oil. Whole Foods has a good store brand.

I have yet another suggestion. When possible, don’t feed your children lots of grains and lots of grain oils (or sardines soaked in cottonseed oil), but rather, perhaps get a little flax seed oil and cut up a bit of a really good tomato.

Japanese black trifele tomato, a good heirloom.

High quality Roma tomatoes can be had at the local market.

The flax seed oil will provide a very useful dose of plant based ALA, the oil will act as an excellent carrier for tomato lycopenes, and further, the conversion of this plant based omega-3 to EPA/DHA will be determined by the needs of the eater. I suspect it tastes better than a little pill, and per serving, feeds more than a pill.

If your young one is a plant hating carnivore, a little sardine or tuna mixed with a stretcher (perhaps a olive oil pesto) works.

Note: the vast majority of the images above come from Wikimedia Commons.