Cinco Mexican Cantina, Suwanee GA

It’s a pretty watering hole, Cinco is, and a good place to stop with the guys, or a girlfriend, take in the atmosphere, enjoy some modest eats. The deal with Cinco is that they start with good ingredients, and deliver a solid, not brilliant, product.

Braised short rib enchiladas are an example of what they deliver. Cinco is clearly dealing in border cuisine (Tex-Mex, Tejano, what have you), as opposed to authentic Mexican cuisine.

Pretty chips basket.

It’s a companionable place, and as stated, really good looking.

Cinco Mexican Cantina
1500 Peachtree Industrial Blvd
Suwanee, GA 30024
(678) 541-0645

PS – Chloe’s review of five years ago is still a good description of this place.

 

Toh Dam Tofu House, Suwanee GA

Two words: Go now. Not because the tofu soup is fantastic. It’s really good, mind you, but they’re giving  the kind of service that will leave you smiling about the whole experience of eating here. Six months from now, it might be more pedestrian, so I’m tapping rapidly on  the ‘go now’ button, for those I can offer a suggestion to.

Tohdam is behind the stairs.

Terrific banchan.

They offer interesting extras, such as this mung bean pancake. It was crunchy, with plenty of green vegetable bits.

They serve a good tofu soup.

On a scale from one to 5, I’d rate the silky  tofu soup, banchan, purple (brown) rice, extras, about a 4 out of 5. Service is a 5+ and that’s what I find exciting about this eatery. It’s in a small ‘C’ shaped mall anchored by an Assi market, and is a little out of the way. I had dropped my daughter off at Japanfest and was looking for a place to eat. I ended up catching the Tohdam sign  out  of the corner of my eye.

To note, this  is the third version of this eatery. There have been 3 chef and owner changes. Staff told me they had been open 8 days when we ate. As Chloe noted on Twitter:

@FoodNSnellville It’s the 3rd incarnation. Chef+owners change each time. Gets better every time.

I never did get to the other versions, but this one should be on the tofu soup short list of everyone from Duluth to Buford.

Tohdam Tofu House
1291 Old Peachtree Road
Suwanee, GA 30024
(770) 622-5668

 

Cafe Gourmandises, Summer 2012 edition, Suwanee GA

If you’re a foodie with an ounce of pride in what you eat, and you are anywhere near Suwanee, a suburb north of Atlanta, then you need to run, not walk, to Cafe Gourmandises. Seriously. It hasn’t gone away, and it continues to produce some of the finest food value around. Staff? Ridiculously amiable and chatty. The chef? The most approachable guy this side of Guy Wong. The food? Terrific.

A fine Kobe burger.

The shaved and crispy lamb sandwich is to die for.

I snuck in for lunch recently. My daughter had the shaved and crispy lamb sandwich, and I had their Kobe burger. And perhaps I’m spoiled, as decent burgers for me are just a couple blocks away, but the lamb was definitely over the top. And as good as the lamb is, I don’t think I’ve ever eaten the same thing twice in this restaurant.

We’ll be back. My wife now recalls this place and I’ll need some excuse to get her here.

Cafe Gourmandises
686 Peachtree Industrial Boulevard
Suite 200
Suwanee, GA 30024
(770) 945-6599

Atlanta

 

Full service Japanese: Waraku Japanese Restaurant, Suwanee GA

My mother-in-law is Japanese, my wife is half. Feeding a Japanese party the right way isn’t a hypothetical in my household, it’s a fact of life. To that end I’m better off when the restaurant is capable of serving the components of a formal Japanese meal, than I am with a sushi and ramen shack on steroids.

tsukemono

edamame

pork curry

Waraku Japanese Restaurant thus has a virtue most foodies and/or bloggers in Atlanta aren’t appreciative of, the idea that a full blown traditional Japanese dinner could be constructed from their menu. Waraku has an 8 page menu, and it’s not a collection of Decatur and Cobb County rolls. Instead, every major cooking technique in Shizuo Tsuji’s masterpiece “Japanese Cooking, a Simple Art” is represented. Grilled foods, pan fried foods, steamed foods, simmered foods, salads, noodle dishes, pickles are all here. Perhaps the only missing major component is nabemono, and nabemono requires such specialized staff to do right that very few restaurants try to do it anymore.

spicy squid circles

Japanese pepper kushiyaki

California roll bento box, with tonkatsu and vegetable tempura.

A good grilled mackerel can be had at Waraku.

The trendy folk will hang out at the Midtown sushi houses and the occasional ramen-ya, and try and convince themselves they’re seeing it all and know it all when it comes to Japanese food. Meanwhile, real Japanese, and a somewhat more modest population will find this place, recognize Waraku for the value it represents, and realize this is an inexpensive gem of an eatery on the edge of town.

custard after dinner

To note, this restaurant is not that easy to see from the street (it’s far back, in the same strip mall where Spiced Right is found) and the only sign that it is there are a few kanji and the word ‘Sushi’ by the street. So yes, get out Mapquest or Google Maps and locate this place. It’s not the easiest to see, but the quality of the food for the price you pay? Well worth it.

Waraku Japanese Restaurant
3131 Lawrenceville Suwanee Road
Suwanee, GA 30024
(678) 889-4188

PS – I want to thank my reader Coko for telling me about this place. If you have never read Coko, I’d strongly recommend reading her comment to this article.

 

Kang Seo, Suwanee GA

It’s near Umaido, with a Korean only name and an icon of a cow just to the left of the name. I knew of it because Chloe had reviewed it, but we found it mostly by trial and error after taking family to Discover Mills. A short jaunt up the road and we were there.

Korean eateries have become a safe haven when I’m not sure where I can eat. Koreans have an emphasis on meats, spices, and vegetables in the form of banchan. Rice is generally separated from the rest of the meal. The cuisine allow me to control my carbs, and thus lets the rest of the family eat what they please. Usually between the soups, the barbecue, and soon dubu, we usually can find our comfort zone.

Brown rice, Korean style

The comfort zone this night was in the spicy grilled octopus, which was really good. The yuk gae jang was reliable: plenty of meat, just enough spice, the leeks safe and tasty. The Kang Seo version of tofu soup was one my wife favored and my daughter stuck with the safety of short ribs, or galbi.

Service was, I felt, quite good, if a bit more plain spoken than polished. That’s fine. The waitress spoke up when we were about to order too much food and probably saved us a good ten to fifteen dollars by doing so. There is a button on the table to ask for service (which we essentially never used) and the silverware is all metal. I’m under the impression that’s a bit like the fine silverware in a typical Southern household.

I enjoyed my time here. So did my family. They serve some fancier dishes here, but given their price, we’re not likely to explore them. They seem to be in the same family as Japanese nabemono, intended for groups. It would  take a group, I think, to explore that kind of eating.

Kang Seo
2790 Lawrenceville Suwanee Road
Suwanee, GA 30024
(770) 932-7753

 

Tarts

It amazes me how Cafe Mozart can make a moon pie seem elegant.

That said, back when I could eat sweets, I used to savor the tarts that places like Cafe Mozart would serve.

My wife favors the pastries stuffed with (preferably) red bean paste. White bean paste would do in a pinch
.

Oh, she’s fond of these!

This particular location has musical notes attached to the walls, and a glass cutout in the floor, in the outline of a grand piano. It is pretty spectacular if you’re standing atop it.

Cafe Mozart
270 Lawrenceville Suwanee Road
Suwanee Georgia, 30024
(678)-482-9645

 

Soedulnyuk, Suwanee GA

Soedulnyuk is popular. When I was entering this restaurant a party of 30 left. It wasn’t hard to get in, but once in, it was something of a Hotel California of food. The restaurant was slammed the day I arrived. You could see the worry and anxiety on the faces of staff, their body language radiated the effort it took to keep up with the crowd. This success has come at a price to customers though. The signs for “all you can eat” showed a price increase, to $11.99 and $16.99 respectively, and the wait before anyone would take orders was very long.

Yuk Gae Jang; sorry for the fuzzy photo.

Food was long in coming after the order. I was worried I might have to drop reviewing the restaurant altogether because of the waits when finally, food arrived, along with banchan.

The soup was good; beef and leek complemented each other well. The bowl was as big as my head. Banchan were plentiful. This is an easy, safe meal for me to eat these days, very little worry about the ravages of diabetes. Once finished though, there was that long interminable wait until the check was picked up.

Verdict: Good food. Overwhelmed by their success, so don’t expect much attention from staff. Recommended, assuming they fix their staff issues.

Soedulnyuk
2790 Lawrenceville Suwanee Road, Suite 165
Suwanee, GA 30024
(678) 394-5190

 

Fresh Market (Suwanee), and are high end groceries diabetes friendly?

My wife has been wanting to got to Fresh Market ever since a coworker of hers, one with a diabetic husband, recommended it as a place to get things friendly to a diabetic. Now I have been to the Dunwoody Fresh Market. The easy availability of fresh fruits, quality meats, and small portion cheeses doesn’t hurt. However, I tend to think the main supermarkets, such as Publix and Kroger, are better places to get diabetic specialty items, things like sugar free jams and preserves, Glucerna bars, etc.

Anyway, before I tee off on the high end groceries in general, let’s talk a bit about the layout of Fresh Market. On entering you pass through flowers and the bigger editions of these stores have a florist on hand. Next is fresh produce, which is of good quality and tends to be expensive. If you want things like exceptionally sweet carrots or golden raspberries, they have them here. In terms of size, this one is more Trader Joe’s sized than Whole Foods sized, but there are still important differences between Joe’s and Fresh Market.

Unlike Trader Joe’s, the two Fresh Markets I’ve seen have bakeries and a butcher and a good but small collection of fish. There are a lot of prepared sweets in Fresh Market (none of which I can eat) and they have a deli-like section to get things like Boar’s Head meats and high end  cheeses. They have good breads and an above average collection of dairy products. The store in general is full of eye candy and an interesting place to shop.

Are the high end grocers diabetic friendly?

To be brutally honest, I don’t think any high end grocery deserves to be called diabetic friendly, because they’re not. The sheer quantity of unmeasured, excessively rich prepared foods guarantees that. And when they offer prepared foods I can eat, like cooked whole grains, or a beef stew, where are the measuring cups? Tongs  and oversized bowls don’t cut it under these circumstances. Having to walk through these displays to get to cash registers and not having an effective way to partake is almost criminal.

That said, I don’t think they deserve the phrase diabetic unfriendly either. Small portions of protein and fats are key to someone like me being able to keep up my calories outside the home. Nuts, olives, small meat and fish portions and especially low fat cheeses make my quality of life much better. Rich selections of oils add variety to the kinds of food I can eat because two things I can be versatile with are fats and proteins. I can eat almost any vegetable, and it’s hard to eat too many. Fruits I can eat in measured quantities. Some diabetics can fit in the high cocoa chocolates (70% or more) as a calorie boost.

One of my issues when dieting is that I don’t eat enough. One way to boost my caloric input during the 2.5 meals I have to eat at work is to keep canned fish around. Sardines would be perfect, but they are also rich in purines and that doesn’t sit well with my other health issues. I like canned salmon when I can get it. I didn’t find any canned salmon at this Fresh Market but I did find canned mackerel. This Fresh Market has a rich collection of olives, which are diabetes friendly and a wide variety of ounce sized cheeses. They even had Black Diamond, a cheese that in the 1980s was proclaimed by some to be the best cheddar in North America. 3/4 ounce slices make it easy for someone like me to make last minute adjustments in a diet lacking calories, and in the process, I’m not giving up quality taste.

Black Diamond: 7g protein, 10g fat per ounce.

Chips and the diabetic.

I’d have to say finding how how diabetic sensitive tortilla and potato chip labels are to diabetes was an accident, and I’ll note that Jeff’s article on Adventurous Tastes, titled “Is the Serving Size Game Coming to an End?” was a key to noticing this. He was complaining about how stupid chip labeling is, that they use a portion size that’s ridiculous. I was agreeing with Jeff and while doing so, actually read the label and noticed the magic number: 15 grams of carbs. 15 grams of carbs is one starch exchange, the size of a single serving for a diabetic.  All I can conclude is that someone in the chip industry has diabetes, or a relative with diabetes.

Recently I went to the closest Walgreens to me and looked at the carb portion of a single serving size of every bag of chips, tortillas, tortilla scoops and popcorn I could find All of them had a serving size whose carbs ranged from 13 gram of carbs to 19 grams of carbs, and a substantial plurality were dead on 15 grams of carbs. So, it appears to be an industry wide phenomenon.

 

Cafe Gourmandises, Suwanee GA

Cafe Gourmandises is strikingly friendly, and it seems Christophe Houy and Jennifer Allen have all the time in the world to explain what they offer and what is unique about their food. We came on Memorial Day, on a day where they were largely “cleaned out” by a previous customer. There was no bread for sale. Trays that would contain baguettes and honey bread lay empty when we arrived.

The restaurant is on the far end of a strip mall in Suwanee and it’s easy to miss. We passed it once before turning around to come back to it. Inside, the floor and tables are clean, spare and modern in style. There is a fine bakery cabinet, glass, lighting and chrome, half empty this day. Towards the back is a stand up refrigerator with soft drinks and on the walls, a nice collection of still lifes.

I wouldn’t have known about Gourmandises but for a bang up review by Chow Down Atlanta, and my wife had been collecting articles out of the newspaper talking about the fine French bakery in Suwanee. We started discussing going there early on Memorial Day. It was promising. My wife usually cannot eat in French restaurants at all, because she doesn’t like the ingredients found in many rich sauces (e.g. milk, cream, cheese, butter). But the cafe was, among other things, a bakery, with a focus on bread. Bread and my wife get along wonderfully well.

When we walked in, they had some food choices and some specials in chalk up on a blackboard. When my daughter saw that escargot was an option, she suddenly became really happy about coming here. My wife chose a turkey sandwich and I had one of the daily specials, a filet mignon crusted in peppercorns. Filet mignon was something my mother would make back in the 1960s, wrapping it in bacon. And filet mignon was a little tricky to cook, because if you didn’t give the meat enough fat, it would end up tough. So yes, I was curious. And the price was reasonable, about 15.00, if I recall correctly.

As we waited for the food, the restaurant began to fill up a bit, and I heard Jennifer explain to the others that there were “no crepes, no croques, and no lamb”. It wasn’t long though before Christophe brought out the food, warning my daughter not to touch the metal plate with the escargot. “It’s hot,” he explained. My wife’s sandwich was huge, so much food I knew she would share it. And the filet mignon was spot on, tender, juicy, and a perfect medium rare. It was crusted in peppercorns and covered in a tasty gray sauce. It came with fries, the fries mixed with a bit of herb.

My daughter loved her escargot and they were finished before I could ask for a taste. Herbs were stuffed inside the shells, and on top of the hot metal plate was a layer of salt. As I expected, my wife shared about half of her turkey sandwich with the rest of us. My daughter swallowed half of the remaining sandwich and I finished off the rest of it. The bread was great, crusty, tasty and at least as good as its fillings.

Despite being low on baked goods, they still had an ample supply of sweets. My wife got a lemon meringue tart, and my daughter their lemon dome. I got a dessert they call a “Pleasure”, which has alternating layers of chocolate and light filling. The top was caramelized, and had a stripe of chocolate bits down the middle of the top.

All the desserts we tried were top notch. The lemon tart had a subtle creamy lemon flavor, the dome was a stronger lemon flavor, with a candy crust on the outside. What I remember of the “Pleasure” were the really intense chocolate flavors that dominated.

Afterwards, we meandered into the historic district of Suwanee (beautiful houses and churches, worth the couple minutes to get there) and then slipped back to the Interstate down Suwanee Dam Road. It was a terrific early afternoon jaunt, and the fantastic food just set the tone.

Verdict: Friendly, unpretentious, exceptional food, exceptional flavor, exceptional value.

Cafe Gourmandises
686 Peachtree Industrial Boulevard
Suite 200
Suwanee, GA 30024
(770) 945-6599

Tip:

The easiest way to get to Cafe Gourmandises from Snellville is to head west down Pleasant Hill, head north on I-85, head west on Sugarloaf Parkway until it ends, and then turn right and head down Peachtree Industrial Boulevard. If, say, you want to make this a modest detour on the way to the Mall of Georgia, just head north a bit from the Cafe and turn right at Suwanee Dam Road. It will take you back to I-85.