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Atlanta Magazine


NYC Mike

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Hi All,

I just got a mailer for a $100 discount on a 24 issue subscription to Atlanta Magazine. Anyone get it? They sent a list of their top restaurants for 06' and I've only seen a small handful discussed here so it made me go hmmmmm.

Thanks,

-Mike

-Mike & Andrea

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Hi All,

I just got a mailer for a $100 discount on a 24 issue subscription to Atlanta Magazine.  Anyone get it?  They sent a list of their top restaurants for 06' and I've only seen a small handful discussed here so it made me go hmmmmm.

Thanks,

-Mike

You've only seen a small handful of the restaurants listed in Atlanta magazine here on eG because so few Atlantans participate on eG. The primary (as far as I can tell) reason that so few Atlantans participate on eG is that Atlanta has a local version of something very like eG that's very, very active, so there's not much need to spend time on eG. Apart from micropundit's weekly list of what's happening you'll notice that virtually all of the Atlanta information on eG is either somebody who is visiting (usually for work) and needs to know where to eat in the downtown area, or somebody who has visited and gives feedback on their experience. I don't bother to post on my Atlanta restaurant experiences because there's not much audience for them. I do respond to specific queries, even when the thought of answering yet another question about bbq or down-home kuntry kookin' fills me with despair.

Chowhound is similarly short on Atlanta posts, by the way, and for exactly the same reason.

The restaurant critic for Atlanta magazine is Christiane Lauterbach, and she's very well-respected in the community, and also a very good writer. Her recommendations are generally spot on, and the magazine does a good job of reviewing restaurants in various neighborhoods. Lauterbach also writes a print publication called Knife & Fork (not available on line so far as I know), and she seems to be a bit more rigorous in her reviews there (as of course Atlanta magazine depends on advertising revenue from those very same restaurants).

So, to answer your query, no, I don't subscribe to Atlanta magazine, but I probably would were it not for the fact that I read it pretty much cover to cover when I visit the hairdresser's. :wink: So were I a newcomer to Atlanta I might well subscribe. You should also subscribe, if you haven't already, to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. I am not particularly enamored of the present primary restaurant reviewer for the AJC, but they do have a lot of very good food journalism on the whole.

Can you pee in the ocean?

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I was just complaining about the lack of Florida discussion in another thread. I'll ditto it with regard to Atlanta. And I'll report back that we were in Atlanta this weekend to see the Honda Battle of the Bands. Which was fantastic. Go next year. The tickets are only $10 and they're worth a heck of a lot more than that.

Had dinner at Park 75 at the Four Seasons (very good) - Bacchanalia (even better). Lunch one day at Agnes & Muriel's (really good but I thought I would OD on the salt and fat). Eno for lunch was at the opposite end of the spectrum. A main course "salad" that - although tasty - was too small to be a starter. We stopped by Trois to take a look and have a drink - but it was so crowded we left. Robyn

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Thanks for that reply!

The restaurants on their list were:

Restaurant of the Year- The Globe

Runner Ups:

East Pearl

Enoteca

Feast

Krog Bar

Lobby at 12

Nam Chung Hong

Paul's

Piebar

Pure Taqueria

Quinones at Bacchanalia

Repast

Rose Mexicano

Shorty's

Table 1280

Taurus

Tomo

-Mike

-Mike & Andrea

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Thanks for that reply!

The restaurants on their list were:

Restaurant of the Year- The Globe

Runner Ups:

East Pearl

Enoteca

Feast

Krog Bar

Lobby at 12

Nam Chung Hong

Paul's

Piebar

Pure Taqueria

Quinones at Bacchanalia

Repast

Rose Mexicano

Shorty's

Table 1280

Taurus

Tomo

-Mike

These were best new restaurants, not best restaurants in town. And precisely how she (I'm assuming this was Lauterbach) settled on which ones were new and which ones weren't I can't tell. Ecco, for instance, might not have qualified because it hadn't been open long enough for her to vist more than once or twice. Saga, Shaun's, and Trois similarly all too new.

The list includes a number of restaurants that are too far away for me to even consider visiting (or at least not more than once or twice a year), but I have been to a number of them:

East Pearl: haven't been, haven't heard of it

Enoteca: if this is Enoteca Carbonari, same owners as Baraonda down by the Fox, then I have been and will not be returning; underwhelming food, crappy service on my single visit. If it's not Enoteca Carbonari then I haven't been.

Feast: nice enough neighborhood sort of place in Decatur near the old train depot; we've been about six times, my parents also liked it.

Krog Bar: excellent, located next to sister restaurant Rathbun's; great wine list, great ambience (though it's small), great small plates designed to go with wine.

Lobby at 12: Haven't been, but it's on our list. Part of the Concentrics group.

Nam Chung Hong: lots of local buzz, but we haven't been yet.

Paul's: Haven't been, and probably won't go as it's a bit far for us considering the type of food (of which there's plenty in our neck of the woods).

Piebar: very cool space, also part of Concentrics, that had very cool food when it first opened (menu largely the work of Richard Blais who was at One Midtown Kitchen at the time, also in that group, though he didn't get credit on the menu), has progressively been dumbed down. Not bad, but not nearly as good as it was.

Pure Taqueria: if I'm going to drive that far for Mexican I'll just drive all the way to Mexico.

Quinones: Waiting for a good reason to drop huge amounts of money. It will be fantastic.

Repast: I've heard some mixed reviews, and we haven't been yet.

Rosa Mexicano: Um, it's a chain. A chain from New York, no less. I spend my money on local restaurants, thank you very much.

Shorty's: haven't heard of it.

Table 1280: great under Shaun Doty, not quite as great under the new guy on our one visit since he started. Great space there, and very convenient for a concert or show at the Arts Center.

Taurus: was supposed to go to work dinner there last week but managed to get out of it (not because of the food, but because of the company). Husband has been, wasn't impressed enough to take me back.

Tomo: good local buzz, haven't been.

The restaurant that she liked best, The Globe, is one of our favorites: cool location and space (convenient to concerts on the Georgia Tech campus), food very good to excellent, particularly great desserts IMO.

Can you pee in the ocean?

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My two cents worth - prompted by the above. East Pearl (near I-85 and Pleasand Hill Road) is in Gwinnett County. A number of us from AtlantaCuisine went there recently for dim sum, which several have said is currently the best dim sum in metro Atlanta. This was my first dim sum experience, and it was an hour's drive each way for us. I was very impressed. The food was very good - and was ordered by one of our group who was much better qualified than I to make the choices.

Pure Taqueria is much closer for us - only about a half hour's drive. We have been several times. My wife is more impressed than I, but the food is very good. This is Mexican food for Americans - nothing wrong with that. It is just very different from Mexican food for Mexicans. Metro Atlanta has excellent places for each. Pure Taqueria is part of the Sedgwick Group, whose several restaurants are all well received. Their original - Van Gogh's - was recently redone and is now VG Bistro. After 16 years or so, Van Gogh's needed redecorating, at least. The quickest we have ever gotten a table at Pure Taqueria is 30 minutes. The wait has been as much as 75 minutes. That suggests they are doing something right.

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Pure Taqueria: if I'm going to drive that far for Mexican I'll just drive all the way to Mexico.

Zing! The OTP'ers felt that one.

Well, not really meant to be a zing, but it does speak to just how very large the Atlanta metro area is, and how that shapes our dining habits. Plenty of food for everybody.

Can you pee in the ocean?

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Pure Taqueria: if I'm going to drive that far for Mexican I'll just drive all the way to Mexico.

Zing! The OTP'ers felt that one.

Well, not really meant to be a zing, but it does speak to just how very large the Atlanta metro area is, and how that shapes our dining habits. Plenty of food for everybody.

Absolutely! I live in NE Cobb. It takes us 30 minutes to get to Alpharetta, 45 to midtown, 40 to Buford Hwy, an hour to downtown Decatur, over an hour to downtown Douglasville, an hour and fifteen minutes to East Atlanta. That colors our choices. Fortunately, each of those places is close enough occasionally - because they each have some excellent places to eat.

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Taurus: was supposed to go to work dinner there last week but managed to get out of it (not because of the food, but because of the company). Husband has been, wasn't impressed enough to take me back.

You should definitely go, because the desserts alone are well worth the trip. In spite of being a steakhouse, it's a steakhouse that's very adeptly geared toward feeding those who are dragged to a steakhouse by others who prefer that sort of restaurant. Lots of small plates available, nice space, astounding desserts in small portions for $3 apiece.

I'm not a big fan of Atlanta magazine or Lauterbach's writing, personally, as I find that my experiences at the restaurants she reviews differ greatly from hers, which can be partly explained by the fact that she is instantly recognized absolutely everywhere she goes, and she works for a magazine that doesn't mind blurring the line between editorial and advertorial just a tad more than suits my taste. Still, her writing is vastly superior to our primary reviewer in our local daily rag, as noted by therese.

Better than either of those writers, to my taste, is Besha Rodell of Creative Loafing. The Loaf is available widely throughout the city, free for the taking, and it's got a larger amount of the information on current events that I find useful, along with timely reviews of restaurants that are recently opened, plus updates on more casual spaces that have been open for longer periods of time. It hits the streets weekly on Thursday, usually by noon.

Oh, and I've been to East Pearl, but wasn't aware that it would be new enough to merit that list. It's good, but not good enough to merit the drive. Nothing like Tasty China, at any rate.

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I'm not a big fan of Atlanta magazine or Lauterbach's writing, personally, as I find that my experiences at the restaurants she reviews differ greatly from hers, which can be partly explained by the fact that she is instantly recognized absolutely everywhere she goes, and she works for a magazine that doesn't mind blurring the line between editorial and advertorial just a tad more than suits my taste. Still, her writing is vastly superior to our primary reviewer in our local daily rag, as noted by therese.

Agree with both points re Atlanta magazine. I've never seen Lauterbach in person, but would recognize her the minute she opened her mouth, as she's got a very distinctive voice and accent, and she's not infrequently on the radio. So no possibility of an anonymous review unless she pretends to be mute.

Better than either of those writers, to my taste, is Besha Rodell of Creative Loafing. The Loaf is available widely throughout the city, free for the taking, and it's got a larger amount of the information on current events that I find useful, along with timely reviews of restaurants that are recently opened, plus updates on more casual spaces that have been open for longer periods of time. It hits the streets weekly on Thursday, usually by noon.

Agree here as well. The Loaf's always had very good restaurant reviewers, IMO, and the rest of the paper's got very good stuff as well. Best source for nightlife info.

Nothing like Tasty China, at any rate.

Just had a meal that wavered between okay and not very good at Tasty China, in the company of Chinese friends, no less. They were mortified.

Can you pee in the ocean?

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Absolutely!  I live in NE Cobb.  It takes us 30 minutes to get to Alpharetta, 45 to midtown, 40 to Buford Hwy, an hour to downtown Decatur, over an hour to downtown Douglasville, an hour and fifteen minutes to East Atlanta.  That colors our choices.  Fortunately, each of those places is close enough occasionally - because they each have some excellent places to eat.

You must know when to drive! It took us over 45 minutes to drive from the Lenox Mall to midtown late Friday afternoon last week.

Unless visitors really love to spend a lot of time in their cars - I think they should narrow down their restaurant choices to ones reasonably near where they're staying (or pick hotels based on where they want to eat). Robyn

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Edible Atlanta magazine

"Establishing Edible Atlanta is a natural extension of our personal and professional mission to support, promote and celebrate local food production and consumption that contributes to the economic, social and public health of our communities," notes Amanda. "A goal with Edible Atlanta is to create a synergy among producers and consumers that will lead to systemic change in the food choices people make and in their health outcomes."

Melissa Goodman aka "Gifted Gourmet"

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Quinones: Waiting for a good reason to drop huge amounts of money. It will be fantastic.

Soooooooooooooooo worth it :biggrin:

Don't really see a need to go anywhere other than Nuevo Laredo for mexican food.

Been to Nuevo Laredo. I didn't understand what all the fuss was about. I'm sticking with Taqueria Del Sol and those delicious carnitas.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Table 1280: Shaun Doty is no longer there - he's at his own place in Inman Park, called, naturally.....Shaun's. It's good.

I would go to Cantina La Casita in East Atlanta for yummy mexican food. And it's cheap, too.

As for you OTPs out there, I would normally think that a visitor to Atlanta isn't looking to drive outside the perimeter unless the restaurant is really exceptional.

Shorty's is a pizza place on Druid Hills Road. Haven't been yet.

Patti Davis

www.anatomyofadinnerparty.com

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Table 1280:  Shaun Doty is no longer there - he's at his own place in Inman Park, called, naturally.....Shaun's.  It's good.

I would go to Cantina La Casita in East Atlanta for yummy mexican food. And it's cheap, too.

As for you OTPs out there, I would normally think that a visitor to Atlanta isn't looking to drive outside the perimeter unless the restaurant is really exceptional.

Shorty's is a pizza place on Druid Hills Road. Haven't been yet.

Shorty's is a fun little place. Pizza was not bad. I also had a peel and eat shrimp which was undercooked. Overall not bad to pop in for an informal bite to eat. I think they have or are about to open a 2nd location.

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