Atlanta’s Westside has a ton of lunch spots I’m trying to check out, and last week’s stop on my rounds was TINY Bistro. TINY is an offshoot of Figs and Honey Catering that serves mostly sandwiches and salads during lunch hours. It is located at the weird little intersection of 8th St, Marietta St, and Brady St, or across the street from my cupcake fav Caryn’s Cakes if you’ve checked it out

TINY Bistro

I’ve heard lots of good things about TINY’s Cuban sandwich (guava mojo pork loin, ham, pickles, swiss, on Cajun pistolet) and decided I was in the mood to try one out on my visit:
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Mario and I visited hip-looking burger joint The Counter last weekend in Charlotte (there is also a location in GA in Roswell). We’ve been scoping it out for a while and decided that the fact that it was packed was a good sign. Surprisingly, we were seated immediately (larger groups should expect a longer wait) and were given the run-down on the order process.

The Counter

We were given a half-page menu and order sheets on a clip board. The Counter’s order process reminded me of a sushi place where the table checks off their orders for the server. You can choose your patty protein and size (1/3 lb, 2/3 lb, or 1lb), cheese (1 incl), toppings (4 incl, with “premium” toppings like bacon or mushrooms running $0.50/each), sauce (1 incl), and bun (English muffin, regular, or honey wheat). Whew! There are also “signature” burgers, the burger of the month, and non-burger sandwiches.

Mario and I ordered a “fifty-fifty” (half regular fries, half sweet potato fries), a bacon cheeseburger + bbq sauce, and a bleu-bacon-mushroom-pickle burger + roasted garlic aioli:
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Today was my department’s holiday party at school. There was a huge spread–8 trays of fried chicken, 3 platters of ham, 3 of mac and cheese–and it included some homemade dishes too. I decided to make these stuffed portobello mushrooms (appetizer sized) and forgot to take a picture of them! So I’ve yanked the one from Giada De Laurentiis’ recipe on Foodnetwork.com:

Stuffed Mushrooms

These stuffed mushrooms are soooo good!! I’ve made them with large portobello caps once before, and they could honestly be an entree by themselves as opposed to the appetizer Giada suggests. For the holiday party, I found smaller “stuffer-sized” portobello caps, and they came out great.
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As of last week, I have sworn off cupcakes until Thanksgiving. For real. Depending upon my willpower this hiatus may even be extended through December. So for my last hurrah, I visited Vinings cupcakery Sweet Pockets.

Sweet Pockets

Sweet Pockets, like Noon Midtown, is also a product of a daily-grinder (architect) turned chef. I tried their red velvet cupcake, and Mario got one of their specials, pecan pie:
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I’m finally jumping on the Antico Pizza Napoletana bandwagon, though at this point it probably wouldn’t matter what I say since the ATL blogger community has already fallen head-over-heels for the place. With that said, 1) the pizza is as good as everyone says, and 2) I hope to approach this post from a slightly different angle–customer service. I’ve been the recipient of some bad restaurant service lately, and Antico is unfortunately on that list, but they did work quickly to rectify the situation.

Antico is located in the Home Park neighborhood near Georgia Tech. They have recently expanded their hours to include lunch and close “when the dough runs out” (my guess is somewhere around 9pm). Initially intended to be take-out only, they have also recently added a community dine-in table to allow customers to enjoy their pies on the spot. I think this was change was mainly blogger-fueled, since ATLiens are getting to be very picky about their crusts with the onset of the “ATL Pizza Wars” (Google that for some interesting commentary) and it tends to get soggy when carried home. I visited one Saturday evening to take my pizza to go since I live nearby and hoped it wouldn’t be soggy by the time I got home. I ordered the Capricciosa (mushroom, artichoke, prosciutto cotto, bufala) and a cannoli:

Capricciosa

Dessert Counter

And now for my customer service angle:
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I checked out new Midtown favorite Noon Midtown for lunch last week. Noon is run by a chef-turned-lawyer-turned-chef again who was searching for good lunch options in Midtown and decided to open her own. I don’t know much else about Noon, other than that they serve sandwiches, my favorite food, and are receiving awards for said fare.

Noon Midtown

I tried the Turkey sandwich (house-roasted turkey, fresh mozzarella, cranberry relish, basil aioli on country bread), which, according to their website has changed for fall to include bacon and a different condiment combo.
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The chilly weather last week had me craving a hearty soup, and even though it has warmed up a little, I decided to go ahead with my soup-making plans anyway. Buut, maybe I should have waited after all. My wild mushroom and oyster stew obviously requires oysters, and I could swear the entire city of Atlanta was out of my favorite mollusk last night. I like to buy pre-shucked oysters for this to save time and my fingers, and I spent 2 hours calling and visiting close to 10 grocery stores around Midtown/Downtown before I was finally charged an arm and a leg for the last container at Whole Foods. If only I lived closer to the Dekalb Farmers’ Market… Anyway. Once you actually have all the ingredients, the soup comes together pretty quickly. I made a few additions to the recipe, which I will discuss after the jump:

Wild Mushroom & Oyster Stew

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