Before I start on Restaurant Week, if you haven’t noticed, I’ve had a snazzy new icon up on my “social media bar” at the top right of this page for a few weeks. That ubiquitous “F” will take you right to First Bite’s Facebook Page. If you have noticed, then why don’t you “like” it yet?!

Now, I know I just gushed about Inman Park and their Restaurant Week 2 posts back, but now the announcement has been made for my for-real favorite Restaurant Week–Midtown!

Image via atlrestaurantweek.com

Midtown Restaurant Week will run from Sept. 4 – Sept. 12. Just like the previously mentioned restaurant week, restos participating in Midtown Restaurant Week offer 3-course $25 prix fixe menus. I’m personally pretty excited about 4th & Swift and Serpas True Food participating this year (and the latter has an overdue blog post in my queue). As an added bonus, some of the participants are also offering $15 3-course lunch menus. I won’t go through the 5-W’s this time, as the workings of a restaurant week are pretty standard, so you can check out the participating restaurants and menus here. Make those reservations soon!

Image via inmanparkrestaurantweek.com

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, I don’t typically post much ATL food-related news on this blog (mostly because there are a few others who already do a great job at it) but because I love restaurant weeks and I think Inman Park is a cool ‘hood, here’s the lowdown on Inman Park’s upcoming (next month) restaurant week. Let’s do this 5-W’s style:

Who: Fritti, Pure Taqueria, The Albert, North Highland Pub, Wisteria, Parish, Park’s Edge, Rathbun’s, Sauced, Shaun’s, Sotto Sotto, Kevin Rathbun Steak
What: 3-course prix fixe menus at $15, $25, and $35 price points
When: September 20-26, 2010
Where: Inman Park!
Why: To allow you to sample some great restaurants at a great price!!

Check their website to see menus for all of the participating restaurants: www.inmanparkrestaurantweek.com

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:
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Chick-fil-A is pretty much my favorite fast-food restaurant, so I was excited I got the chance to get an “advance” taste of their new spicy chicken sandwich, which is being debuted for real on June 7. All you had to do for a free sandwich was visit getspicychicken.com and reserve a time for May 24-June 5. A great gimmick for Chick-fil-A, I think. But on to the sandwich:

The anticipation is killing me

The Sandwich

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I love how Atlanta has hidden pockets of awesome. I felt I had discovered a new one on my first visit to The Shed at Glenwood. The Glenwood Park neighborhood is one of those live/work areas that is full of gorgeous single-family homes, condos, and neighborhood restaurants, like The Shed. Mario and I decided to check out their $3 slider night one Wednesday.

The Shed at Glenwood via Zagat.com

We thought the entrance was a little awkward, as you walk in and are basically standing in the dining room–no real host’s stand separates the room. A hostess did appear promptly, found our reservation, and led us to our table. You may or may not need a reservation though; while we were there, the dining room remained full, but not crowded. Our waiter brought over an interesting starter for us to share: popcorn! We also got an amuse of parmesean-stuffed dates and an olive:
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I was back in Charlotte last weekend and Mario and I got a chance to meet up with some of my high school buddies that are new to the area. I’ve been debating on whether or not to do some name-dropping in this post, but I think I’m gonna go ahead and drop away One of my besties just moved to Charlotte to be with her longtime boyfriend and my old friend, recently acquired Bobcats player Tyrus Thomas. They requested a soul/Southern food spot, and after some debate, Mario and I decided to meet them at Boudreaux’s Louisiana Kitchen in NoDa. Obviously Boudreaux’s is not the name of this post, and that’s because I didn’t feel motivated to write a full post after our disappointing meal. The crawfish and spinach dip appetizer was the highlight. I had an oyster po’boy that was unseasoned and borderline gross. There was one interesting point on the menu–their selection of hurricanes. We couldn’t decide whether it was in poor taste or kind of funny/clever that they named their different hurricane concoctions after actual hurricanes. The Hurricane Katrina was made up of spirits from locations that followed the course of the hurricane. Hmm…

Anyway, toward the end of the meal, my friends asked if we had heard of Amelie’s French Bakery, also in the NoDa area. When we said no, they both insited we go right away. Tyrus, usually a pretty goofy guy, got extremely serious when he started to describe a fruit tart they serve. “Jessica. Ok they have this graham cracker crust. And then this custard that is really, really good. Then on top are these perfectly sliced strawberries and berries and stuff, gracefully arranged and topped with this apple jam….ok we have to go right now.” And so we did:

Amelie's French Bakery

I’ve been a little MIA lately because the end of the semester is always a little hectic. I have a big paper deadline looming so the blog has been neglected I’m actually scribbling this entry via the old pen and paper during a sleep-inducing class to be transcribed to the ‘net later on:

Class notes and a distraction

But I digress.

If you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen a few Friday morning tweets related to “girls’ breakfasts.” I’ve been working my way around some ATL breakfast spots with a few lovely ladies from my Ph.D. program. Many of the restaurants thus far are places I’ve visited before–West Egg, Highland Bakery, Sublime Doughnuts. However, last week I was excited to stop in ATL mainstay Ria’s Bluebird for the first time.

Ria’s is located on Memorial Dr. across from the Oakland Cemetery (one side of it anyway–that thing is huge). It basically looks like a 70s truck stop diner, with only ~5 tables and an eat-in counter inside. I can see why the weekend waits are supposedly out of this world. However, since the weather is warming up, my companions and I opted to eat on the enclosed patio, which we found a little dark, but enjoyable. We were all struggling to decide what to order, but when our waitress mentioned “Today’s Omelette”–pesto and brie–3/4 of us dropped all other considerations and ordered it. Our 4th, a vegan, went with the Southwest Tofu Scramble (spicy tofu cubes, sliced tomato, broccoli, black beans & red onions, topped with cilantro pesto):
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I’ve been searching for a “user-friendly” place to get my feet with with Vietnamese food because I feel like I’m missing out on so much of Atlanta’s food options. Though it’s actually in Charlotte, Vietnam Grille, was just the place I needed for an introduction. Charlotte bloggers and Yelpers were singing its praises, so Mario and I decided to check it out one gorgeous weekend in the Queen City.

Our server was super friendly and apparently recognized the slightly perplexed looks on our faces, as he asked if it was our first time eating Vietnamese and gave some suggestions. I decided to try the phở with flank steak and brisket, and Mario got the broken rice (which I believe was Cơm tấm, but correct me if I’m wrong) with chicken:

Phở

Cơm tấm

Our dishes came out literally within 5 minutes and we dug in.
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This is a belated note on a food find from my Mardi Gras trip. I wasn’t going to post on these at all, but after prodding from my brother and another blogger, I’ve decided to grace you all with these meat pies from Brother’s Food Mart:

Brothers' Meat Pies

These were bought from a gas station (though Brother’s has a French Quarter location that is just a food mart) and consumed at 2am, so I think I was justifiably hesitant to try these. But my brother insisted I couldn’t NOT eat one, and so there I was, holding a grease-stained bag and warm dough pocket filled with mystery meat.

They. Were. DELICIOUS. The meat pies consisted of a spicy (almost nose-running spicy) filling encased in a flaky but still substantial crust. I’ve since done some research on just what, exactly, is in a meat pie, and where they come from in the first place:
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On my Mardi Gras trip, I decided to look for something a little different to try in NOLA. There are of course many places I haven’t visited, but Juan’s Flying Burrito was an intriguing (and cheap) option. We stopped by the “Creole Taqueria’s” location on Magazine St. in the Garden District for lunch.

Juan's Flying Burrito: Creole Taqueria

We were seated promptly and had a while (too long, unfortunately) to look around before our server stopped by. The interior is “interesting” (Vortex-like, for ATLiens) with a ton of eclectic art-for-sale lining the walls, much of it featuring skulls or bleeding hearts. Food and drink specials are written on chalkboards around the room, and like any legit New Orleans eatery, they sport a full bar.

Spencer and I deliberated over the menu for about 5 minutes, and then waited another 15 before our waitress came to take our orders. When she returned 10 minutes later asking Spencer, “Oh, your drink hasn’t come out?” we gave each other blank stares because…isn’t that HER job (especially because she had brought my drink 5 minutes earlier)? Sketchy service aside, our food [me: Flying Enchiladas (steak, chicken, and shrimp grilled together, then stuffed inside our cheese enchiladas served with all three sauces, topped with sour cream and guacamole) Spencer: Super Nachos Grande (ground beef and chicken, with black and pinto beans, melted cheese, guacamole, sour cream, salsa and jalapenos)] was good:
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