Although it hasn’t been THAT long since my last post, I feel as though I may be falling into a summer slump. Atlanta heat lends itself more to blending up smoothies and lounging than pecking away on a laptop, but I’m working to integrate the two to keep the posts flowing On my new fiancé’s (yep, I’m engaged!!) last short stint in Atlanta, we decided to check out Lunacy Black Market for lunch. I’ve been hearing good things about the place, and especially about the price, so we wound our way through downtown to find the storefront on a fairly quiet street off MLK. When we walked into the restaurant, Mario actually looked around and turned to walk out. “Is this the right place? It looks like a furniture store.” And indeed it does, with random collections of tables and chairs, couches, and bookshelves set up around the room.

Lunacy Interior

We quickly scanned the short menu and decided to order a few of the tapas-style dishes (which makes sense when you know that the chef/owner Paul Luna also runs founded Eclipse di Luna and Loca Luna). I was a little disappointed that they no longer have the slider-sized sandwiches on the menu that I’d heard about since their opening, but what we had to choose from was still a good selection. We probably could even have ordered the whole menu to sample–everything was under $4. You read that right, FOUR DOLLARS. To start, I decided to try the cabbage salad I’d read good things about on Eat it, Atlanta‘s blog:

Cabbage Salad

I thought the salad was decent, but nothing to write home about. However, it probably doesn’t help that I’m not a huge fan of cabbage. Next, we had a plate of the fresh mozzarella, which came with tomatoes, mushrooms, and a balsamic drizzle; sauteed shrimp (no pic); and short ribs:

Fresh Mozzarella

Short Ribs

The fresh mozz was really tasty and refreshing. The short ribs and shrimp were fan.tas.tic. Both came in small bowls with a pool of flavorful cooking liquid underneath, which both Mario and I ended up sopping up with bread. At one point during our conversation, I took a particularly well-seasoned bite of short rib and just had to close my eyes and pause the conversation for about 10 seconds. Mmmm. On top of that, they were quite literally fall-off-the-bone tender. Mario’s shrimp were apparently so good that he could only spare me one bite before chowing down on the rest. No harm done though, I was pretty loathe to share my short ribs as well.

Lunacy Black Market is an awesome lunch spot that is well worth every one of the [very few] pennies they charge. They do also have dinner hours, but are only open Wed-Sun (this goes for both lunch and dinner, dinner only on Saturday). Chef Luna seems intent on integrating the restaurant with the surrounding area and hosts a number of weekly events to cater to neighborhood residents, including “Weekend Wine Downs” on Sundays and “Mozzarella Mondays” where attendees can learn to make their own cheese.

www.lunacyblackmarket.com