Victory Sandwich Bar. I took photos, you can view them.

“What’s that sign say?”

“No bare feet!”

“What’s that sign say?”

“No fighting.”

Quotes from Caddyshack. If you didn’t get it, you’re fired.

Creamy ricotta dunked in olive oil.

“Beast on yeast”, pot roast sandwich. Excellent!

Chorizo/queso fresco (I forget the cute name). Not a bad selection, but a touch too greasy.

Vegetarian sandwich. The bread was perfect, but the red pepper spread was not for me.

Castro (Cuban – a fine choice) on the far left, Lamborghini on the bottom (pressed Italian with pesto, my favorite), and cold ramen noodles on the right (pass, go for more sandwiches instead).

Show me potato salad!

Not sure what this was. It wasn’t mine. The waiter dropped it down, I took photos, then he realized he had delivered someone else’s order and took it away. Looks good though!

This weekend I tried to save a few bucks and eat some inexpensive, quick service meals. Katie and I hit the Howell Mill Food Park Friday night, where they happen to be filming the Cooking Channel Eat St. show this weekend. They are filming tomorrow at Tower Place in Buckhead if you want to be on television. They asked if they could interview me on camera as a local food truck expert, but I had not tried the truck in question.

As I’ve mentioned, I’ve been somewhat disenfranchised with the food truck scene in Atlanta. Long waits, high prices, and average food abound. There are many trucks I want to try, but I’m still waiting for an experience worth the effort.

We first tried the Fry Guy, which I initially sampled from their outpost in Poncey-Highlands before they had a truck. The fries were quite good, but Katie ordered the special which was listed as $3 on top of the regular price, she interpreted it as $3 total. So we ate some $8 french fries with parmesan and black truffle oil. Even as someone who blows money on undefendable purchases (read: Burgundy), I was displeased with the cost.

Next I tried a fish sandwich from Bushels. It’s fried white fish, on plain white bread, $5. It was crispy and hot and fine. We finished with a Red Queen apple cinnamon tart. It was my second purchase from her, and probably the best thing I’ve eaten to date in the food park. Really excellent.

The next day I stopped at HD1 on the way to a friend’s house (to watch football and make demi-glace, ha). I ordered two dogs to go – the merguez and the classic. I waited a while considering there were only a handful of people in the shop, and quickly ate in my car. I was not a fan of the lamb. The menu doesn’t offer that this pungent, dry dog was covered in raisins, an addition many may enjoy, but I wouldn’t have ordered it had I known. Two bites.

UPDATE – Someone in the comments noted, they are not raisins, but are red currants, and they are listed on the menu. I misread the menu, thinking the currants were in the lamb sausage itself, and I didn’t identify them as currants in the two bites I tried. I don’t know everything, and will admit when I’m wrong. Just ask my wife.

The classic was much better, I love the acidic ballpark style mustard. The dog itself is nice too. Split top bun is commendable, but does not achieve the pillowy excellence of the Holeman & Finch version. To be fair, the H&F dog costs a good bit more.

But still, with a $1.50 tip I spent $15 even on these two dogs, hardly a deal. Being I don’t live in the area, I don’t have much of a desire to return.

Here are some photos from a recent lunch at Super Pan Latino Sandwich Shop, the super popular Tuesday-Friday, lunch only spot from Hector Santiago of Pura Vida. Not much to add beyond what you have probably read elsewhere.

I’ve seen some people gripe about the hefty price of the food at Super Pan. Those threads remind me of the semester I spent in Europe, back in the sweaty summer of ’03. We’d be in fabulous cities like Paris, Rome, and Florence, and I had some friends that would complain about the cost of going out to a good meal. In order to “save” money they’d opt to eat street pizza or something similar. But then we’d go out to the bar and they’d drop $75 on shots and get black out drunk. I literally had one friend who would ask us every morning if we had a good time at the bars the previous night.

There are numerous ways to blow through money, and I don’t see why anyone gives a shit if Super Pan wants to charge $12 for a sandwich.

Oh and the photo above is head cheese toasts, below is the mole beef empanada and the fantastically porky medio dia sandwich.

I hit up Muss & Turner’s this past Sunday for lunch. I was joined by my hetero-life-partner, Aaron. We’ve had brunch a couple of times the last few weeks, and as this meal generally occurs after a 3-4 hour workout, I’m pretty hungry. We usually go the route of splitting a bunch of things.

This time we had the “Now Open on Sunday” fried chicken sandwich, which I believe was formerly named “Never on Sunday”. It’s a good chicken sandwich, like a Chik-Fil-A on steroids. Bigger, crunchier, juicier, and on great challah bread.

We also split the burger and a large order of fries. A large order is generally enough for four normal people.

The burger is on the same bread as the chicken sandwich, and features a large patty of really tasty Riverview grass-fed beef, cooked on their kamado grill, which lends a nice backyard-grilled flavor. I like the little kick from the the addition of roasted poblano too.

I’ve had the burger twice in the last month, and they will cook the burger exactly to order, their recommendation being medium-rare.

It’s the only restaurant in town that has served me a true medium-rare. The inside is extremely red and pleasantly mushy in parts. Aaron thought it was a bit undercooked for his tastes, but I say don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.

It’s really, really good. Tom Maicon had it right, though I disagree in one area, I do like just a touch of salt, but agree that most places overdo it. If you get a nice sear on good beef, you don’t need much salt, and you don’t want to distract from the flavor of really good product.

On a related note, I had the “Farmer burger” at FLIP last Friday, which features Gum Creek grass-fed beef. They did lay off the seasoning, but I found the Riverview beef to hold the edge in overall flavor. In addition, the beef patty was packed way too tight at FLIP, resulting in a grainy and less juicy texture. The FLIP burger was $11, the M&T’s burger is $10.93. Neither comes with fries.

It’s not “cheap”, though I did get $25 off our meal because I have the M&T staff swipe my rewards card with each purchase, and for every $250 spent you get a $25 credit. It took me over two years, but that’s faster than the estimated six years it’s going to take me to get that damn free dozen bagels from Goldberg’s. Just three more dozen and those free bagels are mine.

Finally, Muss & Turner’s wine list is good, but I tend to order from their great beer list.

Lunacy has been open many months now, but this was my first visit to the latest endeavor of Paul Luna (formerly of Eclipse di Luna and Loca Luna) and his silver streaking pony tail. Once parked, and my credit card swiped for the new parking machines, I walked up Mitchell Street a few blocks, through an unfamiliar downtown Atlanta, an area with an often fleeting identify.

After a quick thirty minute, four mile drive, I arrived to the quirky and welcoming interior of Lunacy, which exudes a sentiment somewhere between chic coffee shop and my grandmother’s home. After a quick perusal of the menu, each of us ordered two sandwiches per person, and the same cabbage salad, which arrived first.

The salad was wonderful and mouth-wateringly memorable. It consisted of room temperature ribbons of red and green cabbage, dressed extremely lightly (so as to be damp but not the least bit soggy), mint, walnuts, and gorgonzola. The most balanced and subtly powerful salad in recent memory. Every flavor element played perfectly with the next, as did the textures. I’d bust out the word umami if I hadn’t read it fifty times in the last month.

The sandwiches weren’t as memorable as the salad, but it was a tough act to follow. The meats were tender, the ciabatta like bread firm and fresh, and just a few splashes of flavor from a variety of garnishes and sauces – what’s not to like for a couple of bucks?

Chef brought us out some Sichuan green beans mid-meal. Dude thought the free treat was because I’m big time, but alas I think he made a batch for a friend of his a few tables away, and probably had cooked more than was needed and gave us the extra. Either way, it was a tasty snack. The dry fried technique had been applied very well, better than many Chinese restaurants.

I did not sit here on my man date.

The gift of friendship…as well as a check for $13 for lunch for four sandwiches and two salads. Lunacy is quite the value, and I look forward to going and trying many more dishes. For a chef so well versed in tapas, I should not be surprised at this style, but they’re doing something a bit different here, having no peers in Atlanta for this type of food at this price point.

Read Dude’s account of the lunch here.

Lunch at Varasano’s features a few sandwiches unavailable at dinner. I tried them.

I’ve been for dinner a few times in the last couple of months and the pizzas are as consistent and delicious as they’ve ever been. On weekend night visits it has been packed full of people. It’s empty at lunch. Service is still a little pushy – “are you suuuuuure you don’t want donuts?”. But it’s still the best pizza in town for my tastes. It’s the dough – it rocks.

So good news, the sandwich bread has the same light and expansive texture with intense sourdough flavor. Delicious. The sausage and pepper for sandwich with a side Caesar for $8.95 was very good. Peppers/onions were a little slimy.

“Italian Deli” sandwich – coppocola, sopressata, fontina, basil, sun dried tomato. It was also very good – creamy fontina, the fresh basil with a strong aroma of anise, and the acid zip from the sun dried tomato made the sandwich for me.

It was tough to not order a pizza, but the sandwiches are definitely worth trying if you are in that area for lunch.

First dish – homemade burgers

I do own a meat grinder, but it’s vintage and the blades aren’t sharp, so I opted to try a food processor method I read about on Serious Eats’ A Hamburger Today website. I cut short rib, sirloin tips, and chuck into 1-2” cubes and put them in the freezer for 20 minutes. This gets the fat cold and firm so the blade can deal with it.

Then I pulsed the meat a few times.

I formed a fairly loose burger and seasoned with salt and pepper. I seared it in a smoking hot cast iron skillet, then turned down the heat and continued to cook for a few minutes, adding cheese on top along the way.

The resulting medium-rare burger was fantastic. The griddled exterior was crispy and flavorful, and the burger was fatty, tender, and deliciously greasy. I’m fairly sure I won’t be buying ground beef for burgers anymore. The cost was roughly the same, the flavor was unquestionably better, I can control the fat content, and as I’m comfortable eating even Publix beef medium rare, there’s no reason I shouldn’t be comfortable eating a freshly ground burger that way.

Next meal up – panini. I started by making a coleslaw, with some homemade chile oil as the base. I’ve had this batch a few months, and just a spoonful can be added to any number of dishes for improved heat and color.

The sauce was: 2 Tbsp of chile oil, 1T soy sauce, 1 tsp sesame oil, 1t fish sauce, 1t Shaoxing rice wine.

For the panini filler – meats from Patak. Boston butt, salamis, and ham.

Stacked on ciabatta. Ciabatta is perfect for a panini.

See?

Next meal – 20 minute mac

Start by boiling your noodles per instructions. Meanwhile shred some cheese. Sauté chopped onions, garlic, and one small can of green chiles in a small amount of olive oil. Add 1-2T of flour, whisk rapidly. Slow pour in 1 cup milk, a bit at a time, whisking to create the roux. Add 1 cup cream after the milk, again, slow. Once all the liquid is incorporated, add the cheese. If it’s too runny, add more cheese. Too thick, add more cream.

Stir in noodles, place in oven safe serving dish, top with more cheese, broil.

Next dish – Ad Hoc Roasted Chicken

Let the chicken air dry in the refrigerator for up to 1 day, then rest on the counter for 1-2 hours before cooking. Truss. Set chicken on top of diced root vegetables. Rub butter or oil all over the skin. Season with salt and pepper.

Cook per recipe (linked it above)

Yum. Skin was the crispiest I’ve ever made. Slightly over cooked, but still acceptable.

Save the chicken fat/juices in the skillet with the leftover veggies. For a snack, reduce that liquid to create a pan gravy and pour over the vegetables.

Next – Muss and Turner’s small plates.

Squid, in a green olive based “salsa”. Sauce was rocking. Portion was huge.

Szechuan beef. Small portion, high quality, tender beef. Very nice.

Now I’m hungry.

Damn, I’m jealous Thomas.

This past weekend I visited Toscano & Sons after I tried to hit up a BBQ/burger trailer that sits next to a dingy convenient store on Marietta St, not far from Carver’s, but it was closed. Anyone ever been to that shack?

It had been a while since my last visit to T&S, and it’s always interesting to see if my opinion changes over the span of a year.

I was instantly drawn to the porchetta sandwich. For four bucks, it’s a great deal – the bread was still soft, with a touch of crunch from being momentarily pressed, and the salty, fatty meat hit the spot. I spent roughly $13, purchasing the sandwich, chips, a soda, a great loaf of ciabatta, and some bucatini.

The sandwich wasn’t exactly what I had envisioned though. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed my lunch, and it was a heck of a deal, but all throughout 2009, I couldn’t go even a week without hearing about the sandwich at Porchetta in NYC. So when I saw the word on the Toscano menu, I had visions of grandeur. Grandeur being the photo below.

photo above via Serious Eats NY

FYI – flights to NYC in April are $250 as of this morning, or 32,000 Delta SkyMiles as of 7:30AM today.

I had a fantastic porchetta roast at the Antinori property at the top of Atlas Peak in Napa Valley this past summer. It’s pretty much seasoned pork roast, wrapped in a huge slab of pork belly. Could you imagine layered cross section slices of that sucker, piled high on a sandwich?

Need some porchetta recipes?