di Amano chocolate, Sandy Springs GA

This is a chocolate shop that I’ve enjoyed for a long time. For many years it was a member of the Schakolad chain, but more recently they’ve gone independent.

We like their spicy chocolates and we like their truffles. Truffles here cost about a dollar each (a box of 24 runs $30.00 I believe), and are well worth the trouble. I tried a dark chocolate truffle as a comparison piece. A di Amano chocolate starts out modestly and has flavors that build and then linger, it seems, forever. I like that, as it reminds me of the best hard cheeses.

di Amano Chocolate
1100 Hammond Road NE
Suite 430-A
Sandy Springs, GA 30328
(770) 730-9770

 

Sawicki’s, Decatur GA

Sawicki’s is in a modest location on Ponce de Leon, near a Taco Mac, and gives little indication that this is one of the more highly regarded sandwich shops in the city. The focus of the shop is on fresh ingredients, and in their better offerings, plenty of them.

We ordered a roast beef sandwich, a roasted lamb, a veggie sandwich, and a mediterranean salad. The salad was probably overkill.

The roast beef sandwich was a fistful of meat in between bread.

veggie sandwich.

Mediterranean salad. The veggie sandwich and the mediterranean share many of the same ingredients.

Roasted lamb. Not as enormous as the other two, but plenty tasty.

There is no magic in these sandwiches. It starts and ends with fresh, high quality ingredients. Prices are entirely reasonable, most sandwiches under 9 dollars.

For the folks too new at the blogging game to remember, back in the day Foodie Buddha had a sandwich tour, much as Jimmy once had a pizza tour. Sawicki’s was one of the highest ranked sandwich shops on his tour. In the four years since the tour, the quality hasn’t changed.

Sawicki’s
250 West Ponce De Leon
Decatur, GA 30030
(404) 377-0992

 

Georgia French Bakery and Cafe, Duluth GA

Georgia French Bakery has been in Duluth for, roughly, one and a half decades, and yet, bloggers just don’t write about this place. Why? Because the new insert-trendy-cliche-here joint in Midtown is more newsworthy than an authentic French bakery in the ‘burbs? I suspect in all honesty, as the location is a little tricky (on Satellite, a bit to the mall-side of the corner of Satellite and Pleasant Hill), and the proprietor (yes, French) is modest, disconnected from the food news machine, that it gets missed. No spiky jelled hair, no chummy chum with Tony, and well, whether you’re authentic and serve the real deal just doesn’t need to count, does it?

At lunch they serve sandwiches. You get four styles of bread, and the offerings for the day are placed on a blackboard, easy to see. I’d show the blackboard but the picture is blurred.

I enjoyed the proprietor, spoke with him briefly, largely about the closing of Cafe Gourmandises, which used to be the lead French eatery in these parts.

Recommended? Yes. We’ll be back. Authentic French isn’t all that common.

Georgia French Bakery and Cafe
3512 Satellite Boulevard
Duluth, GA 30096
(770) 622-2682

 

Walmart Neighborhood Market, Snellville GA

My wife had been talking about this place a while, a Walmart that was going to be mostly a grocery. Time passes, and it opens up, at the corner of McGee and 78, perhaps five minutes drive from my house. The first available weekend, my family went.

The new grocery in town.

Inside, it’s nice and roomy, with some of the widest aisles I’ve seen in a market. Meat here is often “choice” grade (Patton’s is the place to go for prime), and steaks run about two dollars a pound cheaper than do the alternatives at Kroger and Publix. I looked at some other items: sodas seemed more expensive than Kroger/Publix, the frozen section was enormous, and the selection of certain sweets and snacks – ice cream, cookies, chips – almost disturbingly large. The beer selection, by contrast, was small and unimpressive compared to either Kroger or Publix.

Greens and veggies were housed in a small neat section. The store brand of greens was pretty good looking and had a decent share of “organic” alternatives. Store brand “organic” eggs were also available. Understand, this place was more interested in selling gallon buckets of cheap ice cream and family sized pizzas than being a Whole Foods clone, but good real food is here, if you’ll look for it.

Best buys to me seem to be the meats, and the frozen items. The store brand of canned goods had some shockingly inexpensive meat and seafood options.

While I was there, I was tweeting what I saw. The curious and ironic replies I understood, but not really the nasty, venal, Heather-esque responses (ironically, the cheap shots were coming from folks who describe their lives as “fabulous”). So a warning: my diet isn’t a joke and I have about zero tolerance for any amount of disinformation about food. Check your facts, please.

So let me say this: You can, if you shop this Walmart carefully, get good, cheap, healthy food, and foods that would fit almost any diet. It may pander a bit to the sweet tooth in all of us, but push come to shove, it’s a grocery store, one that’s immaculately clean, with large aisles, an interesting product mix, and I suspect, as time goes on, plenty of customers.

 

Niko’s Wine Corner (revisited), Snellville GA

Niko’s was one of the first shops I reviewed when I started this blog. I remember thinking that I hoped he’d make it. I haven’t been back in a while, and not only has Niko survived, but he’s also expanded into the square in Lawrenceville. Recently I went into Niko’s, to window shop and pick up a bottle or two, and ended up with a case of assorted beers. For me, that day, yes, his selection of beers was that good.

Niko’s has singles, four packs and six packs of beer. There are cold beers in the fridge, and the brown carousel to your right has plenty of quality Belgian ales.

I find his tastes complementary to the supermarkets, and also a complement to Summit’s Tavern. There isn’t a whole lot of overlap between the three. So I would suggest it’s worth your while, especially if you’re into Trappist ales and Belgians, or simply a change of pace, to take a gander over to Niko’s, and cruise the beer section of his store.

Niko’s Wine Corner
2050 Scenic Highway, Suite G and H
Snellville GA, 30078
(770) 979-3111

Niko’s Wine Corner
178 Crogan Street, Suite 210
Lawrenceville GA, 40046
(770) 962-0348

 

Shabu & Shabu plus Hansel and Gretel, Duluth GA

Shabu & Shabu is a restaurant on the Wall Mart side of the intersection of North Berkeley and Pleasant Hill, an intersection that on the northeast side also has a Super H Mart. It’s a Korean style mini hot pot, and immaculately clean.

In the mini hot pot setup, there is a heater in the table. You take your meats and greens and dip them into broth, and fetch them out yourself. This differs I’ll note from the Japanese style of serving these dishes, where a staffer helps you cook and eat, and as Chloe has pointed out, the broths on these various hot pots are quite different.

Dipping sauce comes in three levels of heat: medium hot, hot, and very hot. My daughter got medium hot and said she’d get a hotter variety next time.

Meats are thin sliced to cook quickly. Use the back sides of your chopsticks to place raw meat into the pot.

Prices for the main dishes are reasonable, and the cleanliness, and the simplicity of ordering there (there is no sauce bar, as there is in Mini Hot Pot 2) make this an ideal place to introduce a mini hot pot to a relative newcomer.

Next door to Shabu & Shabu is the Hansel and Gretel Bakery. It’s a classic EuroKorean bakery, with a mix of Western and Asian sweets. It’s smaller than the Cafe Mozart near Gwinnett Place, and so the selection of bean paste goods isn’t as extensive as that bakery. But certainly it is clean and nice, and they seemed affable, and much easier to deal with than certain (unmentioned) Korean bakeries in the area.

Shabu & Shabu
2605 Pleasant Hill Road, Suite 300
Duluth, GA 30096
(678) 584-1111

Hansel and Gretel Bakery
2605 Pleasant Hill Road, Suite 400
Duluth, GA 30096
(770) 623-5555

 

Snellville Farmer’s Market, 2012 edition

I didn’t get to opening day of the 2012 Snellville Farmer’s Market but I did manage to make it to the second day. My wife was preparing that day to meet a friend she hadn’t seen in over 15 years, so it was my daughter and I that prowled the grassy lanes of the market. Parking is harder than it was the first two years, and I recommend showing up as early as you can to get a decent parking space.

Support by Snellville’s finest is gratefully appreciated.

Hours, dates, and sponsors listed here.

The vendors that show grow more interesting and diverse each year, and the arrangements they have for live music more professional. If you want the freshest produce, and the most reliable source of grass fed meats in the Snellville area, the Farmer’s Market is the place to be.

I like the new stage for performers.

The King of Pops, back again.

In all, enjoyable, and wonderful to see how this market is maturing.

 

Nam Dae Mun Farmer’s Market, Lawrenceville GA

It’s a market in one of the strip malls at the corner of Dogwood and Oak Road, the side that has the Sonic and the Bank of America, and behind the old Blockbuster. It’s now one of four in a chain. Two of the others have been reviewed here previously, as Gwinnett International Farmer’s Market and Lilburn Farmer’s Market. That should give you some clues as to what they do, and what they do well. For those wanting more recent discussion,  there is an active thread on 285 Foodies discussing the chain.

Virtues here will be seen mostly by large families. The meat prices are staggeringly low. I saw good looking T bones at $4/pound, a ton of other meats in the 3 dollar per pound range, roasts in the 2/lb range. Chicken breasts are about half the price, per pound, of the local chains. A considerably larger supply of offal – organ meats, chicken feet, bony cuts, ox tails, etc, is available at Nam Dae Mun than other stores.

Meats can be incredibly inexpensive at Nam Dae Mun. There are butchers, under the "Seafood" sign, who can cut up meats for you.

There is a European section, with Swiss and Croatian chocolates and Russian pickles, and an Asian section, with a ton of useful sauces (yu xiang sauce, for example, and perhaps 10-20 different kinds of Kikkoman products). I saw plenty of Caribbean spices and condiments. There was durian and jack fruit – huge things. There were plenty of red jalapenos, sugar cane, Korean sweet potatoes (asian yams), habaneros, exotic spices. Silky and firm tofu were available for about $1.60 a container.

There is a bakery. Though pretty modest, they are selling cookies and Danish that look useful. There is a seafood section. Among other things, they have live catfish and live lobster for sale.

Nam Dae Mun Farmer’s Market
850 Dogwood Road
Lawrenceville, GA 30044
(678) 580-6730

Two locations reviewed previously are:

Duluth:

3825 Shackleford Road
Duluth, GA 30096
(770)921-8288

Lilburn:

4805 Lawrenceville Highway
Lilburn, GA 30047
(770)381-0490

There is a location in Smyrna that I’ve not seen, but the address is:

2350 Spring Road
Smyrna, GA 30080
(678)309-0007

Maps to the various locations can be found here.

 

Sushi Yoko and Tomato, Norcross GA

Sushi Yoko is on the right as you head north on Peachtree Industrial Boulevard, a tan to yellow building below the afternoon commuters. You need to exit at roughly the Tilly Mill Road exit to get to this eatery, as there are no exits immediately by this place. Inside, it has booth seating and a sushi bar, and is a little more cramped than you might expect, because this same building houses the Japanese store Tomato.

mackerel shioyaki

salmon shioyaki

tempura

tsukemono

Sushi Yoko features largely authentic fare, no teppanyaki to speak of, and has inexpensive eats, as a J place goes. Comments that it’s a good lunch spot ring true. These days a lunch single runs about 7 dollars. The shioyaki here is a good bet, tasty and fresh. They also serve a generous bowl of tsukemono.

Hall art.

But it was Tomato that we were most suprised by. My wife is in love. It fills a niche that disappeared when Books Japan closed, though it’s more a grocery and general store than truly a book store. Pretty art fills the walls as you approach both shops, and both indeed are recommended.

Sushi Yoko
7124 Peachtree Industrial Boulevard
Norcross, GA 30071
(770) 903-9348

Tomato
7124 Peachtree Industrial Boulevard
Norcross, GA 30071
(770) 263-7838

 

Maggie Lyon Chocolatiers, Norcross GA

It’s in a strip mall, a little north of the intersection of Peachtree Industrial and Holcomb Bridge Road, on the left as you’re traveling north. It isn’t open at the hours I normally commute home, but it is open around noon or so. I’ve seen this place for about a year, and wanted to go there. I haven’t really had an opportunity until now, and was really glad I did.

Walk inside and step towards the back, and you can see ladies dressed in blue ‘lab coats’ and hair nets working with the chocolates on conveyor belts. There are stacks of bags of chocolate, each the size of a peat moss bag at the local home improvement store. Inside the store portion, there is a glass case full of exotic truffles. I took home 5. My daughter had 2, my wife the rest, and I had bites of a couple of the chocolates. Rich. Delicious. Worth the effort of arriving when they are open.

Think you haven’t eaten them? If you’ve purchased chocolates at a high end department store in this town (or perhaps a chocolate bar at a sporting goods store), you probably have.

Maggie Lyon Chocolatiers
6000 Peachtree Industrial # B
Norcross, GA 30071-1374
(770) 446-1299