Anyone heard of Empire State South?

Yes, they’ve only been open a week, but I’ve been hearing great things pretty much since day one, so I was excited to get together with a few friends for a long lunch this past Friday. I took a half day off from work just to ensure I had enough time to thoroughly enjoy myself. ;)

We arrived around 11:30, and only a few tables were occupied… that quickly changed. The restaurant was slammed within thirty minutes, but if Hugh was stressed out, his demeanor gave no indication. Chef Acheson knew a couple of people at my table, so he came by and talked about how things were going, and about the restaurant in general, a glimpse I enjoyed. While ESS can be somewhat classified as a “meat and three”, Hugh discussed how one goal for the food was to be light enough for the local day-time clientele to be able to eat and go back to work without wanting to take a nap at their desk (which I call the “Carver’s effect”).

I found this goal to be true, the vegetables in particular are prepared in a manner which I find to be very similar to Dynamic Dish. Snappy, light, delicious, with flavors layered beautifully. Meat portions are moderate to small, but won’t leave you waddling out.

But on top of the simple comfort of the food, there is a touch of elegance in each dish, in the service, and in one of my favorite areas – the wine list. With so many European (Burgundy!) and other affordable, delightful options, I was a happy guy. I wasn’t aware that Hugh is quite the wine buff, and I couldn’t hide my ear to ear grin when he put the restaurant this way to me, “We want a place where you can have Potlikker in one hand, and a glass of Burgundy in another”.

You may be able to find some things to nit pick about, but I’m not going to do that because my experience from start to finish was exceptional. To me, the food is not about sous vide, trendy offal, or showing off. It’s feel good food, communal and wholly Southern, and Hugh is continuing his active redefinition of what “soul food” really should be.

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Each of our party of four started with a salad, including the crispy okra salad with beans, bacon, and a buttermilk dressing. Wow.

The “super food” salad includes hanger steak, tomatoes, beans, farro, lettuces, and green beans. This could easily be a whole meal.

I ordered the chopped salad, a crunchy medley of okra, radish, corn, green beans, lettuce, etc. Texture and summer greatness.

After eating our entree sized salads, we moved onto the actual mains, where diners are instructed to pick a protein then their selection of two sides. My friend Don picked the catfish (unfortunately out of focus), but at least this photo highlights the very interesting minted yogurt green beans and warm cucumbers. I love the frosted hue the yogurt gives to the beans.

My selection was the smothered pork chop with peppers, radish, and a warm from the oven cheese biscuit. Isn’t it amazing how much of a difference hot bread can make?

Another friend ordered the popular meatloaf sandwich on Holeman & Finch bread.

Monster slab of cake for dessert? Yes, please.

We did bring a bit of our own wine…I thought this ‘97 Chezeaux was feminine and beautiful. As my friend Dennis says, “All roads lead to Burgundy”.

Want to get in on the wine action? Check out the upcoming LaTour wine dinner at Empire State South.

I stopped by The Sound Table on the way home from SC a few weeks ago. I sat at the bar downstairs. It was fairly dark back there, hence the crazy blurry photos.

My meal began with some champagne, of beers. Good and cheap. High Life really does seem to have a taste of its own. Though these cheap beers are fairly trendy. Did you hear about PBR going for $44 a bottle in China?

Speaking of beer trends, last night at The Shed, Katie tried to order a PBR but was told that they only had Genesee. Genesee is what my grandmother (picture a tiny Irish woman with a cardigan draped over her shoulders, two handing a giant mug of draft beer) in Pennsylvania drinks, and what she has been been drinking for as long as I can remember. And Yuengling is produced in Pottsville, which is forty miles from where she lives and where my father grew up. He tells me that when he was young no one drank Yuengling because that was an old coal miner beer and it was uncool. My how the times they are a-changin’.

Back to matters at hand, I started with the Goi Ga salad, a Vietnamase preparation, which also reminded me of some Thai salads. Small pieces of shredded chicken with cabbage and onion in a soy sauce and probably some sort of vinegar dressing. They also added pecans and mint. Really tasty except that they went really heavy on the soy sauce, so there was a pool of it when I neared the bottom of the salad. I had a glass of the picpoul blanc from the Languedoc. Maybe a little Sauv blanc-ish, the wine had some salty and burnt flavors that went aight with the food.

Next I had the spatchcocked chicken. What is spatchcocked, you and the guy who was sitting next to me at the bar might ask? Ruhlman is here to show you. I wasn’t expecting wings, I guess I had envisioned a whole quarter chicken. The flavor was good though; the singed chicken skin went well with the lemon and herb flavors, as well as with my glass of pinot nero (light Italian clone of pinot noir).

Good stuff overall, fair prices. I look forward to going back.

I forgot to link up to my last By The Glass post on Creative Loafing’s website. This visit was to Miller-Union, one of my personal favorite wine lists in town.

I’m still trying to find my voice a bit, as I think I’m using too much stuffy wine jargon. It’s been a lot of fun though. Look for some new and better posts soon!

Check out the baked egg and Loire pairing from Miller-Union here!

Today is my first post in a series for Creative Loafing called By the Glass. As Food Editor Besha Rodell mentions in the post’s introduction, the purpose is to feature a food and wine pairing at restaurants around Atlanta. Frequently wine lists don’t get enough attention, and there are certain restaurants and individual wines that deserve some love. Besha and I will be working together on this series, so you’ll usually only hear from me every other week. I look forward to reading Besha’s posts, as she has great tastes in wine and ought to have some killer finds for all of us.

I was very flattered that I was asked to be a part of this, and I’m eager to do a good job of spotlighting some really cool options around town. I think I’ll learn a lot, and it will be good for me to occasionally nudge myself towards some wines that I have not had a tendency to drink lately (I’m looking at you, Southern Hemisphere).

Hopefully it will be useful to some of you who, like me, are on that fun and never-ending educational wine journey.

Check out the first post on Abattoir here.

Above is some of the damage from The Legend’s birthday dinner at Tasty China. Many of the wines were above my pay grade, but damn they were good.

Tasty China continues to do their thing. They’re always very accommodating to our wine guzzling needs. The lazy susan greatly assists in sharing. The food has been spot on the last few times I’ve been too. Very consistent. The bang for the buck can’t be beat either – we were there for more than three hours and we spent about $30 per person.

Peter Chang was there. He and the owner (whose name I don’t know) came over to say hello to our table. We were told Chang’s new restaurant is going to be at 6450 Powers Ferry Road. I tried to Google that and it’s an office park, so who knows. When asked what the name would be, the owner laughed, and replied, “I don’t know, maybe Peter Chang’s Palace”.

Anyone who remembers the last Chang fiasco knows to take this info lightly. But a boy can dream a fiery Sichuan dream.

Below are some food and wine photos. I wish I had more right now.

Shan city chicken. Hot!

Shrimp

Beef

Hot and numbing “three-way”.

Legend’s (and mine) birth year wine!

Haut-Brion Blanc!!

Last weekend I did something I’ve been itching to try; I cooked a challenging meal with another person. I’ve slightly assisted people in the kitchen before, or vice versa, but I wanted to take on an ambitious undertaking from recipe creation to plating with someone else and see how successful we could be. When Biskuit was willing to participate, and offered up his very dining-party-friendly home, I jumped at the chance.

One of my faults in the kitchen is that I often take on too much and I often run out of time or get frazzled when it comes time for the final push to put everything out on the table. Trying to finish a sauce, sear the meat, warm up a side dish, and not forget that I have bread in the oven all at the same time can be challenging and I tend to screw one or two things up.

For this meal we took on a six course menu from Thomas Keller’s French Laundry Cookbook. Anyone familiar with this book knows his recipes are neither quick nor relatively easy, so they would be a good test to see how the two of us would work together.

I couldn’t have been much happier with the results.

Each dish was planned out better than I’ve ever done on my own. Grocery shopping was quicker. Doing our prep on Saturday and Sunday, glass of wine in hand, Beastie Boys blaring, was fun.

When it came time to plate, dishes came together fast. Every garnish was remembered. I was less stressed, and the meal was delicious.

– THE MEAL RUN-THROUGH –

Plating was set up ahead of time for each dish. I don’t do this enough, but now know it’s a must-do.

We started with the gruyere gougeres. Super easy, they’re fantastic right out of the oven.

Next up, the famous salmon cornets. Creating the cones was a cumbersome task, with multiple failures along the way. Then once they were done, when it came time to fill them with the creme fraiche, followed by the sashimi grade salmon from BHFM, many of the delicate cones fell apart.

I had the cornets at Per Se a few months ago, and only now do I respect the effort involved in this tiny, beautiful dish.

(This photo, and a few others are by Rowdy Food, as I couldn’t take many photos while we were working).

Next up – cucumber “cappellini” (cucumber strands textured like pasta), pickled Kumamoto oysters from Star Provisions, caviar, and dill.

Very briny and acidic, with nice texture, it was probably better looking that it tasted, but it’s worth it for presentation value alone.

The lobster crepe with carrot-ginger emulsion and pea shoots (Peas ‘n Carrots) may have been the star of the evening. The mascarpone rich lobster filling flavor could have been lost in the sweet sauce, had the mixture not been fortified with the lobster glace we made by boiling the stock of three lobsters down from roughly one quart of water to three tablespoons.

This dish is a keeper.

Next up – rack of lamb (double cut, frenched) with bean cassoulet. It took me roughly an hour to butcher three racks into this cut, having to remove every other bone in the rack, then clean (french) the bone end. It was a new process to me, and I was glad I did it. I would feel much more comfortable doing it again. The first rack took me forever, but I got progressively faster.

The lightly cooked beans consisted of wax, beans, October, fava, marrow, and adzuki beans. The first four were quickly blanched, while the latter two were dry beans that were gently simmered until al dente. The dish is finished with rosemary oil and a lamb “quick” sauce, which actually took Biskuit numerous hours late into Saturday night to complete. When Thomas Keller writes “quick” in quotes, it’s a tongue in cheek notion.

I love beans, so I was a big fan of this dish.

Cheese course – Monte Enebro from Star Provisions, golden beets layered on both sides of matchsticks of red beets, beet reduction, and radish micro greens.

The lady at the juice bar at Whole Foods Buckhead looked at me like I was crazy when I said I wanted a full 20oz cup of plain beet juice, but the reduction was worth it. The whole dish was amazing, another keeper.

Dessert – strawberry and champagne terrine (separate layers) with creme fraiche and mint. We were interested to see how this one would turn out, and I thought it was surprisingly refreshing and enjoyable.

While this meal was obviously an undertaking, I can’t get over how unstressed I was when everyone arrived. I totally attribute this to working with Biskuit, and thank him immensely. He definitely did more work than me, especially in terms of cleaning up, so I owe him one. I can’t wait for the next cooking marathon with my friends.

Thanks to the famous Savory Exposure for taking photos with our cameras while we worked.

Also thanks to everyone that brought some nice wines.

Last week I once again traveled for work, but this time I was doing my annual visit to our North Carolina branches. Not only did I get to enjoy memorable food in Chapel Hill (Lantern), heady pizza in Greensboro (Sticks ‘n Stones), and numerous chopped pork sandwiches, I was also able to swing by my parents’ house Tuesday evening and have a belated Father’s Day dinner with my dad.

He’s the guy showing off this tomato plants above. They’re already very tall, huh? He’s somewhat fanatic about them. The plastic poles he was using to grow the plants were bending and falling over from the excessive weight, so a couple of years ago some guys at work took 4/8″ reinforcing steel rods (rebar), welded cross sections every few feet, and spray painted them green. Those suckers aren’t going anywhere.

We had a nice dinner of bruschetta (utilizing first tomatoes from the garden), arugula salad, red snapper, asparagus, and corn. A real taste of summer.

I brought a (allegedly) nice bottle of ‘02 Roumier Corton-Charlemagne to celebrate. Dad brought the Chassagne-Montrachet. Turns out his was the winner (and saving grace) as the Grand Cru Corton was oxidized. I knew premature oxidation was a potential risk with white Burgundy, but damn I was still disappointed. This was my first three figure wine failure, and at my budget, it’s a loss that carries quite a sting. To put it eloquently, it’s a major bummer. I’m not shying away though, because I still crave them and think they’re some of the most exciting wines to drink, white wine or otherwise. Part of the Burg allure is their hit-and-miss nature…

We’ll see if I still feel the same way if my next few splurge bottles end up being bunk. :)

Recently I made another visit to Farm Burger with some friends. I tried three different burgers – a #1 (relatively basic burger) with the addition of bacon, a #6 (egg, bacon, salsa – pictured above), and a #5 (pork belly, onion ring, BBQ sauce – pictured below).

They were all really good, though once again, the beef temperature really seemed to vary. All three were close to well done, compared to my first visit, which was a solid medium. The flavor of the beef was still a standout. The #5/#6 were fun to try, but I liked the #1 with bacon the best. It’s simple and I am able to taste the grass-fed beef, plus the bacon is outstanding at Farm Burger. The buns are soft and warm and hold up very well too.

Once again, the onion rings were superb. The onion dip was better this time, plenty of caramelized onion, though I still wish the chips came out hot.

The place was slammed, and they handled the traffic with ease. I wish I lived in Decatur, or at least closer than 30 minutes away.

We called ahead and asked what corkage was, so we could bring some wines. They let us bring them for free. Very nice of them, it was appreciated. There were some tasty wines. The Lange, an Oregon pinot I’ve been holding onto for a few years, was the nicest Oregon pinot I’ve tried to date. Light Oregonian style pinot, but with a notably complex body. Ripe, but not over the top. A little dirty. Would you groan if I said it was “Burgundian”?

My latest passion – the wines of Burgundy. Particularly white Burgundy. It would be safe to say that I have an obsessive personality, but it’s unclear why all my interests have to be expensive. Insecure? Wanton? Exquisite tastes and palate? Hmm, that last one sounds best.

I’ve spent the last four or five years slowly learning about wine through reading, talking with friends, attending seminars, and of course drinking. My small collection is extremely unfocused, covering numerous grapes and countries, because until recently I don’t think I could have told you what I REALLY like drinking. It’s taken a number of years of drinking wines from all areas of the world, utilizing dozens of grapes, before I could even begin to tell you which styles of wine I’m attracted to, but I think that’s a natural progression. I’ve also been heavily influenced by what my friends are drinking, but I also think that’s normal.

There are many reasons to love Burgundy (great article on that on Slate), but I dig the subtleness, the search, the farmers (versus corporate BS), the minerality and terroir, the journey of learning the producers and vintages, wines that change over the course of an evening, white wines that taste better when they warm up, and the occasional Burg that just knocks your socks off with its complexity and finesse (see the ‘04 Fontaine-Gagnard below)

On the downside they ARE expensive, somewhat inconsistent, and they often require cellaring before they will show well. So it looks like I only need money, patience, and time…..damn. I should have fallen for Malbec.

And now ladies and gentlemen, Johnny Cash…

After being on the road for 8 days, I’m finally back in Atlanta. The trip was mostly work, though I did participate in a triathlon on Jekyll Island on Saturday (5th in my age group!) and hung out on the beach the rest of the day. Not too awful.

I had lots of good food on the trip. I ate at Noble Fare in SAV on Friday night. Savannah food is sort of a mystery to me. There’s lots of the touristy overpriced garbage, decent and plain seafood, but not much in the way of intriguing, off-beat meals. I think Noble Fare is the best I’ve had in Savannah to date. The tasting menu was missing a little umph, and a few dishes were just a notch or two from being very memorable. But I enjoyed it and recommend it.

My evenings in Charleston on Monday/Tuesday were another matter. McCrady’s Monday night, FIG on Tuesday night. The tasting menu at McCrady’s was my favorite meal there there to date. It’s not cheap, but I felt the price was fair for such a perfectly executed and creative experience. The range of dishes touch so many ingredients and techniques, it was so much fun to see what would come next.

The FIG meal was a little more low key, but equally delicious. A much more comforting meal to me. The largest lump crab I’ve ever seen and English peas in a light creamy broth. Veal agnolotti. Pan sauteed soft shell crab with bitter greens. Warm blueberry and strawberry crisp with a glass of botrytis semillon. I don’t know if it’s a “grass is greener” syndrome, but the meals were more memorable than what I’ve had in ATL lately.

If you’re ever in North Charleston, I highly recommend EVO for pizza. The “pork trifecta” pizza of locally made bacon, homemade sausage/pepperoni was really good. Cool place too.

In related news, check out Besha’s foodie guide to Charleston.

First order of business back in the A; date night at our happy place – Dynamic Dish.

After a week of guilty eating, DD is always delicious and gut friendly. Check out the patty pan’s below!

Tomato/scallion/avocado – so simple

Lentil burger with crispy potatoes, really tasty!

Repast for dessert – ice cream and sorbet. Carrot cake on the right was my jam.

Chocolate terrine, sea salt, olive oil, pistachio

I’m really interested to see how Repast and Watershed develop when Joe heads to Watershed on June 1. I think it could work out very well for both restaurants. The staff I spoke to at Repast last night seemed to be invigorated when I inquired about the change.