Quick Bite: The Weekend

This past Thursday through Sunday I had a jammed full schedule, including an insane amount of guilty pleasure eating. Luckily my weekend included a total of twenty miles of running; my fancy GPS watch said I burned 3,070 calories. Somehow I still think my appetite managed to beat out my metabolism.

Thursday night a group of us met up at one of the back tables at Antico for pizza and wine. The quattro stagioni was our first pie, and probably my favorite pie of the night. The toppings are my favorite part of Antico, second only to the ambience. The peppers on the san gennaro, the Italian sausage, the spicy calabrese peppers, and the copious amounts of sauce are all great. But the crust is a bit doughy for me. It’s often too dense, too gummy. The quattro stagioni we were served had the crispiest and lightest crust of the bunch, and perhaps not coincidentally, it appeared to have been cooked the longest. I really think their pies could go for just a few seconds longer in the oven, but that’s just me.

I loved this bottle of Morgon we had with the pies, it is head and shoulders better than most $20 Pinot based Burgundy you will find. The sparkling vouvray wasn’t a bad deal for $15 either. Both are available at Tower.

For lunch Friday I made my way downtown to Grindhouse. This was my second visit, and my first opportunity to try the apache burger, as they were out of the green chiles on my first visit. It wasn’t as spicy as I would have guessed, but this was one of the best burgers I’ve had in a while. The two meat patties were thin, soft, not overcooked, and had the most delicious griddle crust I’ve ever seen. Add to that a perfect bun, and crispy hot, salty seasoned krinkle fries, and I was a happy fat man for the rest of the day.

Later that night I went to the circus, which I haven’t attended in probably fifteen years. I forgot how amazingly well trained (abused?) the animals are. And forgot that popcorn costs $7. ZING ZANG ZOOM!

After the show I hit up La Fonda Latina where Slice used to be on Howell Mill. I had two chicken tacos, which were surprisingly decent. They were filled with large chunks of char-grilled chicken. The salsa was poor though, it tasted like they add tomato juice to it.

On Saturday my parents visited for my Mom’s birthday, and we took her on an eating tour of ATL. As they were staying in Buckhead, we started on the Westside and worked our way back towards their hotel. The first stop was the bar at Abattoir. The four of us sampled the duck meatballs, pickled shrimp, fried chicken livers, ceci peas, pommes frite, and celery soup. The celery soup was creamy and sinfully nourishing, and I loved the meatballs, particularly due to their super soft texture. The pommes frite seemed different than the last time I had them, I’m not sure if they’ve changed the style of if my memory isn’t serving me correctly, but I recalled liking them more in the past. Anyone know if they’ve changed?

After Abattoir we made our way over to Tuk Tuk, which was my first visit there. We easily sat at the bar, though at 7:30PM there were no open tables in their main dining area, a good sign for them. The spinach wraps pictured below were great, though the jerky in the background was probably my favorite dish. Flavorful, not overly leathery, and a fairly large portion, considering it’s jerky.

For “dessert” we went to Varasano’s. I don’t visit Varasano’s as much as I should, especially considering how much I love pizza. The pies on Saturday night were as good as I’ve had there, the sour dough crust is perfectly epic when it’s on point – light, full of sour flavor, crisp & chewy at the same time, and not “dough blow” inducing. Being a crust lover, I don’t think there’s better pizza in ATL.

You know what my dream is? I would love for Varasano’s to start offering some pasta entrees or small plates, similar to the menu at Flour+Water. If I could get the celery root tortelloni I had there, or “garganelli with fennel pollen sausage, chard, and fresh horseradish” they are currently offering, in addition to killer pie, you wouldn’t be able to drag me out of there. For now, eating at the bar at La Pietra, then heading on over to Varasano’s will have to suffice.

Finally on Sunday, I completed the first steps towards assembling my new sous vide immersion cooker. We’ll see if this sucker works. My past “handy” accomplishments include hanging a towel rack.