The Westside picked up yet another dining establishment recently, this time on Huff Rd in the old location of the ill-fated Milk & Honey, which by the way, was one of the worst meals I’ve had in an long time.
Though Huff is the same road on which the Westside Provisions District is located, urban pl8 is on the end closer to South Marietta Blvd, an area which historically is more populated with home decor wholesalers than restaurants, but the area will have more residents when the apartment building and townhomes nearby are complete and sold. Until then, I’m wary of this location, but I have heard a lot of positive comments about urban pl8 (even though their name is ridiculous), which is fantastic considering I live five minutes away.
I went for a quick lunch last week with Foodie Buddha, who was kind enough to take these photos and let me use them. I figured both of us snapping away with cameras looks foolish. Then again, even one of us taking macro close-ups of a cucumber must look fairly lame/odd/curious to bystanders.
I started with the carrot/cucumber soup. Refreshing on a hot day, nice flavor, but a little too creamy to me, kind of like they added too much yogurt or something. It’s a huge portion and really shouldn’t be considered an appetizer.
While sitting on the patio we noticed they have a small garden. Though it’s not enough to contribute the brunt of the vegetables here, it’s cool to know that some of it is sourced from their backyard. The second picture below sort of looks like anaheim chiles, but I’m no green thumb.
For my main I got the Patak’s Italian sausage with peppers and onion. I am of the opinion that you can’t go wrong with Patak’s, and indeed I was happy with this selection. The bread and onions were just fine, and the crunchy red peppers were just barely cooked like I like, and the sausage had a healthy dose of whole grain spicy mustard, so all in all, I was a happy guy. I could have eaten two of these, but part of that could be contributed to my 4,000 calorie diet.
FB got the much heralded chicken salad. Their version is a bit lighter than your normal heavy mayo version, purportedly made with bacon, capers, and white truffle aioli (translation: white truffle oil with mayonnaise). I didn’t taste the bacon, and there weren’t enough capers to lend the saltiness I was looking for, and white truffle oil is overrated and is actually not even made from white truffles. You can kinda tell I’m jaded, no?
Anyways, I thought the sandwich was fine, the actual large chunks of chicken were nice, but it didn’t live up to the billing. That being said, there is a lot of potential for a different and refreshing chicken salad sandwich, but I’d like to see it tweaked a bit.
Both sandwiches were served with chips. At $6.98 for either one, I think it’s a relatively good deal, and a nice alternative to getting a sandwich + chips at Star Provisions (which will run $10-$15 for both) when you are in the area. Though the SP sandwiches are definitely a notch higher in terms of luxury, ingredients, and overall satisfaction.
I haven’t been for dinner yet, but you can read Cliff Bostick’s take on it in Creative Loafing.
